As you may know, we're huge fans of the diminutive Flip pocket-cameras here at RandomlyAccessed, and when the company announced that they were updating the MinoHD with a larger screen and more storage, we jumped at the chance to test it.

Question is; was it worth our excitement?

The MinoHD captures video in 720p resolution, which, whilst isn't 1080p, certainly produces crisper and more detailed images than the standard definition Mino that has been something of a stalwart in my rucksack for day-to-day usage.

We'll come back to the image quality in a bit after discussing the hardware. The device is finished with a black glossy plastic casing on the front, with the Mino capacitive control buttons (as well as the ubiquitous "big red shoot" button), with the added quality of what feels like aluminium on the back, giving a cool, smooth finish which is also extended to the slimmed-down flip-out USB port which gives the company its name.



The power button is located on the right side, and whilst it wont be easy to accidently switch on, was initially misinterpreted as an infra red port. On the base there is the tripod screw hole as well as a mini HDMI port as well.

Software-wise, the MinoHD comes packing with the FlipShare software on the device, so it can be loaded straight onto a PC or Mac without the fuss of a CD and allows you to upload clips straight to sites like YouTube and MySpace as well as via email and for local storage.
The menus on the device are as simple as ever, with only one press of that big red button need to start shooting once it''s loaded (well under 2 seconds by our reckoning).

Once you've taken up to 120 minutes of footage on the 8GB of on-board and viewed it back on the nice 2" 16:9 screen, you can flip the USB port out, plug it into your computer and see the videos in full size.



Clips look nice, which is about as much as you'd expect from a device of this size, and whilst are nothing spectacular, they certainly scale well enough to be shown on a large TV (with some slight issues with motion blur on fast-action shots, although it seems to be better than the previous Flip iterations). Low-light works OK but can look washed out, with its artificial light performance being better than expected.
The digital zoom (no optical here I'm afraid) is actually pretty good, and doesn't lose too much image clarity as it goes in, and the sound quality offered by the in-built microphone being good (although it does pick up a fair amount of background noise).

Can we recommend it? Not as easily as before, with the Kodak Zi8 coming down in price all of the time, and the Flip Ultra HD offering slightly better results, it really comes down to the aesthetics and feel of the device. The Mino HD produces credible video in a really nice form factor, one which feels much more at home in my pocket and thus more likely to be around when a shot is required.



If you're looking to drop the full-form videocamera for a pocket unit, this may not be the one for you, but if you're looking for a unashamed flip-it-and-film-it device and don't mind spending towards the top of the pocket-cam price tree, then the Mino HD (2nd gen) does well.