Austin360 blogs > Digital Savant > Archives > 2007 > December > 07 > Entry
Digital picture frames: Buyer beware
One of the hot gifts this holiday season (if the marketing experts and store circulars are to be believed) is digital picture frames. Suddenly they’re everywhere, and the prices have dipped far below $100.
The problem is that they sound good in theory, but their actual performance varies greatly. And if you just go for a sale item without seeing what the photos on the device will look like when displayed, your gift recipient might end up really disappointed. Here are few things to watch out for if you’re shopping for a frame:
Image quality: In an informal check of some in-store displays, some of the sub-$100 digital picture frames I saw had an extremely pixelated, grainy display, even when in demo mode, which shows text and images touting the camera’s features. The nicer frames (priced north of $150) displayed a much finer image, but still not perfect. Nothing I saw rivaled what a decent inkjet printer could output on a cheap piece of photo paper. Some looked worse that photos I’ve seen on an iPod or on some cell phones.
Memory and media: Almost all the frames you’ll find accept SD or CompactFlash memory cards. Some also do Sony Memory Stick. Don’t expect a frame to do exotic older digital camera formats like XD or SmartMedia (my beloved old bulky Fuji 2-megapixel camera used those flat, easy-to-lose cards). Most frames have some amount of internal memory, but some are as little as 128 megabytes, which is barely enough room for 40 or 50 decent-sized images. If you’re buying a frame for someone, make sure you know what kinds of memory card his or her camera(s) uses and that the frame has a slot for that. An extra memory card preloaded with some favorite photos wouldn’t be a bad thing to include.
Resolution: Here’s where it gets a little tricky. For a 7-inch to 10-inch picture frame. 800 x 600 is a perfectly respectable image size. Some widescreen frames do 800 x 480. If the source images being used are much larger than that, the picture frame has to scale them down and it’s a waste of space. Obviously the higher resolution the frame can do, the better the image will be.
Unnecessary frills: A lot of these now come with speakers and the ability to play MP3s. Ask yourself if you’re really going to be playing music on this thing. Even if you do (to, say, accompany a slide show), don’t expect Bose-quality sound. These things aren’t music machines.
Design: Try to look for a device that can use interchangeable frames. You never know when someone will get tired of that wood grain or white border. Some digital picture frames don’t come with the same frame that’s displayed on the floor model. Watch out for that, too. Additional frame styles cost about $10-$20, depending on the model.
As with photos, image quality is everything: On a purchase like this, it’s really worth seeing the display in person to make sure it satisfies your eye. This is one purchase I wouldn’t make online, sight unseen. Just check out the reader reviews of this picture frame to get an idea of what can happen.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment Categories: Gadgets, Shopping
Comments
Click here to report comment abuse.
By randy
December 7, 2007 8:38 PM | Link to this
Omar, My Mom and Dad are in their 80's. Eyes are still good, but both not digital, though Dad can use a computer. I want a simple system, probably with a 10 inch screen that they can operate very simply. I can preload photos on the memory card (they are thousand miles away) and periodically send them another memory card with more pictures etc. Would like to stay under $200. Any suggestions?
Omar replies: In my little shopping trip, I saw a Kodak model for about $180 that looked easy to operate. This Philips model on Amazon comes with a 1-Gigabyte memory card and has some good customer ratings. This other model has great customer ratings, but is out of stock. You might be able to find it at a local camera store like Precision or Wolf.
For under $200, you should definitely find some good models that fit your needs. It's the $60-$70 ones where you really need to watch yourself. Good luck!