Flip SlideHD Gets Official: $280 For Touchscreen 720p Camcorder

After having been leaked, discussed and even sold early, the Flip SlideHD camcorder is finally official.  Priced at $279.99, the SlideHD's most distinctive feature is its sliding, tilting 3-inch touchscreen, but it can also record up to four hours of 1280 x 720 30fps 8.8Mbps video to its 16GB of integrated storage.

While the top display is a resistive panel, there's also a capacitive touchstrip on the bottom section that can be used for whizzing through video timelines.  As well as an HDMI output and swing-out USB 2.0 plug, there's also a 3.5mm headphone socket so that you can privately review your video on the move.

720p with a basic 2x digital zoom and neither optical or digital image stabilization doesn't seem especially impressive for $279.99, and we can't help but wonder whether Flip – or their parent Cisco – simply saw all the touchscreen furore of late and decided they simply had to include one in their new model.  It's available to buy now.