Digital pictures frames are popular, but adding wireless connectivity adds more value. You can use WiFi, Bluetooth or cellular connections to make them “live”.
T-Mobile’s Cameo (right), has its own phone number. The Cameo, a rebranded Parrot DF7220, features a 7″ (720×480) screen that can receive and display photos from any camera phone, be it T-Mobile or not (video). You send messages via a multimedia message or an e-mail. You can also transfer them via a USB cable or a microSD card. No Bluetooth, though. It’s $99, but requires a $10/month cellular data plan from T-Mobile.
David Pogue reviewed seven LCD picture frames earlier this year. No computer required. Pogue complained that things get screwed up by inattention to the user experience. Why, he asks, can’t the manufacturers be bothered to do what’s right? Apparently wireless picture frames are a work in progress.
Here’s a summary of his review:
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EMotion with Bluetooth(7 inches, $160, Mediastreet.com). Open your cellphone or laptop, select its Search for Bluetooth Devices command, and “pair” the phone with the frame. You can beam photos to the frame; they’re no longer trapped on your cellphone’s tiny 2-inch screen unless you use Verizon, of course, which prevents Bluetooth photo-sending.
- Parrot DF7220 (7 inches, $170, Parrot.com). Good news: this Bluetooth frame is so thin, it hangs flat on the wall. Bad news: the resolution is so coarse (410 x 234 pixels), it’s not such a big improvement over your cellphone’s screen.
- Kodak EasyShare EX1011 (10 inches, $250, Kodak.com). Kodak adds Wi-Fi. It can display pictures that sit on a Windows computer elsewhere in the house, provided it’s running Windows Media Player 11. Unfortunately, Macs need not apply. Once you’ve signed up for a free account at Kodakgallery.com and set up some photo albums there, the frame “sees” them immediately and begins a slide show of the albums you select.
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EStarling Digital Wireless (8 inches, $250, Seeframe.com). This Wi-Fi picture frame doesn’t have its own phone number, but it does have its own e-mail address. As a result, you or your friends can send it pictures from cellphones or computers, any time, anywhere, no charge. Just attach the photo to an email and send (Chris Pirillo review). In addition, you can sign up for “photo feeds” themed slide shows like New Yorker cartoons, city skyscapes, nature shots and so on from popular photo sites like Flickr, Picasa, AOL and Photobucket. Unfortunately, even though this frame is much better than its disastrous first model last year, it’s still flakier than a croissant, says Pogue.
- Momento 100 (10.2 inches, $280, Momentolive.com). This frame has a white matte and clear acrylic border, but otherwise, it has a lot in common with the Kodak: Wi-Fi, photo display from a Windows PC, widescreen shape and photo auto-downloading from the Web. And like the eStarling, it has a Web setup page (formerly $40 a year, now free), a unique e-mail address and the option to subscribe to photo feeds from Flickr, Picasa and so on.
- PanDigital Wi-Fi Picture Frame (8 inches, $150, pandigital.net and review). This screen offers both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. Unfortunately, all the Wi-Fi lets you do is download images from Picasa.com — no e-mail, no accessing photos from your PC. Still, the price is right and the photos look great.
- SmartParts SP8PRT (8 inches, $280, Smartpartsproducts.com). This baby won’t be available until March, and there’s nothing wireless about it — but hiding behind its dark cherrywood frame is a claim to fame no other frame can name: a tiny built-in dye-sublimation printer. A 4-x-6 photo sheet rolls into the three-inch-deep back panel four times: once for each primary color, and once for a protective clear coat. Each tiny $20 cartridge contains 36 sheets of 4-x-6 paper and enough colored film to print them.
Amazon and Wireless Picture Frames have more.
