Kodak Pocket HD Camcorder and Video Player

The Flip has taken the YouTube crowd by storm as a low budget, bare bones camcorder for around $129. It has done so well that Pure Digital has vowed to donate a million Flips to to qualifying non-profit organizations in a buy one, get one free affair. So, when Kodak announced a budget HiDef pocket camera for just south of $200, you better believe that Pure Digital was paying close attention.

Kodak calls it the Zi6 HD Pocket Video Camera. It comes in either black or a rather bold looking, yet girlish, pink, records in 16:9 720p wide screen at up to 60fps, comes with AA rechargeable batteries and recharger, and can be expanded using SD or SDHC memory cards up to 32 GB (internal memory up to 128MB)! It also has the standard jack knife USB plug, direct to YouTube support, 2/4” LCD, AV & HD video component cables and Arcsoft Media Impression software for editing.

All for $179.00. That’s rather impressive considering that the Flip Ultra with 2GB of memory goes for the same price, but is only standard – 640 x 480 video, just slightly better than VHS. The ZiX is 720p. And also what’s interesting is that while several of the accessories on the upcoming Kodak are included at no charge, they would cost about $15 each for the Flip.

That should give Pure Digital reason to worry. I, for one, can’t wait to test the ZiX. (get it?)