Digital Photo Frames....PAH!

Great concept, terrible implementation.

I understand that Grandma, Grandpa, and Great Aunt Sally would like to see all those digital photo's that we all take and never print, but with some frames costing $200 and up, I have to wonder: "What are these marketing goofs thinking?". Many of these devices have a meager amount of memory... which is confusing when you can buy 2gig of flash memory (SD/CF/thumbdrive) for under $15 bucks in many places. Most digital frames also have a modem, a 640 x 480 resolution display, and a couple buttons on the front or back. The concept is you will buy one of these devices, load SOME pictures in its meager memory, and then update it for your senior relative via a provided website when you have new pictures.....but because of the minuscule memory of most devices, you'll have to either scale down your picture size or force the existing pictures off the frame (this requires the frame be connected to a phone line as well). Many of the frames have card slots, but few of them have all-in-one slots that can use a card from ANY camera (and those ones are $$$). Many of the lower end devices cannot take photos over a certain resolution, so if you have a newer camera, you will have to downsize your photos....which causes a snafu on many of these frames....THEY CANNOT DISPLAY AN EDITED PHOTO!!! Many of them cannot even display a photo that you have rotated clockwise/counter-clockwise to display the correct way via most photo editing programs, so if you resize/rotate your 5 mega-pixel shots to fit on your 1 mega-pixel-max photo frame....IT WON'T DISPLAY ANYWAY!! All frames don't suffer from this shortcoming, but many low and mid level models...even from name brand companies like Kodak do. Some companies are close to getting it right, but even they have some shortcomings. First off, these frames need to be re-evaluated in the market. Many folks would like them, even us kids under 60.... ;)
...but they just don't provide enough bang for the buck technology-wise. When you can by a 19 inch widescreen LCD display for $149 (that can connect to your computer and your TV), do you really want to be popping $300 on a low res digital photo frame? There are LCD TV's with HD tuners going for this price now!
Also, why would you pop $200 for one of these frames when you can burn years of photos on a $2 DVD that Mom/Dad/Grandma/Grandpa/Great Aunt Sally can play in their DVD player on their TV (tech that they are much more familiar with) when ever they want?
Trying to package tech in a "continual-purchase" scheme (pay for the frame, then pay for the photo update service after the first year, etc) is a mistake with the senior crowd.

Here's what I'd like to see in these frames in two catagories, one for the senior set, and another type for everyone else.

In the "senior" model, I'd like to see a top price around $100-$120 with the following features:
One or two gig of internal memory; You know, Grandma doesn't really want to delete those old pictures off the frame to add more....she wants them ALL.
Drop the Modem and online features altogether, replace it with at LEAST a USB port for a flash drive, camera, or PC transfer. Card slots would be nice. In my opinion, if you're going to provide slots, at least provide all the current ones in production (SD/CF/MS and xD). The frame should be able to display the picture even if it is edited (as long as it is not of bizarre dimensions, and even then, it should stretch/shrink the display to try and make it fit).

In the "techie" model, I'd like to see a top price around $300....but only if it has the following features:

All the features of the "senior" model.
5 gig of flash memory
Higher resolution display...and bigger.
Full card reader (for all formats past and present)
Multiple format support (.jpg, .tiff, .gif, and RAW)
WiFi, ethernet, USB to PC (and can be pointed/directed to photos on network).
TV out and IN (RCA)
VGA/HDMI out and in (If I'm going to pop 300 clams, I'd better be able to use it for a TV and a computer monitor)
At this price, I'd also like to see it also play video files in both Windows Media and QuickTime formats and maybe some others.

At this point we're scraping the surface of the more costly multi-media players.
So for a few bucks more you'd expect to see "surprise and delight" features like a touch screen with a simple browser included, another would be a TV tuner...considering how manufactures complain how much it cost them for the batteries and charging circuitry in their portable devices, I don't think it's a lot to ask to have these features in a larger, power-plug-bound device at a lower cost than the portable versions.

I've seen some of these cheapo frames for sale in bubble-paks in Walgreens, Wal-Mart and the like....
Do I want to pay $129 for something that is bubble packaged and doesn't really do want I wanted it to anyways?

Do I have to answer that question?

I expect to see most of the current crop of low to mid-range digital frames relegated to the bargain bins and the tech isle at Big Lots within the next 6 months, probably for about $25.....even then....I wouldn't bother buying one.