Flip Ultra F260B-UK Digital Camcorder Review
F260B-UK – Ultra Series Digital Video Camcorder from Flip
Overview:
Pros:
Simplicity in design
Compactness in size
No complicated settings, lighting options and menus
Reasonable video quality
Good performance in low light areas
The convenient USB flip out
Easy sharing of videos
Cost
Cons:
Simplicity to its extreme
Frame rate
Complete review:
The Flip Ultra F260B-UK is just a basic camcorder but the Flip has captured the imaginations of millions. This is going to be a revolution in the world of consumer technology. We are not talking about the launch of the next generation iPhone, but rather the imminent arrival of an inexpensive camcorder that could do for movie making what digital cameras did for photography.
The Flip was a phenomenon in US, selling more than a million in the first year and commanding an incredible thirteen percent share of the camcorder market.
Most of the people have terrible experiences with their camcorders. Spending a lot over it, they are used only occasionally and rest of the time, it rests. Flip eliminates this, and enables making video fun and easy. Just one press of the red button starts recording your favourite memories and a second press stops the recording and you’re ready to view your memories.
Sleek, Compact design:
By far, the biggest strength of Flip F260B-UK video ultra series camcorder is the simplicity in its design. It looks much similar to Creative’s Vado. The height and width being same as that of the Vado, the depth is its twice. Though the Flip Mino,(available in US) has the same dimensions of that of Vado. The device is lightweight and easily fits inside your pockets or handbags. It seems to be sleeker than its previous version. Being just a size of a digital camera, it features just a handful of buttons and is ready for capturing your precious moments in less than three seconds. It has no complicated settings to learn or menus to navigate. The Flip comes in five stylish colours and is commonly called along with its colours as: Flip White, Flip Black, Flip Orange, Flip Pink and Flip Green.
The display:
Flip Ultra F260B-UK Mini Camcorder features an 1.5″ transflective premium no-glare LCD screen. This allows clear viewing even in bright sunlight. This mini video camcorder takes pictures in 640×480 pixels which seems to be much lower than the hi-def pictures taken using the expensive cameras. But the pictures taken using F260B would look crisp and clear on your PC screen.
Sensor and Zoom:
The device uses a ¼” CMOS Sensor which is reasonably large for such a low-end camcorder. Pure Digital does not state the number of pixels this CMOS sensor has, but each pixel is apparently 5.6?m across.It has the modest 2X digital zoom, smoothly panning in and out of the shots.
Internal memory and video capabilities:
Its 2GB flash drive is capable of storing sixty minutes of video 30-frame per second full VGA-quality MPEG-4 video. The fps rate is very good if the video is just to be uploaded in You Tube, but it will not be sufficient if the video is to be burnt on a PAL DVD, as it will be running in 25 frames per second and hence quality reducing interpolation will be required. The data rate is, 4.5Mbits/sec, enough for 60 minutes of video in 2GB, but the absence of any slots of adding any extra cards is certainly a big disadvantage. It is compatible with Windows XP SP2 and Vista; Macintosh OS X 10.3.9 or later.
Too blank:
You will not be having any tapes or memory cards to fiddle with. With no complicated settings, special effects or lighting options to worry about, all that you need to do is point and start shooting. Though Flip Ultra F260B-UK tapeless camcorder is more about sharing and not features, nothing seems to be quiet an extreme. Though it uses a digital zoom, the reduction in quality is obvious, hence being entirely focused on point, shoot and share.
Video and picture quality:
With this simplicity, we can see that you are worried about the quality of the video. Do not be surprised when you find out that it strongly competes with more expensive and established rivals like Sony, Panasonic, and Canon.
The Flip Ultra mini camcorder performs surprisingly well in the low light areas.The image quality softens and becomes grainy, but the colour and brightness are maintained. However, in bright light, areas of bright colour blow out , and with the usage of fixed-focus lens, the image is not always sharp. Nevertheless, the quality is still better than any camera phone and some digital still cameras.
The flip-out USB:
Though all these might seem to be known already in few of the other budget camcorders, there is one feature that the Flip managed to cleverly stand apart from others. You would realise that when you plug the flip in to your PC. The Flip gets its name from the way its built-in UBS flips out from the unit.
Initially you would not have to worry about losing your USB cable as the USB stick pops out from the side of the camcorder, that allows you to plug into your computer. It is that easy. And secondly, you need not worry about installing any software as it is already stored in the camera and it starts automatically when you connect it to your PC. The intelligent Ultra flip identifies on its own if you are using Microsoft of Mac and instantly encodes the files in the correct format for editing.
