I must say I am pretty frustrated at the moment.

Over the last week I was getting really excited about buying one of the new Flip Mino HD video cameras- one of the fancy customized ones! This is the design I decided on:

speakup Seriously Its Really Impossible To Get A Flip Mino In Australia!!!! I was only planning on getting the normal Flip Mino, however when I was on their website I found out that they made a HD (High Definition) version for $50 more so I was then keep to get that!

The whole customisation process was fun and I finally decided on the design to the left. Volunteering and helping underpriviliged children in the most poverised areas of Africa has always been a dream of mine and I was planning on using this as inspiration to keep the dream alive ever time I used the Flip Mino.

The ‘I will Speak Up!’ and the ‘Proverbs 31:8-9′ happen to be my favourite passage from the bible and something that also has been my motivation to visit africa. It says:

“Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves,
for the rights of all who are destitute.

Speak up and judge fairly,
defend the rights of the poor and needy.”

THE PROBLEMS

Everything started to go all wrong when I decided to place my order for my Flip Mino HD on their website only to find that they only post to the United States! I was pretty cut!

After talking with a few people, I decided to scrap the customised version, and try and buy a plain black Flip Mino HD from one of the few suppliers online in America. GUESS WHAT? They won’t ship it to me either!

So I decided there was only one thing left to do and that was to contact the nice people at Pure Digital and ask them what’s going on!

Here is my email:

Hi!

I am really keen to buy a new flip mino HD, but I live in Australia and it seems nowhere will ship your product over here. I even tried amazons and they said they cant for your product.

Is there a reason we are not allowed them over here? because the only thing i can think of doing is putting the postage address of someone in the united states and getting them to post it over to me, but i dont know anyone there so i cant.

I was so excited when i saw the customisable mino HD’s and I REALLY want one, is there anything i can do?

Thanks for your help,

Tom

One thing I must say is that their support is amazingly quick! I went to bed last night and just woke up 4 hours later and there was an email back from them already. However, sadly this is their reply:

Dear Thomas,

Our international product distribution is currently limited to the Flip Video Ultra being available in the US, the UK, and Canada (outside of Quebec), and the Flip Video Mino being available for purchase in the US and UK. Outside of these countries, our products cannot be shipped internationally due to licensing agreements. We do not have an ETA of when our products will be available for general retail distribution.

To purchase the UK version of the Ultra and the Mino, please visit our website at www.flipvideo.co.uk. For Ultra purchases in Canada, please visit your local Wal-Mart stores and watch for us at other major electronics retailers.

Thank you for your interest in Flip Video.

So there we go, it looks like the dream is over! I have done a quick search of small HD cameras that I can get over here and so far it looks like the best is this one:

1b Seriously Its Really Impossible To Get A Flip Mino In Australia!!!! Ebay only seems to have ‘no-name’ ones and this one seems to be a great price being $239.95 – although the Flip HD was US$243, this one is much cheaper when you take into consideration how bad our exchange rate is at the moment!

Here are a few of the cameras stats:

  • 5.0 Megapixel digital video recorder
  • 6.4cm (2.5″) LCD Colour screen
  • 8x Digital zoom
  • Storage media: Built-in memory, SD/MMC card slot support
  • Movie resolution (30 fps): 1280 x 720 (HD); 720 x 480 (D1); 640 x 480 (VGA); 320 x 240 (QVGA)
  • Operation modes: Movie record, picture record, voice record, MP3 player
  • Multi-snap: Take up to five continuous pictures at one time
  • Dimensions: (L) 6cm x (W) 3cm x (H) 11cm

So it looks like a decent set up!

Well, I will have to make a decision soon because I have something amazing coming for you all in December and I will need one before then to get things starts.

December Will Be ‘VLOGING MONTH’ on StandOutBlogger, and I will look at a heap of aspects of video blogging and how you can benefit, AND

I have something that will be a whole lot of fun for you all that is in the planning, thats lets just say it should be very funny and hopefully I can get some decent sponsors and have some fantastic prizes to give away!

Until them, click on the banner under the header of this blog and bid on my AdSpots! They are still ridiculously low!