Decide what to buy | the Reevoo.com blog, featuring news on TVs, cameras, laptops, mp3 players & other gadgets, shopping tips and deals, reviews and more

With Halloween and Guy Fawkes upon us, and Christmas creeping around the corner, there are sure to be lots of memorable party moments or firework displays worth capturing; if you want something a little more specialised than a camera-phone but aren’t ready to spend hundreds of pounds on a camcorder, there are quite a few options these days.

Flip’s range of handheld camcorders gave this area a kick-start a couple of years ago; their current offerings are the Ultra and the Mino, both available in Standard and High Definition versions. Simplicity is everything here: recording is a matter of hitting the big red button, then you can plug it straight into your computer and upload it to YouTube, all without having to install any special drivers or software. “So easy to use,” says Reevoo reviewer Steve from Caerphilly, a comment echoed by many other reviewers. In this price range there are going to be certain limitations, and other reviewers felt that the audio quality was “not fantastic” and that zoom range was “not enough”. Prices for the Flip start at £69 for the standard definition Ultra model (rated 8.8 out of 10 by Reevoo reviewers); if even that’s too bulky for you there are also the slimmer Mino versions, starting at £113 (rated 8.9 out of 10).

Flip are far from the only game in town however: Creative have a similar offering called the Vado, also with Standard and High Definition variations. Again, ease of use is widely praised by reviewers, although an anonymous purchaser points out that it’s “unable to take single pictures”, a feature absent from most of the pocket camcorders available: these are all about the video. Prices start at just £41 for the basic model, rated 8.8 out of 10 on reevoo.com.

Samsung’s entrant into the arena, the HMX-U10, has pushed the boat out a bit in terms of features, offering full 1080p HD video recording as well as being able to take stills. Unlike the other pocket camcorders that have neat USB connectors built-in (there’s endless fun to be had playing with the one in the Flip whilst procrastinating), this needs a cable, which is comparatively cumbersome. Another benefit is that unlike the Flip & the Vado, which have internal memory, video is stored on a removable SD card. Prices start at £111.

Another camera worth a look is the Kodak Zi6HD, rated 8.5 out of 10 by Reevoo reviewers. This shoots high definition video onto removable SD cards; prices start at £102.

General limitations to be wary of are a lack of image stabilisation, which can make videos a little shaky & a digital only zoom, meaning a loss of quality on zoomed in images. But these cameras aren’t designed for shooting your cinematic epic, they’re something to grab out of your bag and capture your friends making fools of themselves or getting engaged. And if You’ve Been Framed accept YouTube videos now, it’ll pay for itself.

We sent Craig, one of our developers, out to give Flip’s Mino HD camcorder some extreme field testing on one of his regular boulder-climbing excursions.

Captain Hook from Craig Smith on Vimeo.

So that’s what he did with the Mino HD, but what did he think of it?

Great bits:
It’s small!
Works well in contrasting light conditions.
Good battery life.
Don’t have to hunt around for a cable to connect to my laptop.
Takes hardly any time to charge.

Not so great bits:
The viewing screen is a little small.
Zoom resets when you stop recording.
Zoom in general is pretty bad (but I didn’t really use it, because I didn’t need it).
You won’t let me keep it for ever!

Reevoo’s consumer reviewers give the Mino HD an average of 8.3 out of 10 overall; it scores very highly on ease of use (9.7 out of 10) & value for money (9.0 of 10). It’s available from £130.

Pure Digital Technologies are the force behind Flip - pocket-sized, affordable camcorders. Flip fans will be pleased to know that they’ve gone one step further by producing a high definition model, the Flip MinoHD - the world’s smallest HD camcorder. It looks much like the Flip Mino but is a touch larger and is capable of capturing high-definition footage in 1280×720 pixel resolution, compared to the Mino’s 640×480 pixels.

It also boasts MPEG-4 encoding and 4GB of internal memory which will store an hour’s worth of video. And so that you can upload all your vids to your favourite sites, the FlipShare editing software will very handily compress them all for you too.

At only 3.3 ounces, it’s pretty light and small enough to fit in your pocket or handbag (H 3.94″ x W 1.97″ x D 0.63″). It has a 1.5″ screen, touch-sensitive capacitive buttons and an internal lithium-ion rechargeable battery.

It claims to last two hours between charges and takes approx three hours to charge via USB but this is reduced to two if you use its power adaptor.

You can even customise your MinoHD by designing its cover yourself of by choosing from one of the great designs on the Flip website.

This HD member of the Flip family will need to compete against the popular Kodak Zi6 which is currently on sale in the UK for around £120. The Flip MinoHD is not yet available in the UK but watch this space because it’s bound to make a big impact when it gets here. You can buy it in the US from here.

www.reevoo.com/pink

If you’re a girl who needs everything to be pink; if you’re a guy who’s struggling to find a gift for his girlfriend or if you’re a man who just likes a bit of pink, it turns out you’re not alone.

Research by consumer review website, Reevoo.com, looked at how popular pink products were across its own website and those of its partners. Websites such as Dixons, The Carphone Warehouse and Currys were analysed to find out how pink products shaped up compared to their duller counterparts.

In the last 3 months, the pink JVC Everio GZ-MG330 camcorder has been one of the most popular models on the market and one of the most popular pink products.  One in twenty camcorder visits has been to look at this pink camcorder.

To continue the success of pink products, the pink Motorola ROKR U9 has been a great example to all pink mobile phones. Out of all 22,000 products, from TVs to MP3 players and washing machines, it was the 21st most popular product.

And it wasn’t just mobile phones bringing down the big guys, the Medion Celeron Processor Pink Laptop beat the mighty 17 inch MacBook Pro in the popularity stakes.

A Decide What to Buy favourite, Hetty, also did well to be the 16th most popular vacuum cleaner. There are over 375 vacuums so Hetty did pretty well.

You can see the top 10 pink products below, how popular they are in their categories and how popular they are compared to all the other 22,000 products.

Click on table above to enlarge.

To celebrate all this pinkness, Reevoo has created a page full of the pinkest products around. Fom pink MP3 players and pink laptops to pink irons and pink beanbags, they’re all there. You can find them at www.reevoo.com/pink.