Flip answers traveling needs

I always mean to take video with our camcorder. We have a nice JVC with a 20GB hard drive (kind of like these) that we’ve struggled to fill up. When we plan to use it—for specific events like kids’ birthday parties and family get-togethers—it works great. Good video and sound capture, fairly long battery life, and simple handling. But it requires advanced planning. We have to remember to charge it, and then we have to remember the cables to connect it to the computer to download video.

So when we went on a recent family trip to Hawaii, we were planning to bring it along, cords, charger, and all. With airline baggage weight limits these days, I was willing to sacrifice a couple pairs of shoes to capture video of our toddler’s first trip to a beach. Then a friend offered to lend us her Flip Ultra camcorder for the trip. Just a little larger than a digital camera, the Flip runs on two AA batteries and records up to 60 minutes of video. This is a traveler’s dream.

The video quality is fine (for $150, I’m not expecting HD), but what really blew me away was the audio. The microphone was sensitive enough to pick up my son’s voice from 20 feet away with people between us and dolphins splashing below. I also loved that it was ready to record in just a couple of seconds, so if something fun was happening we didn’t miss half of it waiting for the system to turn on. That’s an issue we struggle with when we use our digital camera, not so much the JVC camcorder.

After we filled up the memory, transferring files to our computer was super-simple. The Flip comes with a built-in USB arm to plug the camera directly into a USB port—no cables required. Software automatically loads onto your computer, download is a single button-click, and your videos are transferred in just a couple of minutes. And it’s equally compatible with Mac and PC. If you’re into YouTube, it will publish your video files directly to the site.

I’m sold on the Flip for traveling and for those everyday moments when I think, “I wish I had the camcorder for this.” It’s easy to carry and easy to operate, and no recharging is required (except for the rechargeable AA batteries I plan to use).

I still prefer the higher quality, better zoom, and more official feel of the JVC for “special” events, but the Flip will be joining our stable of memory-capturing devices for more spontaneous moments and travel.