I recently went on holiday to Australia with my partner, I went over there for almost a month to see my sister get married and see my 2 nieces. I wanted to get something to take along a record my time with my nieces over and above that of my standard compact digital camera. I tend to do allot of physical activities on holiday and I needed something cheap (so that if it broke I wouldnt be bothered), fairly robust and can be used quick and easily. My parents saw the flip advertised on QVC and suggested I use that.

Dont blame me:
Now a caveat, im not saying that this camera is suitable for everyone, I understood that I would be using this as a one time only thing and I didnt need to have anything fancy. So this may not be for everyone.

In summary- This Camera is great for those people that do not want anything to complicated, too fiddly and do not necessarily care about effects or great amounts of zoom. The trade off for the simplicity and ease of use of this camera is the fact that the picture quality is OK, other more expensive cameras will have better quality, and the most telling factor is that the zoom is pretty lame. It only goes to x4. But on the other side the price is pretty cheap too at £120 on Amazon, but I reakon on QVC you can get it for as much as £90, so keep you eyes peeled.

The cost:
For £90-£120 quid, you get 2 hrs and 8Mb of memory, fairly good visuals , but no effects whatsoever. The sound is quite good, you will be able to pick up most things. But im sure if you get a Sony or Panasonic camcorder it will be much better...you will pay the price though.

The good things:
The advantage here is that the case is rebust, its so easy to use with a simple 4 way cursor, no digital menus, everything is very manual and quick. You have a recorder start stop button in the middle, a big red button, the usb adaptor is inbuilt to the side and flips up with a spring loaded action, so you cant lose the lead. Its easy to zoom, you just press + or - on the cursor. There is also a lock/unlock button to get to the battery pack, which has rechargeble AA batteries included in a central battery unit.

The problems:
My critisisms are that the zoom is pretty weak, you will not get much detail and I really felt this when filming the fireworks at Sydney Harbour. But the colours and sound was very good and the music being played over the tannoy came out rather well, the bass wasnt blurby as you sometimes get.

My only other critisism is that the battery pack doesnt last as long as the memory. I`d say depending on how you use it the battery will only last an hour, so you will have to charge it before the memory runs out. When we were away we had no laptop so had to use my sisters laptop, If you dont have this capability then it could be a problem. You might be able tosolve this problem by getting better rechargeble batteries and putting them into ther battery pack. However, I havent been able to try this yet.

So Id honestly say get this camera if you hate the way modern technology seems to make life harder then it needs to be, but you want to film stuff. If you want better then average quality and are willing to pay the price for that, then you might want to get another camcorder. But as this camera is marketed on its simplicity, it certainly cannot be blamed for misrepresentation.