VERDICT
The world’s cutest-ever digital photo frame will bring a smile to your face
PROS
Fun design; FM tuner; video player; calendar; alarm clock; rechargeable battery
CONS
Poor build quality; noisy buttons; nightmare menu system; limited file support
COMPANY
Brando
http://usb.brando.com.hk
What is a digital picture frame and who wants one? A digital picture frame is the latest gadget for showing off your digital photos. If you’re like most people, you have an extensive collection of digital images on your PC or laptop, but they rarely see the light of day. Enter the digital picture frame. A digital picture frame lets you show off your digital photo collection to friends and family when they come to visit in a way which will still fit into your home’s interior style – and without booting your PC! Digital picture frames are designed to look like traditional picture frames and come in many colours, styles and finishes so you’re sure to find one to match your home’s internal furnishings.
Brando’s QTV Digital Photo Frame is unlike anything else on the market. The amazingly cute gizmo is designed to look like a 1960s TV set, along with replica antenna and huge controls buttons. The QTV Digital Photo Frame is not only a digital photo frame, but also an FM radio, audio and video player. In addition to its built-in a rechargeable Lithium-ion battery (AC adapter also provided) and the cutesy portable design, you can now share your photos with your friends and colleagues when you go travel. Although it doesn’t have any built-in memory, you can plug in an SD/SDHC/MMC memory card or USB flash drive as an input storage. It’s fancy stuff for your desk!
Other niceties of this novelty gadget (120x60x100mm, 214g) include a 3.5-inch (320×234 pixels) TFT LCD display, built-in mono speaker and 3.5mm headphone jack. Functionality includes a photo viewer, music playback, alarm clock, calendar, and video playback. The FM radio supports 76MHz to 108MHz frequencies, and you can even run slideshows with background music. Video formats supported include the popular AVI, MPEG-4, DIVX and Xvid, but image support is limited to JPEG.
The QTV Digital Photo Frame is undeniably adorable, but there are some issues. Most noticeable is that the build quality is poor – the LCD inside our review model was not centred and rattled around when shook lightly! The menu system is a nightmare to navigate because you’re never sure which of the three buttons or 4-way joystick you’re meant to press, and the buttons are the loudest on earth when pressed. Furthermore, removing a memory card is tricky because it’s almost eaten whole and the volume dial is highlighted with a tacky peel-off sticker. And when we stuck in a USB flash stick, the menu system grinded to a holt and the frame became unusable.
In the most basic mode, all you need to do is plug in your memory card and the frame will display your photos either as a single image or as a slideshow (selectable from the menu). A nice feature to have in a frame is internal memory, but sadly there isn’t any here. Internal memory allows you to transfer your digital photographs to the memory of the digital picture frame and to continue displaying your photo’s even after retrieving your memory card to fill up with more photos. The USB interface is handy because it lets you use the QTV Digital Photo Frame as a memory card reader. Sadly, you can’t transfer images. As expected for the price there is no Wi-Fi or integration to photo sharing sites like Flickr.
While a high-tech digital picture frame has many benefits for the more technically minded, the rest of us looking to liven up our deskspace, kitchen or living room, may be interested in Brando’s QTV Digital Photo Frame. It’s a compact and portable frame, and is sure to bring a smile to your face. If you don’t mind its quirkiness and sub-par build quality, you won’t be disappointed. The QTV Digital Photo Frame is available in pink or yellow and can only be purchased online for $89 (£60).
