It would be very easy to see digital photo frames as a gimmick, but they're simply the best and easiest way to show off your pictures.
You could print them out and stick them in an album to show your friends. You could download your shots to a PC then gather around the screen. You could show them on a big-screen TV -- via a camera cable, or the memory card if the TV is swank. Or, if you're technologically advanced, you could stream them via a wireless network from your PC through an Xbox 360, Apple TV or the like. Or you could just take the memory card out of your camera, plug it into a digital photo frame and leave it displaying a slide show to anyone who's interested. And interested they will be.
The latest to cross the Connect desk is this Echologic Digital Picture Frame and it's a real cracker, able to play JPEG photos and Motion-JPEG AVI videos. The five models offered range from a $249 eight-inch model with black acrylic frame to our review unit, a $369 10.2-incher with red wood frame.
It appealed to me for its traditional looks (the beige matte is a nice touch) and great-sized screen. The Philips PhotoFrame is the only one on the market that can match the Echologic in quality, and though the Dutch company makes a nine-inch model, they sell only the seven-inch in Australia. So if you want a picture you can see across the room, this Echologic is your only real option.
Another big selling point is the Echologic's screen quality. It has a resolution of 800x480 pixels in a 15:9 format, and has a nice wide viewing angle, which is where many similar frames fall down.
It takes SD, CF and Memory Stick cards plus USB flash drives, and has 128MB of internal memory for storing your favourite photos. Operation is via six buttons behind the frame on top, or a micro-remote control. You can rotate, copy and delete your photos on the unit, plus adjust the contrast, brightness, colour and tint of the display. And if English isn't your first language, you can display menus in Italian, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese or Dutch. You can also play music while viewing a slideshow.
And it's easy to operate. On my Mac I created an iPhoto album of the pictures I wanted to display, then dragged and dropped them on to a USB flash drive. Then I went into iTunes and dragged the AAC-formatted tracks from Missy Higgins' new album, On a Clear Night, straight from the iTunes menu into the flash drive. Eject the drive, plug it into the Echologic frame, choose Music, hit Play on the remote then press the Slideshow button and voila! Pictures with a soundtrack. The process took three minutes. The sound, it must be said, could be dramatically improved with better speakers: the treble on the two-watters inside can be jarring.
The only other negative is it lacks a rechargeable battery. It uses a 9V feed from a power brick.