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3 
Dads,
Grads and Summer Fun Tech Gift Guide 2008 continued
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Now that you bought the camera, or maybe you already have one, you
need something neat to display them on instead of firing up a computer
or printing the pictures. The latest rage and one that have finally
matured into many great products are the digital picture frames. But
be careful, there are still plenty of junky digital frames around.
Digital Picture or Photo Frames -
We looked at a bunch of digital frames over the last few months and
some we loved and some we hated either because of poor visual display
quality or LCD aspect ratio. Frames are being marketed in two different
LCD “shapes” for lack of a better term for the ratio of
width to height. One “shape” ratio (mathematically expressed
as x.y) is the familiar 3:4 ratio (actually (1.33:1) like the old standard
TV picture screen or ALL photo formats of either film or digital cameras.
The other digital frame “shape” ratio is 16:9 (1.78:1),
like many modern notebook computers, your new HDTV or maybe a HD Camcorder.
We frankly don’t get the 16:9 ratio for a digital frame that
are meant to display your digital photos from your digital camera,
maybe your cell phone camera, which are all 4:3 aspect ratio … not
16:9! While some digital frames may display video (AVI mostly, much
fewer MPEG-1 and MPEG-4, MOV), we’ve yet to talk to buyers that
wants them for that and only some video camcorders are 16:9 formats.
If you display your 4:3 ratio pictures on a 16:9 ratio digital frame,
you will end up with to two huge ugly blank areas on either side of
your beautiful photos, unless you edit your pictures with a program
like Photoshop…. toooo much work. We don’t recommend 16:9
ratio digital frames unless you want to edit every picture you take
to match the 16:9 ratio of those frames. Then it looks great.
OK, we loved two
recently arrived frames, because of display quality, competitive
prices and neat-factor features. First one is the Philips
model 8FF3FPB 8-Inch LCD Photo Frame, which displays 800x600 resolution
in 4:3 ratio, four different viewing formats: individual photo, thumbnails,
collages and slideshow6 in 1 flash card reader, and you can copy, delete,
rotate, zoom, effect (black/white and sepia) and crop right from the
frame.
Click images to enlarge
Philips developed the exclusive
photo enhancement technologies: ImagEn and SmartContrast for their photo
frame line which automatically
analyzed
and adjusted for correct color and optimal contrast; making up for a
lot of less than desirable photographer technique. RadiantColor auto
fits smaller photos to match the desired 4:3 ratio by extending the color
to the edges, eliminating black bars and aspect ratio distortion. The
only big downside is that this digital frame only has 10MB of built in
memory, so you’ll have to rely on leaving the flash card in the
frame for picture viewing.
List price for the Philips 8FF3FPB 8-Inch LCD Photo Frame is $139.95,
but you’ll find Internet store street prices down around $129.00
The new Pandigital
PanTouch™ 8-inch (4:3 ratio) frame. Like the previous
great frames from Pandigital, the display quality is awesome; it comes
with a wireless remote control, 6-in-1 memory card readers and standard
and mini USB 2.0 ports for digital cameras, computers, and thumb drives;
supports MP3 and AVI video playback.
But
here is the uber neat factor to the Pandigital, the PanTouch which
gives you a cleaver and patented
touch-operation interface along the matt area of the frame adjacent
to the software based icons. Various icons let you control all the
operations
of the PanTouch without having to find the remote you’ve temporarily
misplaced. The icons fade out after you’ve finished your selections
and are intuitive in operation.
click
image
The PanTouch line is comprised of three models that are all Wi-Fi and
Bluetooth –compatible with an optional adapter available from Pandigital
on their site, so users can transfer photos to the frame via a Wi-Fi
connection or sync the frame with a Bluetooth-enabled phone. The 8-inch
also features 512MB of internal memory for transferring into the frame
for storage and a resolution of 800 by 600.You can also program the on
and off times, clock, calendar, alarm clock functions. The image “page
turn” effect is just too cool and adds even more elegance to this
tech wonder.
PanTouch
on screen file menu
Need a bigger frame, please consider the Pandigital 10.4-inch PanTouch High-Definition Digital Photo Frame which offers 1024-by-768 HD resolution and all the same features. The Pandigital PanTouch 8-inch retails for $169.99 and the 10.4-inch is $249.99. Both are so new, we couldn’t find any discounts yet, but trust me that it is worth the retail price.
***
We
think it’s fair to warn you about a few very poor
quality digital photo frames to avoid at all costs, even though they
are usually the cheapest. LCD display quality was pretty bad on the Mustek,
Coby and CTA. The built-in menu functions generally range from nearly
non-existent to virtually unusable. Also, the Coby “Digital Photo
Key Chain” with 1.5-inch LCD is so dim that you will barely be
able to see your images. Do not be sucked in by low prices and brands
you never heard of in closeout stores or online dealers.
Well that’s it, a great list of solid tech gadget gifts for a great
Dad, Graduate or just some good Summer fun.
© 2008
Tech Edge E-zine
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