REVIEW: Frames Give New Life to Photos

By DIRK LAMMERS

Photographers looking to spruce up their desks, mantels and coffee tables with their favorite digital snapshots have a more high-tech, albeit pricey, option to printing.

Digital photo frames, which resemble their retro counterparts but house small LCD screens where the prints once stood, have been around for years. They’ve remained pricey, but with the cost of flat-panel monitors and televisions continuing to drop, cheaper frames can’t be too far behind.

I borrowed three of them to see how they stacked up.

The first was the Philips 7FF1AW Digital Photo Display, a Mac-styled clear acrylic desk frame that can hold some 70 photos. Its bright 5.4-by-3.6-inch display packs 720 by 480 pixels and looks sharp from both up close and far away.

The frame’s backside houses slots for SD, Compact Flash, Memory Stick and MMC cards, and users can view photos directly off the card or transfer images to the device’s 12-megabyte internal memory. Also included are two USB cables to snag photos from a computer or digital camera.

The computer connection seemed the best option, as browsing thumbnails using the frame’s menu system and buttons proved time consuming. Windows XP instantly recognized a new USB device and let me drag and drop images.

Once the photos are loaded, users can browse them manually or set up an automated slideshow with adjustable timing and various transitions. A lithium-ion battery lets users pass the frame around at a party, but it’ll need a recharge within about 50 minutes.

Philips says it plans to launch an updated version of its 7-inch frame ($199 retail) in September, as well as a 9-inch wall-mountable version ($249 retail).

Shooters capturing their photos on a Bluetooth-compatible phone might want to give the Parrot Photo Viewer a try ($279 retail).

But first make sure your phone can send photos via the wireless technology, as I found a couple of Bluetooth phones that could recognize the frame but not send to it – despite a company information sheet that said the viewer is compatible with all Bluetooth phones, PCs and other products.

Parrot says it’s developing a list of phones that can send to the frame.

I had good luck with the Samsung SPH-A900 phone, which beamed a couple of stored images to the frame within seconds. The Bluetooth logo appears in the frame’s upper corner as the photo streams in line by line.

The Parrot desk frame comes in oak or various leather styles including cardinal red and zebra skin. At just under 3 inches by just over 2 inches, the Parrot’s screen is tiny and more suited to a desk, but its 320-by-234-pixel display is sharp and bright.

It can hold more than 100 photos in JPEG format and automatically adjusts their size to conserve the 32-megabyte internal memory. One neat feature allows users to physically flip the frame from horizontal to vertical and watch the frame reorient pictures so they display properly.

If you’re looking to share kids’ pictures with a grandparent who lacks computer savvy, check out the Ceiva Digital Photo Receiver ($129.99 retail, plus a monthly subscription).

Just upload images to Ceiva’s Web site and a remote technophobe can sit back and wait for the frame to automatically download a slideshow of up to 30 new photos each day.

Ceiva’s required PicturePlan service costs an additional $9.95 a month, $99.95 for one year of service or $249.95 for three years.

But a single subscription allows multiple people on the frame’s buddy list to submit photos, which are downloaded nightly through over a telephone line or a wired broadband or wireless Internet connection. That means the cost can be shared between siblings competing for display space on grandma’s frame.

I tried connecting through the optional USB wireless adapter ($34.95), which worked well after a bumpy setup.

To get the frame talking to the wireless router, you must first enter the settings on Ceiva’s Web site and tell the frame to dial in through an analog phone line – a requirement that ruled out my Vonage Internet telephone at home my digital line at the office. During a free support call, a customer service representative suggested connecting a USB keyboard directly to the frame and manually typing the wireless settings, which got it up and running.

Once in sync with the router, the frame downloaded the photos I had earlier posted to the Web and began its slideshow. Users can also send pictures from camera phones and mix in daily slides featuring baseball standings, historical trivia or local Weather Channel forecasts. Its one-button printing feature allows users to order prints right from the frame and have them delivered by mail.

The Ceiva’s 6 1/2-by-5-inch screen is bright when viewed head-on but looses clarity from side angles. The company is developing a receiver that boasts a larger and higher-end display. It is due out later this year.

Digital cameras have helped open photography to the masses, but they’ve also pulled our picture collections from decorated photo albums and shoe boxes to sterile hard drives and memory cards.

Perhaps digital frames will give us one more way to bring our pictures back into the living room.

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On the Net:

Philips USA: http://www.usa.philips.com/  

Parrot USA: http://www.parrot.biz/  

Ceiva: http://www.ceiva.com/