Pandigital Digital Photo Frame Software For Mac
Leigha Keplinger
Seems like a no-brainer. Frame an LCD with a card reader slapped on the back and -- presto! -- you've got a digital photo frame. The idea isn't new. Early attempts like those from Ceiva Logic in 1999 even featured a built-in modem to dial into online accounts and refresh the subject matter nightly.
In fact, it's easier to think of a digital frame as a television than a frame. You'd never frame a portrait in a horizontal frame with big black bars inside the mat on the left and right sides. But you'd put up with that on a television.
With the house quiet, we made a little space on the dresser topped with family photos and slipped Pandigital's 8-inch frame amongst them. We had a few recent pictures from the snow country on an SD card, so we put that in, fired it up and let the slide show run.
Several companies are offering affordable digital frames now, among them Digital Foci, Digital Spectrum, Fidelity Electronics, Kodak, Pandigital, Smartparts and Westinghouse, all of which showed their wares at PMA 2007. Pandigital sent us a review unit before the show (where we met with them), on which this report is based. Smartparts, for its part, has developed simplified transfer software to copy images into its frame's internal memory. The company also offers telephone support.
While the hardware used by each of these companies seems to come from just a few sources, the software is home grown. Westinghouse, for example, can simultaneously display two images and, with its MosaicView technology, show three images on the screen at the same time. Fidelity is developing small format LCD frames to replace those family photos on your office credenza as well as larger ones designed to be used in store windows. And Digital Spectrum has a Vista-ready wireless frame that can display images in your My Pictures directory. Kodak's EasyShare digital picture frames also have wireless support and add PictBridge printing capability as well.
The Pandigital frames are based on a "personal media" (MP3 player) chipset rather than the DVD chipset designed for portable DVD players that is commonly used in other frames. The company says that provides faster image loading, music playback during a slide show, faster copying to internal memory and an easy-to-use menu interface. The frames are also quite affordable.
In Las Vegas, Pandigital President Dean Finnegan told us the company sold 520,000 frames in the last quarter of 2006. Seventy percent of the buyers were female and they bought an average of 1.8 frames, coming back for a second frame after the delight of experiencing the first. The frames are in 6,000 retail outlets including Macy's, Mervyn's, Office Depot, JC Penney, Linens 'N Things and more.
We asked why the 8-inch frame we're reviewing is so bright compared to the LCD monitors connected to our computers (the nice LCD monitors, we should say). Finnegan explained that particular model (which can display millions of colors, we were told, but see below) doesn't use fluorescent lamps to illuminate the screen but backlit LEDs. And newer Pandigital frames will all use that technology.
Pandigital sent us their 8-inch LCD digital photo frame with 800x600 pixels resolution and 128-MB internal memory retailing for under $200. A 6-inch model is available for $114.99. All Pandigital frames include a 90-day parts and labor warranty.
Pandigital told us the LCD was "capable" of showing 16 million colors (24-bit color), but our experience suggests it is only showing thousands of colors (16-bit), like every other digital frame out there.
With 2006 sales exploding 300 to 400 percent over 2005 for some manufacturers, digital picture frames are one hot ticket. But a lot of these sales were driven by holiday gift giving. And who looks a gift horse in the mouth?
Pandigital's 8.0-inch frame is a bargain that can perform a lot of useful tricks, too. And the choice of frames is quite versatile, fitting into a more traditional room design with its black wood frame or a trendy loft with its clear acrylic frame. By June (another holiday season), the company promises even more tricks (like timers, battery power and WiFi) -- all of which strike us as good ideas. Pandigital is keen on keeping the price down and getting the product on the shelves we all walk by, too. What else could you possibly ask for?
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