Simple and interesting editing features included:
Some of the editing capabilities are described below. The clip’s in and out points can be changed before the video is being uploaded. A version of the Muvee automatic editing software is also included which mixes your video based on the chosen template. The template options include No Style, Nostalgic, and Kaleidoscopic, Playdate, Classic, and Journal. The software also cuts the video clips and edits them to tracks from the chosen file or a separate file, the musical background can be completely omitted too. The resulting video will be saved in the library for sharing via any of the methods to be mentioned.
Uploading:
Then it activates a program that allows you to swiftly and easily edit your clips, set them to a playback track , upload them to YouTube, AOL, myspacetv.com or any other video sharing websites in a single click. Facebook, being increasingly popular in UK is omitted. You can also embed your video in to an email greeting card. While uploading to a website, all you have to do is, fill in your user ID and password, and state whether the video is going to be private or public. Adding additional information and tagging can be done by logging in to the website directly.
e-mail you clip:
Pure Digital also provides you with the facility to email the video. The working principle being that, the camcorder uploads the video to www.theflip.com and sends out the link to the recipient. This feature does not use your built-in email client, and hence, it can be performed from any computer. The email greeting uses a similar system, but the video is embedded in a GTD (Graphical Template Design).
Just drag and drop:
We saw certain websites stating that you need to have Quick Time Pro to use this with iMovie 7 but that is not the case. You can simply drag and drop the .avi files off the camera, rather than drag&drop into iMovie, you use the import function from the menu bar.
Battery:
Instead of using a rechargeable battery, the Flip Ultra F260B-UK Digital Camcorder will be using two AA batteries which would last for a couple of hours and hence you are not tied to a PC for power, which being one of the reasons why F260B is being ultra portable.
Box contents and additional accessories:
Flip Video Ultra F260B-UK Mini Video Camcorder comes with a TV connector cable, 2 AA batteries, wrist strap, soft carrying case, warranty and safety information and an information booklet. If you want to add some style and fun to your Flip Ultra Mini Camcorder, some accessories can be added, such as, soft pouch, USB cables, Action Mount, Tripod and an Underwater Case.
Some final words:
Jonathan Kaplan, the chief executive of Pure Digital, the company behind the Flip says that “ The Flip Ultra is idiot-proof, and that is what it makes the device special”. Yes! We too agree. With such ease of use, everybody in the family will be using it everywhere, home, office, beach, parties, holidays… and guess what? Even underwater.
Pure Digital technologies have bought together the simple Pocket Sized Video Camcorder capture and share all of your everyday magic moments with a simple one button control in a very affordable cost.
So coming to our verdict, well, we are yet to see a camcorder that can match the flip not only for its sheer ease of use, but the effortlessness in managing it. The Flip F260 video first rocked the markets of US and now, rocking the markets of the hard to satisfy markets of UK. It certainly is not overly priced. So the Flip Video Ultra, with its range of fun accessories, is the device most likely to be the video sharer’s camcorder of choice. Flip Ultra F260B-UK Digital Camcorder is certainly recommended.
Flip F260B-UK Mini Camcorder – Technical Specifications, Features
| Manufacturer | Pure Digital |
| Model Name | Flip Ultra F260B-UK |
| Camcorder Type | Digital mini video camcorder |
| Dimensions (H x W x D) | 4.17 x 2.16 x 1.25 inches |
| Screen type | Transflective premium no-glare LCD |
| Screen size | 1.5 inches (diagonal) |
| Resolution | 640 x 480 pixel |
| Sensor | 1/4-inch VGA CMOS sensor large (5.6 µm) pixels |
| Low-light sensitivity | (>2.0V/lux-sec)- very high |
| Video compression | Pure Digital Video Engine 2.0 |
| Frame rate | 30 frames per second |
| Video bitrate | 4.5Mbps |
| Video format | Advanced Profile MPEG4 AVI |
| Auto White Balance and Auto-exposure | Auto-adaptive white/black balance and exposure |
| Lens type | Fixed focus (0.8 meters to infinity) |
| Aperture | f2.4 |
| Zoom | Smooth multi-step 2x digital |
| Interface | 8 basic buttons |
| Clip length | Max: 60 mins Min: 1 second |
| Auto shut-down | Yes |
| Set date/time function | Yes |
| PC connection | Built-in flip-out USB2.0 |
| Speaker | Built-in speaker |
| Microphone | Built-in wide range microphone |
| TV out | PAL |
| DVD processing | Pure Digital DVD processing |
| Battery type | 2 x AA batteries |
| Supported OS | Windows XP Windows Vista Mac OSX |
| Box contents | TV connector cable 2 AA batteries wrist strap soft carrying case warranty and safety information Quick start guide |
| Additional accessories | Soft pouch USB cables Action Mount Tripod Underwater Case |
Leave a Reply