My nine year old daughter loves recording videos of her toys and dogs. She wanted a video camera for Christmas and we ended up getting her the Flip Video UltraHD. She was thrilled and immediately started using it. Unfortunately it didn't come with a fully charged battery, so the fun was cut short.

No need for Batteries

Charging it is very simple though. It has an internal, rechargeable battery. By simply using the USB that pops out of the side of the Flip, you just plug it into the computer and it charges in 3 hours. You can also buy a wall charger and I think I read that the wall charger charges in two hours. I think that will be our next purchase. Luckily the USB port is on the side of my laptop, so it fits easily. If your USB is in the back of your computer it might not fit so easily. They also sell a short cord to connect one end to the computer and the other end to the Flip. We don't need this now and it is sold separately, so I'm glad we don't need it.

Using the Flip Video
So, once the Flip is charged it is all ready to be used. It has a simple red button for recording. It can record for one hour. This can be one, one hour video, or several, short videos that equal one hour. There isn't a pause button, so the red button is for record and stop only. Although during editing (which I'll talk about later, you can put two short videos into one longer movie)

There are also 4 other button that light up and are touch sensitive. Two buttons will zoom in and out. The other two are for watching the videos there is another button to scroll through the videos that were recorded.

Editing Software pre loaded on the Flip
The Flip comes with software that you can install on the computer when you plug in the Flip to the computer. When you plug in the Flip to the computer you will have many different files. I assumed the software would instantly pop up, but on my computer it didn't. I had to open a few different files before I realized which one was the software. You need to install the software onto your computer to edit your videos. If you don't install the videos you can watch the videos through Quick time.

This Flip software allows you to edit the videos and combine two or more into one video. You can also email a video to someone. Another neat thing is that you can find one frame in the video and take a snapshot of that.

Many options to view the video

The Flip videos can be viewed directly on the camera itself

If you plug the Flip into the computer you can watch the videos through Quick time without installing the software

You can install the Flip Software and edit the videos

The Flip also came with a cable to plug into the TV. This is really neat because you can watch the videos on the full size of your TV. I guess you could also record them onto a tape or DVD this way, although we did not do this.
The Flip also came with a soft bag, but we purchased a hard case for added protection. We had a hard time finding a case made just for the Flip (not sure if they make it yet), so we found a camera case that was a good fit.

The picture quality is very good and it picks up sound nicely. I am very happy with this item and although it is my daughters, I'm sure I'll be using it some as well.
I think this is a great thing to carry around. It is small enough to carry in your purse and you never know when you'll want to record a special event.