The Flip camera with its mini size and its capability to upload videos to the Internet rewrote the book on camcorders. Now big manufacturers are working not only to create a Flip-like video camera, but to up the ante with additional features. JVC is one of the first into the pocket camcorder fray. Their Picsio GC-FM1 is smaller than the Flip and has some new features. So we decided to take a look.

At 2 1/8" x 3 7/8" x 11/16" (5.3 x 9.7 x 1.7 cm), the JVC Picsio GC-FM1 is smaller than the Flip camera and current competitors like Kodak Zi6/Zi8. The small camcorder comes in a small box, as shown in Figure 1.

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Figure 1: The Picsio in the box.

At the top of the box is a small circular dot that indicates the color of the camera. This camcorder currently comes in three colors: brilliant blue, black ice, and sparkling purple. Our review unit was sparkling purple. As you can see in Figure 2, the colors are called brilliant, ice, and sparkling because the front cover is encased in thick plastic that has a sparkly, holographic image that features a square-and-diamond effect. Moving the case from side-to-side makes the image switch between squares, diamonds, and triangles in a mesmerizing image.

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Figure 2: The sparkling purple device.

The contents of the box are shown in Figure 3. Included are the camcorder itself, a USB charging cable, a composite video cable, a wrist strap, and a small instruction booklet.

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Figure 3: The contents of the box.

As you can see from the contents of the box, this camcorder comes with a USB cable. It does not have the flip-out USB dongle that is so popular on the Flip camcorders. At first we didn’t think this was a big deal, but when, a few weeks into the testing, we misplaced the USB cable, we found ourselves wishing for an integral flip-out USB device.