Folks, it’s not every day I get to try out a camera that’s quite so flimsy and cheap as the Flip Video Mino HD.  Of course, when I say “cheap” I refer to my perception of its construction, not to its price, which is actually pretty expensive.  But for now, let’s take a look at this unpleasant little device.

The Flip Video Mino HD holds an hour of HD video on its four gigs of internal memory, plus it has a swing out arm ending in a USB connector to make for fast uploads to your PC.  It has one touch recording capability and a digital zoom feature.

And sure, it sounds great on the surface, but this flimsy little five-button nightmare felt like it was going to fall apart in my hands.  And a grand total of maybe five buttons sounds great until you’re trying to figure out how everything works.  Then it’s just kind of a hassle.  But only kind of–the learning curve’s not that steep.  And the LCD screen included is unusually tiny for a camcorder like this.

Worst off is the price.  This little thing with its five buttons and tiny LCD screen will set you back about two hundred bucks.  Considering the sheer number of camcorders I’ve written up here that do twice what this does for half the money, there’s no way I could ever recommend it.

So I won’t.