Product Review: NHL Flip camera

Flip unveiled a new product line recently that features the logo of your favorite NHL team on the front. Flip sent me a free MinoHD with the Red Wings logo on it to take a test run with it and see what I thought.

Many of you are probably familiar with the now popular line of Flip cameras but Flip's now introduced the customization aspect to the front of the camera. With all of their products out there (MinoHD, UltraHD, SlideHD.) you can get the NHL team theme on it, not only on the model I was sent. Head over to www.theflip.com to see the cameras, designs available, and more information on it.

I've used cameras frequently while shooting projects for school or using them to broadcast my school's club hockey team's games online. While I wouldn't consider myself an expert with video equipment, I would say that I have quite a bit of experience with it.

After the jump there's the rest of the review as well as a sample video.

The particular model I got has a 4-gigabyte built-in hard drive and can hold up to two hours of footage. The quality of the camera is pretty incredible as it shoots in 720p and has a very sharp image in widescreen format.

The microphone on it is pretty good but might be a little too good as it picks up a lot of stuff you'd hope would be drowned out. Then again, you're probably not going to be trying to shoot a Hollywood blockbuster with this so the microphone will be good.

Unfortunately, I don't have any awesome Red Wings stuff that I can attend get any relevant footage so...here's my dog wandering around the backyard in the snow.

The team theme itself is pretty cool. You can see it looks like a Red Wings jersey with the V-collar and NHL crest and the team logo is below it. The image isn't a decal so you don't have to worry about it losing some of its stickiness and eventually falling off. It's painted on and looks pretty durable in the time I've had it-which is good considering most people will carry it around in their pocket with change, keys, etc. loose in there.

Of course, my favorite feature of the Flip is the namesake for the product, the flip-out USB drive. One of my least favorite things about working with video equipment is the never-ending struggle to make sure you have the right cables for the right camera for the right computer port, etc. When you do a lot of different camera work, it can get pretty complicated and frustrating if you're in a hurry. I love the ability to just plug it into my computer, transfer it and upload it.

For about $179, it's a pretty awesome camera and the fact that you can put the Winged Wheel on it is even better. You can bet that I'm taking this to H2H2 and shooting some footage to share with you all and help document the awesomeness of the event.