Pure Digital, also known as Flip Video, Flip Video just introduced a high definition version of it’s very popular Mino pocket-sized camcorder with the new Mino HD. This is currently the world’s smallest HD camcorder. There are several nice improvements found in this model.

Pure Digital put some extra thought into this new pocket camcorder. The most obvious is the improvement in video resolution. The original Flip models are really designed to allow a user to make a quick or casual video clip and then easily upload it to You Tube, My Space or other online social networks. Quite frankly, if you viewed the video on a full size television screen, the quality was mediocre to poor.

The move to high definition quality resolves many of these issues. The resolution of the older models is 640 x 480, which is a good match for older, VGA style computer monitors, but not a high quality match for the new HDTVs. The resolution with the Mino HD moved up to 1280 x 720 at 30 frames per second, which meets the minimum spec for high definition television quality at 720p. It also records in a 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio, so you can fill the screen on your HDTV.

Just like the older models, the new version records up to one hour of video. To accommodate the higher resolution, the amount of on-board memory has doubled from 2 gigabytes to 4 gigabytes. You are still limited to one hour of video unless you upload the current video to a web site or transfer it to your computer. One further improvement that we would like to see from Pure Digital is a removable memory card so that a user could just swap out a card when it is full.

The Mino HD includes a built-in lithium-ion rechargeable battery that lasts about two hours (double the recording time) between charges. The batteries can be charged using a power adapter or just by plugging the Mino HD into a USB port on your computer.

Also included are on-board FlipShare utilities that allow you to easily edit your videos and transfer them to your favorite web site. The built-in software is a nice feature because you can edit and transfer your videos from any computer that has Internet access. A flip-out built-in USB port connector (shown in the image above) easily connects to a computer to transfer video clips.

You can see the new Flip Mino HD at Amazon and check out the comments from users. When I checked, Amazon was offering free shipping and a free mini-tripod with the purchase of the Mino HD. The mini-tripod is a good idea if you want to become a star in your own videos.