Oh! Gizmo

By Shane McGlaun

I like digital photo frames and each time someone comes to my house that doesn’t own a digital frame, they leave wanting one. With digital frames, I can display images of the kids and other events without having to print off gobs of pictures and find a place to put the pictures on my wall.

Kodak has announced a new digital photo frame called the Easyshare S730, but has left out some important details about the device. The import bits missing are exactly how large the screen of the frame is and what the frame looks like. Pricing for the frame will be $139 and it will ship in September.

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By Shane McGlaun

Digital photo frames may seem boring, but anyone who takes lots of digital pictures will find that the gadgets are a great way to do something with all those pictures other than letting them sit on your computer or memory card. The price of digital photo frames are coming down as well making them more affordable.

Samsung has announced a new digital frame that is under an inch thick and sports an 8-inch screen. The screen has a resolution of 800 x 480 and a contrast ratio of 500:1. Despite the small size of the frame, it packs 1GB of memory inside.

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By Chris Scott Barr

I’m still not really on the whole digital picture frame bandwagon. Honestly, I guess I just don’t have a need to cycle a few hundred pictures on my wall or something. If I were going to get one, I’d go for something a little less than ordinary. I’d either get one that actually did a little more than show pictures, or I’d make my own. From the looks of this mod, it would be pretty easy to use an Eee PC for one.

Having a full-fledged computer working as your picture frame does leave you with a lot more options. Now you can add a touchscreen and control various media through the house with a touch. The early Eee PCs are really cheap, so this might just be a fun mod for someone who doesn’t just want a boring digital picture frame.

[ Awooga ] VIA [ HackADay ]

By Andrew Liszewski

So you got one of those useless fancy digital photo frames for Christmas, but do you really want to spend your day looking at photos of your family? Of course not! Thankfully Bandai is the first company to come to that realization, and their new Digital Living Gallery line of digital photo frames reflects that. Instead of a cheesy plastic frame, the LCD is surrounded by a traditional, and tasteful, wooden frame like you’d find on a painting. And since that would probably seem out of place while the frame was cycling through photos of your trip to Carlsbad Caverns, Bandai will be pre-loading the frames with highbrow content.

At launch, the Digital Living Gallery will be available in a Pierre-Auguste Renoir or a Vincent van Gogh version that each come with 30 high-quality digital versions of classical works from each artist. And Bandai will be selling SD cards with works from other artists as well, so you can continually expand your frame’s collection. While you’re not going to fool anyone into thinking that’s a real van Gogh you’ve got propped up on your desk, something like this would go a long way to classing-up your cubicle, once you get rid of all those Halo figures.

The Digital Living Frames will be available starting January 30th for about $580 (52,290 Yen) while the SD cards will sell for about $55 (4,980 Yen) each.

[ Bandai Digital Living Gallery ] VIA [ CScout Japan ]

By Andrew Liszewski

For the most part there’s very little that distinguishes the hundreds of different digital photo frames on the market. But the Memoir from Skyla (the new consumer electronics division of LiteOn IT) will definitely stand out in the crowd since it features a built-in photo scanner that makes it easy for anyone to convert an old print into a digital photo. Because of the size of the frame the scanner is limited to handling 4×6 prints or smaller, but the 1GB of internal memory should be enough to store about 200 4×6 photos scanned at 600 dpi..

The Memoir also features pretty much everything else you’d expect in a ‘modern’ digital photo frame including an 800×600 resolution LCD, two USB ports for connecting flash drives or syncing the frame to your PC and support for MP3s, MPEGs and other image files. However I don’t see a mention of slots for compact flash or secure digital cards, but I’m going to assume those are included as well. The Memoir should be available in late December and will have an MSRP of $219.99.

[ Gearlog - LiteOn IT Introduces Skyla's Memoir Scanning Digital Photo Frame ]

By Andrew Liszewski

It seems the product designers at Parrot, or in this case designer Martin Szekely, haven’t gotten around to reading any of the reviews of the new MacBook or MacBook Pro. If they had, they would have discovered that consumers (or reviewers at least) aren’t that into highly reflective glossy displays that make it easy to see yourself, but not necessarily what’s on the LCD. And claiming that the digital photo frame can also double as a mirror just doesn’t cut it.

It’s too bad though because the SPECCHIO includes wifi (b & g) and bluetooth and can receive photos directly from a cell phone or via email, an RSS feed or your Picasa/Flickr account. There’s no pricing or availability info for the SPECCHIO frame at this point, but a similar ‘designer’ frame in the Parrot online store runs $449.99, and I don’t expect this one will be any cheaper.

[ SPECCHIO - Parrot By Martin Szekely ] VIA [ DVICE ]

By Luke Anderson

I’ve yet to find a digital picture frame that actually made me want to buy it. There have been a few interesting ones here and there, but at the end of the day you’re shelling out a good big of money for something that’s just going to display pictures. However, Samsung has piqued my interest with their new line of frames that can also act as an extra monitor for your PC.

These new frames use a technology called UbiSync PC (likely based off of DisplayLink technology) that allows you to plug it in via USB, and have yourself either an 800×600 or 1024×600 screen (depending on which one you buy). This screen would be very useful for storing toolbars, icons or whatever. Then when you’re not using it, it turns into a simple digital picture frame. The 8-inch version runs $142, while the 10-inch is $204. Honestly, for that price, I’d just buy another monitor and set my screensaver to display pictures. You’ll get the same result, just with a larger monitor.

[ Amazon ] VIA [ Technabob ]

By Andrew Liszewski

I have to give LG credit for at least trying to make the over-saturated digital photo frame market a bit more interesting. Their DP889 unit not only features an 8-inch LCD display but also has an integrated DVD player. So not only can you browse photos that are stored on a DVD or a CD, but you can also use the unit as a portable DVD player with the supplied battery pack providing up to 3 1/2 hours of playback. Other features include audio/video inputs and outputs allowing you to connect other devices like a game console, a 3-in1 memory card slot, a flash drive compatible USB port, built-in speakers and even dual headphone jacks. And while LG lists the DP889 as having an MSRP of $279.95, Circuit City currently has it on sale for $199.99.

[ LG DP889 ] VIA [ Chip Chick ]

By Andrew Liszewski

It’s easy to share a digital photo via email or a public website, but how do you accommodate those family members who haven’t quite embraced the digital age just yet? Well one option is to upgrade your digital photo frame to one of these models from Prinics which feature a built-in 5×7 printer. That way, when your parents are scrolling through baby photos and lamenting about how they’d really love a copy of a particular shot, you can print one out for them right then and there.

The printers use a special, self-contained photo paper & ink cartridge that’s extremely easy to replace, and since the cartridges are completely sealed, they apparently have an unlimited ‘use-by’ date. I’m not sure how much the cartridges cost (which is a factor that could make or break the product) but each one is good for 36 shots. The Prinics frames come in either 7 or 8 inch models and besides the printer they also feature memory card slots, an easy to use GUI, a remote control and even patterned or plain black acrylic frames. Unfortunately the Prinics site is a little vague when it comes to pricing, but if they intend to compete in the 5×7 photo printer market they’ll have to aim for a reasonable MSRP.

[ Prinics Photo Frame Printer ] VIA [ Gizmag ]