Crave

The cameo is nice but not worth the price.

(Credit: T-Mobile)

They say gift giving is all about getting your friend something that they didn't know they wanted, or something that they would never buy for themselves. We think the new T-Mobile Cameo digital picture frame would fit both categories.

Granted, digital pictures frames remain a popular gift, but we're a little puzzled over the need for a digital pictures frame specifically for your camera phone photos. Nonetheless, T-Mobile is now offering the Cameo in time for the holiday buying season.

The Cameo is a rebranded Parrot DF7700, which we told you about last March. Thanks to a SIM card, it can receive and display photos from any camera phone, be it T-Mobile or not. You send messages via a multimedia message or an e-mail and you can transfer them via a USB cable or a microSD card. It doesn't have Bluetooth, though. The seven-inch screen has a 720x480-pixel resolution; you can place the Cameo on a table or hang it on the wall in portrait or landscape orientation.

The $99 price isn't a bad price, but you will need to pay a monthly fee of $10 for the data connection. That's where we balk.

PhotoVu 19-inch Wi-Fi digital picture frame with Microsoft's FrameIt software

(Credit: PhotoVu)

On November 13, digital picture frame (DPF) manufacturers PhotoVu, Smartparts, ViewSonic, Pandigital, Aequitas Technologies, and others announced that they do or will have DPFs that take advantage of Microsoft's FrameIt application. Part of Microsoft Live, FrameIt will not only allow consumers to directly send and open photos on a supported Internet-connected frame (good), they'll be able to view other content such as news, traffic, and weather (unnecessary).

While DPF sales continue to grow steadily, the way to continue the growth isn't to turn a basic product (an LCD, a card reader, and some software) into another Internet appliance. Nobody's really nailed down usability and design on these things yet and instead of improving those, companies are just going to add more stuff that's really not needed. Are you seriously going to stop and check your 8-inch digital picture frame for traffic information, when you can get the same information on your mobile phone, computer, TV, GPS, or, God forbid, a radio?

Don't get me wrong, I'm totally down with being able to have friends and family e-mail images directly to my frame or having the ability to subscribe to Flickr photo feeds. Those are useful assuming the manufacturers are able to make setup and access simple for average users. (I've been told by two vendors that the implementations in their frames are easy enough for anyone.) But again, I'm still seeing newly launched frames with interface usability issues.

I'll reserve my final judgment until after I've tested a few of the supported DPFs, but until I'm forced to admit my shortsightedness, I'm sticking with "unnecessary."

And do you really want Microsoft in another one of your electronics? At the time of this post the FrameIt Web site was returning a runtime error. Nothing's prettier framed than a runtime error.

(Credit: JOBO AG)

What's the difference between a digital picture frame, err, photo display that's cordless and one that's wireless? Wireless means it's ready to connect to a wireless network, cordless means it doesn't always need a power cord. The Jobo AG 8.4-inch PDJ801 Photo Display is cordless thanks to a built-in rechargeable Li-ion battery, making it more portable than your average outlet-needing digital frame.

Along with the battery you get 1GB of internal memory, card slots for CF, SD, MMC, MS and MS Pro, xD, and a 800x600 resolution with a 500:1 contrast ratio. Price is $179.

Don't need the rechargeable battery and all that storage? For $20 less you can get the PDJ800 that has the same acrylic and metal design, but you get only 128MB of on-frame storage and a plain old AC adapter.

Both will be available at the end of November 2008.

Click for larger view.

A majority of digital picture frames purchased are given as gifts. (Honestly, I'm not sure if this is a factual statistic or if it's just what I think is true.) There is something very cold and impersonal about digital picture frames, however. That's where GiveaDigitalFrame.com comes in.

For $129, you pick an occasion, write a personal message, and upload up to 30MB of JPEG images to the site and the company sends out a gift-wrapped 7-inch digital frame along with a 1GB SD card loaded with the images you uploaded. Shipping's included, too, so all in all it's not a bad deal, assuming the frame isn't complete crap. It looks nice at the very least.

