When my flip cam died (which I didn't care for anyway), I bought this little gem. I also bought an extra battery and charger (which is a must if you have this camera). Image quality is excellent, colors are excellent, HD=A+, easy to use and most importantly, uploading videos to a computer is quick and easy, although I haven't figured out how to delete video clips in camera via computer software yet. still working on it Much better than the flip I had in every way. I've only had the camera in the pool so far, but down to 4 feet I've had no problems. Will be taking them on our next trip to the beach in the near future. . I don't know how he will handle the sand. I have a Canon camera for photography, so I can't comment on the quality of the photos as I didn't buy them for that. Buy it, you can't go wrong.