And we end out the week on a low note–we’re going to check out a Flip Video camcorder, specifically, the Flip Video S1240W, a camcorder that proves once again that the pistol grip camcorders on average just can’t hold their own against the slightly larger and better priced full camcorders.  Several models of full camcorder, anyway–not every model.

The Flip Video S1240W offers sixteen gigs of onboard storage, a three inch touch screen, a flip-out USB arm, included editing software that’ll also let you upload videos easily to YouTube and AOL Video, among others, a mini HDMI input to display your video on a television, a set of plug-in headphones, shooting in 720p format, and low-light shooting capability.

You can see just from the spec sheet that this doesn’t even begin to compete with a lot of camcorder models that have significantly more onboard memory, longer-ranged zoom (this one doesn’t even seem to clear the fifty foot mark), and better shooting capacity. I’ll concede that this is a lot more portable, and it’s definitely better than many pistol grip cameras I’ve seen, but still, this is pretty low end compared to your standard camcorder.

And I can’t begin to imagine where Best Buy got sufficient stones to ask two hundred and sixty six bucks for one of these, and to add insult to injury, that’s a sale price.

Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t consider the portability of camcorders like that of the Flip Video S1240W to be worth the comparative loss of features. So in the end, I wouldn’t recommend picking one up.

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5. Flip Video Ultra Underwater Case