Aiptek PenCam Trio – HD Videos, 5MP Images, and MP3s

I was recently helping a colleague pull some video off of her Flip MinoHD Camcorder. I was pretty impressed with the camcorder and the final product we were able to produce. I have an older Flip video camera, so this got me thinking maybe it was time for an upgrade. Then I read the story below about these tiny Aiptek camcorders and now I'm torn.

The story has them priced at about $240, but you can actually get these at Amazonfor $131.42 or an 8 GB versionfor $153.54. I'd suggest you read the reviews, which have me leaning toward another Flip camera. The Aiptek models are not getting rave reviews - particularly with regard to audio and video quality.

Aiptek PenCam HD Trio – Awesome highlighter-sized 720p video and still camera

This Aiptek PenCam HD Trio is a 720p (30fps @16:9) capable video camera the size of a highlighter pen. It can also shoot 5Mp stills and it’s an MP3 player. It has 4GB of internal memory and a 1.1″ OLED screen for framing your masterpieces. It connects via USB and HDMI and the video is encoded using H.264. So what’s the trio part of the name then? On top of being a video/still camera and an MP3 player, the HD Trio is also a voice recorder. The battery lasts for 2 hours of video and presumably longer for other things. What else could you possibly want? US$223.90.