When the Creative Vado was announced last month, a few people in the TechRadar office said: "the Flip Video does exactly the same thing and it's been out in the US for ages!"

Initially this seemed like a good point. What was Creative doing? Releasing a product with the same spec as one that launched many months ago, without any obvious unique selling points? It seemed crazy.

But of course as soon as we got both of them in our hands last week, the answer was obvious. The Flip Video isn't particularly good.

Many flaws

Let's start with the basics. The Flip Video is a point-and-shoot camcorder which records VGA (640x480) video files. It's simple to use – you just turn it on, press record. To play back you just press play. And to delete a file you press the delete button. That's as complicated as it gets.

The Flip has good points – but they're far outweighed by the bad ones. For instance, the size is a real issue. It's roughly twice the size of the Creative Vado. It's simply enormous, bulky and ugly in comparison.

Sure, it'll fit into your jeans pocket no problem. But it's twice the size of your average mobile phone. It's much larger than even the chunkiest phones like the Nokia N95.

Hardly convenient to carry around everyday just in case something interesting happens, is it?

The TFT LCD screen is also inferior to the Creative Vado. It's smaller, has a lower resolution and isn't as bright.

The video quality isn't great either. Colours often appeared very grainy and washed-out. Again, it wasn't that bad, but not as good as the Vado. And certainly not good enough considering the price.

And while we're talking about price... At the moment the Flip Video will set you back £99 which is £20 more than the Vado. Ludicrous when you realise that the Creative camera is fundamentally a better product.

The problem with the Flip really is that it's basically an old product. In the US, the next version, the Flip Video Mino, has already be announced. As such, the newer products coming out from Pure Digital's rivals all seem to be much better.

For now, the Flip Video shouldn't be considered a viable option unless you can get it heavily discounted. We advise either going for the Vado, or waiting until the new Flip Video Mino comes out – you might be waiting a while though.