I didn’t jump at the Flip Mino because when you get down to it, the quality is still VGA @ 30fps – basically not much more than you’re standard web cam. Yes, it was nice and tiny and more importantly, cheap. But it still didn’t pop out. You can now get MiniDV or hard drive based high definition camcorders now at somewhat reasonable prices, but still steep.

This August, Kodak is releasing their Zi6, which might finially tip the scales. For $180 you get HD video recording (720p @ 30/60fps) in the size of a Flip Mino. Its uses SD Media cards for storage which are now reasonably priced for very large sizes. Also, since the cards are very small, you are basically only limited by battery life. And an even bigger plus is that it uses AA batteries! (which I already have a bunch of high capacity rechargeables).

I haven’t seen anything else on the market that approaches these features for the size and price. We’ll see how the reviews are and some same videos, but this could very well be the top of my Christmas list. Kodak has had a tough time coming up with a niche in the post-film world. This could be a very good first successful step.