David Pogue pens a piece on The Flip — an ultra-simple point-and-shoot camcorder that’s taken 13% of the market (according to the manufacturer).
Somebody at Pure Digital must have sat through countless meetings, steadfastly refusing to cede any ground to the forces of feature creep.
And here’s all the stuff it can’t do:
The screen is tiny (1.5 inches) and doesn’t swing out for self-portraits. You can’t snap still photos. There are no tapes or discs, so you must offload the videos to a computer when the memory is full (30 or 60 minutes of footage, depending on whether you buy the $150 or $180 model). There are no menus, no settings, no video light, no optical viewfinder, no special effects, no headphone jack, no high definition, no lens cap, no memory card. And there’s no optical zoom — only a 2X digital zoom that blows up and degrades the picture. Ouch.
And the stuff it can:
Instead, the Flip has been reduced to the purest essence of video capture. You turn it on, and it’s ready to start filming in two seconds. You press the red button once to record (press hard — it’s a little balky) and once to stop. You press Play to review the video, and the Trash button to delete a clip.
Pogue says the secret is that it just simply works. It’s always ready, it’s always trustworthy, it’s always with you. The quality isn’t the sell, the convenience and foolproofery is. You can’t make a mistake, you can’t do anything wrong. Its purpose is pure to the core: Shoot quick videos without thinking about it.
I love it. Kudos to Pure Digital for having the discipline to make a camcorder for the rest of us.
译文:
Flip不费吹灰之力占领13%手持摄像机市场份额
David Pogue（纽约时报科技版专栏作家）点评Flip——一款占领了13%市场份额（制造商称）的超简单对准即拍式手持摄像机。
Pure Digital公司的肯定有些人耐着性子开完了数不清的会，坚决拒绝任何对于功能蔓延的让步。
以下是所有它做不到的事：
屏幕很小（1.5英寸），不能摇出以供自拍使用。不能拍静态照片。没有磁带或光盘，所以内存满后（30或60分钟，取决于你买的是$150还是$180的型号）你只能将视频上载到电脑中。没有菜单，没有设置项，没有照明灯，没有光学取景器，没有特殊效果，没有耳机插口，没有高清晰度，没有镜头盖，没有记忆卡。它还没有光学变焦——只有放大图片、降低清晰度的两倍数码变焦，唉。
它能做到的事：
相反的，Flip被简化为最纯粹的基本视频捕捉功能。你打开它，两秒钟内它就准备好开始拍摄。你按一次红色按钮开始拍摄（按重点儿，按钮有点紧），再按一次停止。你按下“播放”进行回放，按“删除”键来删除视频。
Pogue言道：秘密就在于它只是简单地工作着，总是时刻准备好，总是值得信赖，总是在你身边。它的卖点并不是质量，而是便捷与简单。你不会犯错误，不会做错任何事。它的目的纯粹到极致：不假思索地快速录摄。
我喜爱它。光荣属于Pure Digital，他们的信条为我们带来了一款真正的手持摄像机。