Mother’s Day is coming up soon, so I’ve been shopping for some digital picture frames to load and send out to the multiple moms in my family. Boy, are they pricey! Local stores are selling them for around $99 apiece. That’s too much for my budget, which hovers around $50 apiece. So I’m heading online to see if better deals can be found.

PriceGrabber says there are about 160 digital picture frame options listed in its database.

For example, there’s the miniature Axion 1.1-inch mini-digital picture frame that’s heart-shaped and comes in pink. No idea how many images the heart-shaped frame holds, because the description doesn’t tell. But I do know the resolution is 96×64 and that you need to load it from a PC, the way you’d load files onto a USB drive — by plugging it into a USB port. For $20, it’s a bargain, until you realize that the product name appears front and center, which kind of makes it look like something you’d pick up for free at a computer tradeshow. Sweetness rating: 1 heart.

Now, here’s an interesting addition to the offerings — an egg-shaped picture frame from Tricod. This also is about 1.1 inches in size, but it comes in a more tasteful silver — or blue, gray, pink or red. Since it has a tiny ring at the top, it can hang from a pendant or be used as a keychain. This one holds 56 images and includes software that will resize your photos automatically for you. It costs about $30. Sweetness rating: 3 hearts.

If you want to offer a wallet too, here’s a useful $40 item: The Women’s Digital Photo Wallet. The memory stores 55 color images, which show up on a screen that’s 1.4 inches on the diagonal (as are all the sizes I’ve referenced here). Also, the viewer is rechargeable, which means you don’t need to buy new batteries. The disadvantage of this offering, however, is that it’s wallet-based. Wallets are usually something you can pick out for a guy, in my experience (think Father’s Day), but not something most of my female friends and family members would cotton to. They have their special needs. Sweetness rating: 2 hearts.

For the more traditionally minded among us (and those of us who spend time trying to figure out appropriate Mother’s Day gifts could truly be called traditionally-minded), here’s a sub-$50 frame from Matsunichi (Mitsubishi’s less well known cousin). This is a 5.6-inch frame with 320×234 resolution. Here’s the tricky part to this frame though: You have to load your own memory card into the frame. It doesn’t have built-in memory. That’s great if you already have memory cards to hand over to the gift recipient. If you don’t have extra cards, that’ll be an extra expense (but it does allow you to supply a new card every year without having to worry about supplying a new frame too). Also, reviewers report that if you lose the documentation, you’ll never figure out how the frame operates because it’s not intuitive. On the other hand, they say the resolution is excellent for the price. Sweetness rating: 2 hearts (because for that price it only comes in black).

After a bit of pondering my options, I’m thinking the egg is my choice here. Why? It’s totally, weirdly appropriate for Mother’s Day, no?

Posted on April 24th, 2008 by dian