Both the frame and the SD card carry the manufacturers' warranties (one year for the frame, lifetime for the card). The site just launched, so I haven't used the service and I'm not endorsing it, but I might just give it a shot this holiday season.

(Credit: Smartparts)

One of the things I like most about Smartparts is that the company designs its own frames start to finish. No off-the-shelf "we'll-take-that-one" kind of stuff. And its new 8-inch Wi-Fi frame, announced Tuesday, is no different.

(Credit: Smartparts)

While adding Wi-Fi to frames isn't new, the SPX8WF's 802.11 b/g wireless abilities are unique in that it uses a pre-assigned e-mail address that comes with the frame, allowing you or anyone else to send pictures directly to the frame. It's also one of the first Smartparts frames to integrate with Windows Live Photo Gallery. Smartparts claims connecting to a wireless network is a one-button process, too.

Having seen the frame in person, I can attest to the attractiveness of the dark-wood border that surrounds the 24-bit LCD, which has a resolution of 800x600. There are slots that support SD, MS, xD, MMC, and Compact Flash memory cards, as well as a USB port and 512MB of internal memory.

The frame has an MSRP of only $149.99 and will be available in November. And for those looking to really experience their digital pictures, a 32-inch wireless version--the SP3200WF will be available, too, though no price or launch date has been announced./p>

(Credit: Kodak)

Sorry, it's the "world's first consumer-available wireless picture frame featuring innovative Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED) technology" actually. That's right, it's a 7.6-inch, backlight-free, OLED-panel digital picture frame with built-in wireless for just less than $1,000.

On the upside (yes, I consider a $999 price tag a downside), Kodak's Wi-Fi technology allows you to access pictures, video, and music stored on PCs throughout your home, as well as connect to online photo- and video-sharing sites (like Kodak Gallery, and Kodak partners Flickr and FrameChannel), and Internet content portals for news, weather, sports and other stuff. So that's cool. And it has 2GB of built-in internal memory, too.

Click for larger view.

(Credit: Kodak)

I don't know for sure if the frame has to stay attached to the front of the base or not (I'm guessing that's where the frame's power supply, speakers, built-in memory-card reader, and USB port live). I'm hoping not, 'cause on first impression from this picture that base is ugly and kinda kills the whole ultra-thinness of the frame for me.

The OLED Wireless Frame will be available at Kodak.com beginning in the 2008 holiday season, with additional online and retail distribution to be announced. Though if you're giving this as a gift, you're loaded, out of gift ideas, or both. If this is you, would you please put me on your shopping list?

(Credit: Fareastgizmos)

Some of us at Crave may never understand the point of digital picture frames, but at least manufacturers are trying to build in a few features that make them more interesting, if only slightly.

The latest such attempt comes from Transcend, the "T.photo 720." In addition to its frustrating punctuation, this 7-inch picture frame has sensors that can detect whether a photo has been shot veritically or horizontally, then automatically adjust the image for proper viewing.

Other features include video and MP3 playback, 2GB of memory, an FM radio, and a slot for microSD cards to make it easier to display pictures taken with phone cameras, according to Fareastgizmos. As we said, nothing earth-shaking, but interesting.

(Credit: RedPost)

As fellow Craver Leonard Goh observed the other day, anything and everything is subject to hacking these days, including firmware for cameras. So it seems fitting that this open-source spirit be extended to digital picture frames as well.

RedPost has answered that call with "Sign Beta," a hackable Linux frame that succeeds the original released last year. But rather than just display photos, Technbob says, the new model is designed "to replace wasteful paper-covered bulletin boards with an electronic version."

To wit, it's faster and has four times as much memory (1GB) to run "Wicker," its custom version of Ubuntu Linux. With its Wi-Fi connection, Technabob says it can display "pretty much anything that can run in Firefox" on its 19-inch LCD mounted on a brushed aluminum case. That is, if you're willing to pay $599 for it.