Gift Ideas for Christmas VIII

Flip Mino, $180 _ The $180 Flip Mino from Pure Digital Technologies Inc. was the smallest and simplest camcorder we tested. It weighs just 3.3 ounces. The Mino has a mostly flat face that features a 1.5-inch LCD screen and a big red recording button. Pros: The Flip Mino's simplicity is enhanced by a built-in battery that can be recharged by plugging in the flip-out USB dongle housed at the top of the unit. There is no memory card slot on the Flip Mino, but the device includes 2 gigabytes of internal memory, which provides 60 minutes of recording time, more than enough for a bevy of short videos. Cons: The Mino has only one video quality option: You record at a resolution of 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second. This makes for more-than-adequate YouTube-sized videos, but if you want to blow your videos up much larger, you won't be happy with the Mino.