I bought a Flip Video camcorder for my wife for mother’s day. At under $150, it was a bargain. But the primary motivation was having a camera she sould depend upon. Our simple DV camcorder took great video, but seemed to always need charging, or a new tape, and thus wasn’t available at the spur of the moment.

Power is supplied by AA batteries, which are easy to buy anywhere on the globe. It holds about a hour of video, and it’s easy to transfer, edit, upload and delete files. Still images can be extracted from the video.

The ease of use makes it the video equivalent of an old-fashed reporter’s notebook. A journalist armed with a notebook, laptop, Starbuck’s card and Flip Video may have everything necessary for newsgathering today.