$0.99 • fifthend.com

The arrival of the bill at a recent dinner set off a ballet of pocket-patting as my companions searched for reading glasses to assess the damage. One guy even broke out a penlight.

But there are a number of iPhone apps that help you handle small type. Of the several I tried, my favorite is Magnifying Glass from I-Beam. The 99-cent iPhone app is simplicity itself. Turn it on, point iPhone's camera at the fine print and then touch the plus button until it is enlarged enough to read.

Magnifying Glass works best on the iPhone 3GS, which has an autofocus feature (some magnification programs work only with the 3GS). Still, you have to hold your hand very steady and don't get too close to your subject.

Two built-in features I like about Magnifying Glass are the button that instantly resets the image to low magnification and the camera button that lets you take a photo of your close-up. That way you can blow up the truly illegible on your desktop screen, or even enhance the image for better viewing.

FLIP IMPROVES ON A GOOD THING

$230 • www.theflip.com

The maker of the popular Flip pocket camcorders has added a premium MinoHD (second edition) that's packaged in a brushed-metal case with rounded corners and offers twice the recording time and a slightly wider LCD screen than its predecessor.

That's not a radical departure from the previous MinoHD, now priced at $200, but if you're planning to buy a Flip, the 8 gigabytes of on-board memory (versus 4 gigabytes on the standard MinoHD) is probably worth the additional $30.

And while the pocketable MinoHD is enormously fun and ridiculously simple to use, it would have been more tempting had its resolution been raised from 720p (1280 by 720) to the higher-definition 1080p (1920 by 1280), which is available on Kodak's $180 Zi8.

The new MinoHD can store two hours of 720p footage at 30 frames a second. The case is notably slicker than its predecessor. The new model also has a larger 2-inch anti-glare LCD with an improved resolution of 960 by 240 pixels. It adds a mini-HDMI connector that will enable you to connect the device to your high-definition TV.

NEW YORK TIMES