Buy Flip UltraHD Camcorder, 120 Minutes (Black)

I read a lot about the Flip Mino and almost took the plunge, and finally did with the Ultra HD. It sounded great, and like several other recent reviewers, I really wanted to like it. I finally do, but it's taken a good 10 days, and with little help from Flip support.

Right out of the box, my Ultra HD had what I'm starting to think of as the "usual" charging problems that others describe -- the "charging paused, check battery" message. More concerning, the camera halted all performance in the USB ports on my one-year-old iMac. This disabled the mouse, so I could never upload the software. There is the peculiar design flaw, too, that the camera charges in the face-down position, making it very difficult to see these error messages.

Eventually it dawned on me simply to use AA batteries (an option that drew me to this camera), and the camera has worked just fine ever since.

I had an extensive correspondence with Flip's online support. My advice: skip them entirely and just phone Flip. Online support did get back to me quickly ... with a whole set of detailed questions about my computer which I wish they'd just asked in the first place (I'd already told them the computer model and OS). This might have been a stalling technique, as there then was silence. Then, in response to my prodding, more correspondence where they seemed not to understand the problem and we pretty much started over.

Phone support was amenable to having me send only the battery pack back for an exchange, though I'm not confident that I'll receive a functioning one. And, like online support, they seem puzzled, surprised, and much more focused on fixing their battery pack problem than making a customer happy (i.e., interested to have mine for "research" and so "authorized" me to send it, but had zero interest in giving me a pre-paid label or making it easy for me to return this faulty piece). Like another reviewer, I'm not happy to have spent money to have a bad battery pack, but I also have to pick my battles, and decided to keep the machine since it works fine with the AAs. And maybe I'll get a functioning rechargeable back from Flip.

And it's a great little camera! Footage is sharp and the sound is crisp. It uploads easily to the Mac. Very portable and sturdy. Really, I love the camera, and had it worked out of the box I would be posting a five-star rave. Also on the plus side, really, is the phone support -- they do have it, they answer the phone, and they do respond. So, they are ahead of some other products on that score!

So I hope they do fix this glitch and also develop some online customer-friendliness. Get more detail about Flip UltraHD Camcorder, 120 Minutes (Black).