Flip Slide HD

The basics

Flip has added to its range of popular pocket-sized camcorders with the innovative Slide HD. After you’ve finished filming you can watch footage on a 3in touchscreen TFT, which slides out from the body of the camcorder. This presents an improved way to review clips.

The Slide HD has up to four hours of recording time because of its 16GB internal memory. The maximum resolution of clips is 1280x720 (30fps).
Mac- and PC-compatible, the Slide HD has a built-in USB arm for computer connection and features pre-loaded software to help with video uploads to the net.

The good

The 3in touchscreen is a great way to review clips, especially if there’s more than one person around the screen wanting to watch. The built-in memory means there’s no messing about with SD cards, and it focuses attention on not keeping all your clips on the camcorder all of the time. The pre-loaded software and built-in USB arm add a dash of simplicity, while an HDMI output means you can watch your movies on your big home TV.

The bad

The 2x digital zoom still suffers in comparison with rival camcorders from JVC and Sanyo, and while the resolution is high-def, it’s not the Full HD of 1920x1080 but the slightly less detailed 1280x720. The addition of the 3in screen makes for a marginally chunkier profile, too. You can’t shoot stills either.

The bottom line

While the SlideHD is easy to use, and offers one-touch recording, it’s very bulky for a pocket-sized model. The 2x zoom isn’t smooth or long enough and we’d expect a pocket-cam to be more versatile and offer photo recording.