The world of digital camcorders is speeding along at the same pace as the computer industry, gathering more and more amazing features in ever smaller packages. Take for instance the new pocket video cameras that have been developed recently. At this moment, it is primarily a competition between just two products: the new Kodak Zi8 and the Flip Mino camcorders.
Both products have been carefully designed to capture the growing market of easy to use and extremely portable camcorders with built in capabilities that make sharing the videos on the computer and loading them up to the popular social networking sites extremely easy. Let's do a quick digital video camera review of these two products.
Flip and Kodak are both justifiably proud of their respective product lines, and make it easy to find lots of information online. Of course, one of the most important features to everyone is the price, and you will find that they at exactly the same price point, $179.99. So far a tie.
One important difference between these two is that the Kodak Zi8, like most digital video cameras, has an extremely small amount of internal memory (only 128 MB). The Flip has a much larger capacity of 2 GB, 16 times as much. Score 1 for the Flip.
However, and this is huge, both literally and figuratively, the Kodak relies on the use of SD/SDHC memory cards to expand it's storage capabilities. The Flip Mino leaves you no room for expansion. The Kodak digital video camera can handle up to a 32 GB card for those who want to go all out. What does that mean? Up to 10 HOURS of video recording! Score a big plus for Kodak.
One of the things that is similar between the two is they both share a very handy built in USB swing-out arm, so you don't need camera specific USB cables. You can just swing out the arm and plug it directly into your computer and start sharing. Down with cable clutter! A tie.
Both come with video and picture editing software, but only the Zi8 has HD capable video recording, and a HDMI output on the camera itself to hook it up directly to your HDTV for instant viewing. A Kodak win.
But from here on, it really isn't much of a competition. The Flip Mino, and even it's big brother the MinoHD (which costs significantly more) can't hold a candle to the value and the quality of the Kodak Zi8. For the same price, you get a vastly larger viewscreen, built in image stablization, full blown 1080 pixel HD video, and the security that comes with the Kodak brand.
Final result: the race between these two models is not remotely close today — the Zi8 pocket digital video camera is superior. Of course, don't expect Flip to sit idle.
Click Pocket Camcorder & Digital Pocket Video Camera.Copyright 2009 Ron King.
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Vincent Chang