Review: D-Link Wireless Internet Photo Frame

Tag : wireless networking

Review: D-Link Wireless Internet Photo Frame
By Gerry Blackwell
August 18, 2008


Digital picture frames—LCD panels that sit upright on a tableor shelf, or hang on the wall to display images—are a coolidea, and they’ve suddenly become a hot consumer item. Butmost are a pain to use.
They rarely have enough onboard memory to hold a reasonableselection of photos and the only way you can add pictures is byinserting a camera card or, in some cases, plugging in a USB drive.Most are also pretty much single-application devices: displayinglocally stored images is all they can do.
D-Link is trying to change that. Its DSM-210 Wireless InternetPhoto Frame ($290) connects to a home (or office) Wi-Fi network andlets you pull images from computers on the network. It connects tothe Internet, as well, to pull images and information from the Web,including from photo sharing and social media sites, such asFlickr, Picasa and Facebook.
You can also control the DSM-210, in limited ways, over the networkfrom a PC using a Yahoo widget developed by D-Link for the purpose.The DSM-210 is not perfect, but it’s a creditable first forayinto a new product category for D-Link. The wireless and Internetfeatures make it a big improvement on most other digital frames outthere.
That said, D-Link was not the first with a Wi-Fi picture frame.Kodak introduced wireless frames two years ago, though without theInternet functionality. And there are others available now as well.The wonder is that manufacturers don’t include Wi-Fi on all orat least more of their products. It makes the device so much moreuseful and convenient.
D-Link originally unveiled the DSM-210 in January, but then wentback to the drawing board to refine the product. It’s finallyavailable now for $290 from the company’s Web site. The Screen
The screen is a 10-inch (diagonal) 800x480-pixel TFT LCD. It’s good enough for the kind of photo viewing you dowith a product like this, and the screen size, but it won’tshow off your pictures to absolute best advantage. If you get tooclose, for example, you can see the dots. A more serious flaw: nocontrast or brightness controls.
None of these are flaws unique to the DSM-210, however. The samecan be said of many, possibly most, digital frames. In fact, thescreen in this one is better than in some we’ve looked at.
Given that LCD monitors double the size sell for as little as $200and Wi-Fi adapters for less than $50, the price for theDSM-210—just based on the componentry—seems a tad steep.You pay a premium presumably because so few other frame productshave the networking capabilities. The 10-inch Wi-Fi frame fromKodak lists for $270, for example.
The DSM-210’s screen is set in a plain charcoal-coloredplastic frame with rounded corners. The kit also includes a clip-onwhite face plate, so it should fit in just about any décor.