Jack Lail finally convinced me to give The Flip Ultra a try. He told me the Ultra didn’t have the sound qualty problems of the older version of The Flip. Below are two clips demonstrating the camera’s capabilities a bit.

I like it. It’s super easy to use. The sound is good — for a sound source in close proximity to the on-board mic. Anything voice more than three feet away is lost. The Casios we’ve been using do better in that regard.

The biggest draw back to making this the new camera we distribute to reporters is that it doesn’t take stills, and at our smallest papers, reporters want a camera that can do both still and video. However, at a cost savings of about $100 per unit, it’s a pretty compelling option.

First video is from my day at Syracuse University, where I spoke to some journalism classes on Tuesday. The second video is a bit of our tourism along the eastern edge of Lake Ontario on Monday.