Digital photo frames get your pictures out of your computer and into your home

I had every intention of writing up our digital photo frame as a hack -- we got it as a thank-you freebie (!) for one of Rael's conference speaking gigs, and it's one of our favorite gadgets. Finally, we could display our digital photos without dragging our friends over to the computer (something we do with tiresome regularity...ask them). Of all the technocrap embellishing our house, this gets the most attention from guests. They look at the frame expecting to see a snapshot, and are shocked when the picture changes before their very eyes. Our kids love to sit and watch all the photos go by, especially at night when the room is dark. Unfortunately they knocked it down one too many times, and the wooden frame fell off.

So, you can imagine my response when Charlie offered to send me a new-and-improved Philips model for review.

The Philips frame (official name: Philips 7" Digital Photo Display 7FF1) looks sleek on the side table, with its clear lucite-and-chrome profile. (A wooden outer frame would have been nice. It looks like the version listed at Amazon has that option.) The upload interface took some fiddling -- the buttons in back aren't well-labeled and the interface is illogical -- but once we got the hang of it, we were able to proceed with a minimum of fuss. You can upload photos via your camera's memory card or a USB connection. Nice touch: you can rotate the orientation of your photos once they're inside the frame.

The display on the Philips model is much crisper than on our old Pacific Digital MemoryFrame. Our kids especially loved the various transition effects one can apply -- "roll-up" was the winner by far. Our favorite feature: a "sleep" mode that turns the frame off during the hours you specify.

My only major beef with this frame is its price -- just under $200. In general, digital photo frames are still surprisingly expensive given the widespread use of digital cameras. If you can handle the pricetag, however, it's a great way to bring your digital photos into your home.

Tags: Digital picture frames, Digital photography

Comments

[Phil]

Wow, it's been a long time since I saw something on the web that I really really wanted to buy, but there it is... Gotta start saving up!

[CincyDaddy]

We got my grandmother a Ceiva digital picture frame, because it allows you to email pictures to the frame, or upload via a browser!

So now my grandmother doesn't have to fiddle with anything, and every night at 2am the frame dials in to the Ceiva website and grabs whatever new photos are there. She absolutely loves it, and I love being able to send her photos whenever I want.

[C Brannon]

I agree there has got to be a better way than paying $200. Sure, the LCD is the most expensive part of a photo frame, but for much less than $200 you can buy a portable DVD player with a 7" screen.

Hack-wise, the question is whether you can adapt something like a portable DVD player to be a picture frame. For example, I removed the screws holding the screen on an old laptop so that I could fold the screen to lie on the back of the notebook, kind of like you can do with tablet PCs. The only remaining challenge would be to mount it in a frame and supply power to it. (Running a power plug to a photo frame hanging on your wall isn't the greatest thing aesthetically, but none of these things can run off of battery for very long.)

Unfortunately the laptop died before I could complete the project but I'm still wondering if there is a cheaper way to DIY, instead of buying an off the shelf photo frame.

Other possibilities include framing a JuiceBox player (commonly discounted to less than $20 with SD-card access) or using an old PDA.

Advances in LCD/OLED and in e-paper should provide us with real alternatives in the next year or so.

[Ike]

Digital frames are still too expensive, especially with kids around to break them!

I'll get my photos printed and frame them. We even have some cheap frames that let you cycle through a short stack of photos.