Flip Ultra HD

The basics

Over the past few years Flip have really established themselves as strong players in the casual videography market. With the launch of this latest Flip Ultra HD, they have tweaked and teased the camera into a slicker, faster and more feature rich video tool. Packing a 720p camera into something smaller than a lot of phones, Flip have redefined moviemaking for the Youtube Generation.

The good

The Flip Ultra HD is a great all round video camera. It performs fantastically on a bright sunny day, capturing details well and with its stellar 50 frames per second – panning was smooth and focused.

As this is a candy bar shaped device, it is prone to a lot of shake that normal video cameras don’t suffer from, however the image stabilisation works really well and only at high zoom do you notice a significant wobble.

The size of the Ultra HD has got to be its biggest selling point – it’s a tiny device that fits in most pockets. Connection to PC or Mac is also a breeze and the included software is fantastic.

The bad

One of the biggest differentiators between the Flip and other pricier cameras is the lens – While the Ultra HD performs fantastically in bright daylight, ambient lighting causes a few issues – video comes out a little noisy and colours are dim and yellowed. Also, as the zoom is digital only – images lose quality the further in you go.

The bottom line

The Flip Ultra HD is a decent pocket-friendly camcorder. With high frame rates and good quality image stabilisation it’s definitely the best Flip we have seen so far. If you intend on doing most of your filming outdoors then this is a great choice.