It’s easy to predict some “holidays” by consumer electronics announcements. End-of-the-year celebrations? Big TVs, video games, and video cameras start hitting retailers in October. Halloween? Scary graphics and wireless child-tracking systems for parents start flooding the market in late September. And Mothers’ Day? Why, that would be the Holiday for Digital Photo Frames.
To that end, ViewSonic has announced a total of 10 new 7-inch, 8-inch, and 10-inch digital photo frames to make it easy to put images of consumers most cherished moments on bright, backlit, wholesome display anywhere in their house.
“The digital age has become ubiquitous, but people still want a way to display their content in the ‘old fashioned’ way,” said ViewSonic Americas VP Steve Woo, in a statement. “ViewSonic brings its award-winning heritage in high-quality display technology to this category, making these frames an obvious, affordable choice for gift-giving this spring.”
(Gift-giving. Got that?)
The 10-inch DPX1002 supports JPEG and BMP images, Motion JPEG and MPEG4 video, and can even handle playback of MP3 music for folks who can’t bear the thought of looking at an image without an accompanying soundtrack. The display boasts a 1,024 by 600-pixel resolution, 400 cd/m2 brightness, and a 400:1 contrast ratio, along with a remote control and integrated utilities like a calendar and alarm clock.
The 7- and 8-inch models offer similar features, albeit with a 800 by 480-pixel display and 800 by 600-pixel display, respectively, and it doesn’t look like the 7-incher can handle MP3 audio. All three frames sport 256 MB of internal memory and USB connectivity.
ViewSonic is offering 7, 8, and 10-inch frames in a modern high-gloss white, albeit with 128 MB of memory. The frames are available now at suggested prices of $139, $149, and $179 for the 7-, 8-, and 10-inch models, respectively—although ViewSonic isn’t clear whether those prices apply to the 256 MB or 128 MB versions. But, remember, Mothers’ Day is just around the corner.
