I purchased a Flip Ultra HD recently. First impressions were favourable: it’s extremely easy to use and the image quality beats Creative Vado HD hands down. Initial bliss turned sour rather quickly when I tried to charge the included batterypack. The bastich simply wouldn’t start charging, no matter what piece of equipment I connected it to. Monitor’s USB hub? Nope. Sennheiser Bluetooth hands-free USB charger? Nope. An external HDD enclosure with four powered USB connectors? No chance in hell.

Some googling turned up a string of comments at Hawkee.com. User ‘e-user001′ had received some instructions from Flip about how to solve the issue:

1) remove the battery pack from the camcorder
2) connect the camcorder to a powered USB port on your computer
3) when the “Connected” indicator comes on, insert the battery pack into the camcorder
4) safe eject your camcorder from your computer
5) reconnect your camcorder to your computer
6) the battery pack should now begin to charge within the camcorder

To clarify, at step 4 you’re supposed to physically detach the Ultra HD from your computer, then plug it in again at step 5.

I followed the instructions and Ultra HD is now happily recharging its batterypack from MSI Wind U100 notebook’s USB connector. Regardless, I’d rather see Ultra HD being recharged without a computer, so I asked Flip about its compatibility with all my external USB chargers. I’ll let you know, if they ever reply.