Yeah, we know; next to
pico projectors it's hard to find any bit of technology more boring than digital photo frames. These days they don't catch our eye unless they can
print pictures of your pre-school beauty queen or integrate some unexpected combination of
networking hardware. Still, they're selling like hotcakes, set to be in 25 percent of "broadband households" by the end of the year. Adoption in dial-up households has not been revealed but we're guessing it's... slower. For those folks we recommend the first ever
analog digital frame that may not print anything or hit Flickr or even automatically cycle through those pictures in that hidden directory you forgot about, but it is at least made entirely of wood, which makes it better for the environment than CFL LCDs. And, at just $25 from ThinkGeek, it's a perfect holiday gift -- for yourself.
posted Oct 28th 2009 7:37AM
Still no digital frames in my house. I really don't think they're worth the $$ if you want one that's decent size.
Still Its very much costly. They need to reduce the cost of the digital photo frames.
That is because as they increase in size, the manufacturers tend bloat them up with additional functionality which causes the cost to spiral out of control.
For instance, WiFi support is cool - but is it really a necessity? How often do you update your pictures? Is it really worth the extra 30 bucks that the manufacturer slaps on just so you don't have to walk between your picture frame and your computer holding a memory card?
Manufacturers need to go back to basics. I can think of several things they can do to the software to add value which won't increase the cost. Throwing WiFi, Bluetooth and remote controls won't solve the problem of them being too damn expensive.
Richard, my wifi photo frame mixes pictures from my parents, my sister's family, and my own family. Sometimes the first place we learn about the extended family's doings is on that frame. It's easy for me because they all use http://ourdoings.com/ but you could probably use Yahoo Pipes to mix feeds from different photo sites. The extra 30 bucks was worth it.
Except Bruce that most users don't want or need those added functions and so the price increase is not worth it to us.
For me to get one it would need a video-in or vga or displayport or hdmi or other computer graphics connector, and have decent angles.
So no I don't have one, but I do have broadband.
Always nice to special and belong to the exclusive ..erm.. 75%
Thats..Perfectly UGLY holiday gift.
Crapgadget!
I thought it looked pretty sweet, actually. But I have absolutely no use for a photo frame, except to sit there and be useless. If you could add a cheap 2.5" drive in one and have it act as a wifi photo+music dlna/upnp server, i may rethink it, but right now I'm pretty good.
"It's a video will. It shows you killing him."
Digital photo frames are nice and trendy.
I was thinking about purchasing one, and pulling some wallpapers from interfaceLIFT. Throw is some ambient music as an MP3 file and you got yourself a chill frame.
Oh and Android. That would make sense.
Yah, I've been toying with the idea of getting one for a while too.
I was gonna have it cycle through Playboy centerfolds and put it on my mantle or maybe on the coffee table.
My Photo frames is 2 netbooks, similar size but more capable than just showing pictures.
so you just leave computers laying around on your shelves+tables?
"a manually-applied representation of a computer interface which holds your printed image which was probably taken on a digital camera".
Talk about black whole/time warp/paradox...... And people are afraid of the CERN LHC???
this is what you need to worry about!!
With my Apple TV, I have a 50" digital picture frame.
Yeah we do that with our Sony in the living room, it pulls photos from our network and shows them on the screen like a screen saver mode. Better than staring at a DishNetwork label and help messages float around the screen.
I would do that, but my power bill would make me sad.
We have four or five of them around the house, including a 10-11" one in the living room that we scan in the kids big school pictures into in the living room and maybe 7" ones on our computer desks and end tables in the living room. We gave one of the large ones to both sets of Grandparents that sync wireless to a gallery on the web so we can constantly update them. They absolutely love them and must look at them all the time because they mention new photos when we put them in the gallery.
The company I work for gave out two Kodak models to everyone for Christmas like two years ago so you could load up pictures and put on your desk at work and one for home.
$25 for a piece of wood painted like a MacOS window and a pane of glass?
This picture frame is a little too Apple-like for my taste. And I'm not talking about the design.
They are in most houses, because they are cheap presents, horrible cheap laptop monitors and card slots. I've never seen one used with any regularity, they generally take up space in the nearest semi-prominent location in the kitchen or living room, switched off.
I just can't see the appeal in these until they are made with colour e-ink displays. I do not want wires trailing from my photo frame over the fireplace, shelf etc and I do not want it glowing when I turn the lights off to watch a film etc.
That would be a nice product. I really wish someone would come up with an e-ink reader that was not a portable unit but more like a frame. My wife actually loves these frames especially our bigger one as it has touch screen controls on the front. She wants me to put one in the kitchen with all of her cook books scanned into it and mounted on one of the cabinet doors over the counter. She thinks someone should make that product as it would be a great product that a lot of people that like to cook would buy of the home shopping network, ha ha.
Yeah, nice product idea! With power used only when you change the picture, you could probably get many months of life out of a AAA battery. Probably the main obstacle with current technology is getting decent color range and contrast out of color e-ink. If/when that's solved, I can see myself buying one of these.
Bit of a misleading stat. Maybe the better question would be "did you ever buy a digital frame for yourself' - not do you have one in your house or have you ever bought one. The digital frame isn't really popular, it just replaced the regular picture frame as the boring gift you got from that relative, friend or associate that doens't know anything about you.
because chopping down trees for fake digital photo frames is better for the environment
hahaha nice one... thumbs up!
An Apple product shall never step into my house !!!! NEVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
or Applish looking - sorry web-rage :D
and again engadget is trying to sell us some useless piece of merchandize just because it is painted to look as an apple os window. not to say that they proclaim it a perfect x-mas gift...
if this was some windows 7 frame they would rip it apart...
Yeah, wheres the windows version?
The plane carrying them crashed, into the Blue Sea Of Death.
At least they should have made it large enough that you don't have to scroll to see the entire picture.