Pandigital's PAN-150 digiframe hits the 15-inch mark

'Twas only a matter of time before digital photo frames began creeping up in size to go toe-to-toe with our LCD monitors, and Pandigital is helping the cause with its PAN-150. The 15-inch behemoth will soon be vying for table space as it shows off your high-resolution shots and gives that bedroom LCD TV a run for its money. Specs wise, it'll reportedly sport a 1,024 x 768 resolution, 256MB of internal memory, built-in USB port, MPEG1/4, AVI, and MP3 playback support, integrated stereo speakers, and of course, the ability to play nice with SD, xD, MSPro, MSDuo, CF, and MMC flash cards. Best of all, however, isn't the stylish wood frame or the bundled bragging rights, but the respectable $299 pricetag combined with a launch date within the week.

[Darnell @ Apr 17th 2007 11:49PM]

Okay, that's probably the first photo frame I'd even consider getting. The fact that it has a very respectable resolution, nice size and classy frame really sells it. The price--not so much. It'll be a couple more years before these things drop down in price enough to really take off.

[EDomain @ Apr 18th 2007 12:04AM]

I agree with Darnell. Ditto.

[Eric @ Apr 18th 2007 12:19AM]

So why do they have mp3 playback but no wi-fi? I'd love to just point it to a folder on my desktop and let it go. Instead we have to load up a card and sneakernet it over to the frame. What a waste.

[um @ Apr 18th 2007 7:02AM]

I know it would bump the price up (unless you already had a spare) and probably ruin the aesthetic but could you get a USB wi-fi dongle to work in that built-in USB port?

[Colin B @ Apr 18th 2007 12:46AM]

anyone notice that the picture is of a family taking a picture of themselves...? odd.

[Maneki Neko @ Apr 18th 2007 1:17AM]

Why are 15" monitors like 100 bucks now and 15" photo frames commanding a premium 299? This has gotta change before they make any significant market penetration.

[Michael @ Apr 18th 2007 1:35AM]

A 15" monitor simply displays a signal sent to it from an external source. A digital photo frame has to not only store images/video, but read them from memory, process and format them for display and THEN send them to the display. Add to the monitor the cost of storage, processor/decoder, card reader/input, audio out as well as a remote control and the price looks a lot less unreasonable.
It's not as though they took an old 15" monitor, did up a nice frame for it, and bumped up the price by 200%.

[Andrew @ Apr 18th 2007 1:25AM]

My biggest pet peeve with current picture frames is the resolution. Second would be the screen size. This frame looks like we're moving in a good direction.

[Hannes @ Apr 18th 2007 4:23AM]

A monitor is just a part of a digital photoframe. Therefore the costs are also higher. Normally the material costs of the LCD panel is about one third. If you add the other components (PCB, outside frame etc.), you pretty much get to the 300$. A digital picture frame is almost a computer and not just a displaying device.

http://www.digital-photo-frame-market.info

[spam_from_engadget @ Apr 18th 2007 5:48AM]

Does anyone have any thoughts about user interfaces? I don't think it's good enough to just plug in a memory card and have it cycle through the pictures with a fixed delay; you need some way to navigate. I haven't seen any frames with a touch-screen; that would add to the cost, and you don't want to get fingerprints all over it, and it might be out of reach. What about an IR remote? Or maybe, if you have WiFi, you just control it from your PC?

As for the price: if you've spent $x on your camera, perhaps you should expect to pay c * $x on a decent frame. (Compare with the cost of a good quality photo printer, perhaps.) And the size: still a bit small, I think.

[Hannes @ Apr 18th 2007 6:07AM]

Most of the digital photo frames now have ir remote control. As for the touch-screen, that would be a good idea, however, I haven't heard of that before.

http://www.digital-photo-frame-market.info

[Chris Houston @ Apr 18th 2007 7:50AM]

The question is what processor is being used, and is it just customer firmware?

What we need is one of these capable of running some form of linux, then we can add drivers for USB Wifi sticks, access all our photos on our local NAS boxes (for the Engadget readers who have them) and access your favourite photo sharing site for the rest of the consumers, companies like Google could add a YouTube extension to display your favourite YouTube videos, the list is endless. And all for $299 or less :)

I have one of the MemoryFrame Wifi frames which when it worked was great, unfortunately the support from the company has been dire, and I wouldn't recommend anyone should buy one, especially if you are running Vista, as they don't support it.

[Who Knew @ Apr 18th 2007 10:03AM]

Acer? used to have a monitor with a built-in card reader for this very purpose.
Said card reader worked without a PC turned on.

Just add this functionally to a some of the existing monitors, I say.

[greatslack @ Apr 18th 2007 1:30PM]

anyone else think it would be cheaper to just, you know, print out the image? Why anyone would pay $299 to display a picture is beyond me.

[Fred @ Apr 18th 2007 2:43PM]

I'm planning to dust off my old ThinkPad A21p and turn it into a digital picture frame... it's also 15", but the resolution is 1600x1200 :).

[Sam Costello @ Apr 18th 2007 3:29PM]

Pandigital actually does have WiFi options, as well as Bluetooth, coming in May. Dean Finnegan, the CEO of Pandigital, mentioned this and a lot more (including their sales figures for 2006 and expectations for 2007) in an interview I did with him recently: http://www.wirelesspictureframe.com/2007/04/05/interview-with-dean-finnegan-pandigital/

[Fergus Kane @ Apr 19th 2007 9:31AM]

Doesn't anyone think that these gadgets are a massive waste of resources? 1. To make them. 2. To keep them running. As greatslack says, print it out. It'll be much higher resolution, much cheaper and much less of a burden on the environment.

[Hannes @ Apr 29th 2007 8:53AM]

I don't think they are a waste of resources. As economist I would say, the market regulates that by itself. If the market demands those products and consumers see more value created than resources used, than it is not waste to produce digital picture frames.

http://www.digital-photo-frame-market.info

[Joe Szafranski @ Jun 5th 2007 4:35PM]

Where can I buy one of these?

[Jeff Clark @ Jun 8th 2007 12:42PM]

I'm with Joe. Where can you get one? I can't find it available anywhere, and it was supposed to be available a month ago.