Flip Mino Review

When looking shopping around for an inexpensive, portable video camera, there are currently two main choices. The Flip Mino and the Creative Vado. Both are great little devices that do the job they are intended to do. Both are actually quite similar in a lot of ways, but there are also some significant differences between the two. Lets take a look at both and see how they stack up.

The first thing people will notice about the two, is the difference in price. At the time of this writing, the Creative Vado retails on Amazon for $84 while the Flip Mino (White) version can be had for $146. That’s quite a major difference in price, although $150 for a video camera is nothing to sneeze at. Both devices are very portable, but the Vado is slightly wider than the Mino. This allows it to have a 2 inch LCD screen compared to 1.5 in screen of the Mino. When viewing your videos on the device, the bigger screen is nice to have.

Judging video quality is pretty subjective, but I found the Flip Mino’s video quality to be better. On the Vado, I sometimes found my clips to be somewhat pixellated and dark when I shot video in unlit areas. On my Mino, I had no problems shooting in various lighting conditions. I also liked the sound quality better on my Mino. When I tested the two devices from the same distance, the Vado’s mic seemed to record sound at a lower volume when compared with the Mino.

Both devices make it easy to to upload clips directly to YouTube. The Vado supports YouTube and PhotoBucket, while the Mino supports YouTube, MySpace and AOL video. One big drawback for me personally was the the Vado’s software does not work on a Mac. Some people I know have complained about the stiff flip out USB connector of the Mino, which makes it hard to connect to when you have a lot of other usb devices hooked up to your computer. It’s not a big deal for me personally, but some might like the Vado’s more flexible connector.

For the budget conscious shopper, you can’t go wrong with the Vado. It’s much cheaper than the Mino and it is quite the cool gadget. However, for those who can afford to spend a little more on the Mino, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed either.