• Setup is relatively simple, and requires a download of a configuration application. All went smoothly when Wi-Fi reception was possible.

• Its Wi-Fi receiver still isn't strong enough. Even though it could pick up our powerful Wi-Fi network in some areas of our Midwest Test Facility, it couldn't in others, even when sitting in locations where other Wi-Fi devices were able to receive the signal with ease.

• It receives photos via an email address, which is a real kick. It works, too, and the pictures look especially good in the eStarling's 800x600 display. It claims to be the only picture frame to which you can directly email photos, no registration required. Go ahead, surprise us with your best photos—email them to tempamatica AT seeframe.com.

• The eStarling also receives RSS feeds from Flickr, Picasa, AOL, Smugmug, Photobucket or any other RSS feed. That also works quite well.

• The 8" frame looks pretty swank. It has a shiny black finish, although there was an annoying piece of lint pressed between its clear plastic front and the LCD display on our demo unit.

• We like the way the frame's display has a 4x3 aspect ratio, which fits most of the pictures we take around here. No black bars on the top or bottom, or on the sides, either. Nice.

• At $249.95, it's more expensive than most 8-inch picture frames, but with its Wi-Fi capabilities, email accessibility and sharp resolution, it's worth it. [eStarling]

Connected to a Pandigital frame, the Bluetooth connector/adapter pairs with any Bluetooth device, letting you send pictures to the frame and display them in all their glory. The company says the $40 adaptor will be available this month.

Pandigital's Wi-Fi accessory lets the frame connect to a wireless network, letting you transmit pictures to the frame from other computers on the network. Pandigital wasn't specific about whether you'd be able to grab photos from a Flickr account, or email pictures to the frame as you can with the eStarling digital photo frame. The Wi-Fi adapter works with 802.11a/b/g networks, and will be available for $50 in August.

Also rolling out in August is a $50 battery pack that powers the frame for three hours on a charge. The company didn't say which size frame would give you this three-hour battery life, but we're thinking that's not quite long enough to actually be practical. At least it includes a charger, so you won't be needing to buy boatloads of batteries to keep this thing going.

The picture frames have new features added, too. There's a clock function now built in that lets you display your chosen pictures, videos or MP3 files at specified times, and can also be used as an alarm clock (imagine a video of the forest with sounds of chirping birds waking you gently at 6 a.m.). The company also added PictBridge capabilities to the frames, letting you wirelessly transmit a picture in the frame to a PictBridge-capable printer nearby.

Here's a list of the new frames, along with resolutions and pricing:

•15-inch (model PAN150-B) has 256MB of integrated memory, 1024x768 resolution and has a suggested retail price of $299.99.

•11-inch (model PAN111-B) has 256MB of integrated memory, 800x480 resolution and has a suggested retail price of $229.99.

•10.4-inch (model PAN104-B) has 256MB of integrated memory, 800x600 resolution and a suggested retail price of $249.99.

•9-inch (model PAN90-2) has 256MB of integrated memory, 800x480 resolution, and has a suggested retail price of $179.99.

•8-inch (model PAN80-2) has 128MB of integrated memory, 800x480 resolution and has a suggested retail price of $149.99.

•7-inch (model PAN70-1) 128MB of integrated memory, 480x234 resolution and has a suggested retail price of $129.99.

•6-inch (model PAN-602B) has 128MB of integrated memory, 410x234 resolution and has a suggested retail price of $119.99.

Product Site [Pandigital]

Hey, this is looking good! Are there any drawbacks?

The only drawback we can see so far is its steep $350 price. But it looks like its 800x600 resolution is enough to get the job done, and it's just the right size to accommodate standard 8x10 picture frames, giving you the option of enclosing it in your choice of off-the-shelf frames can get anywhere. That's a good idea.

The feature set looks right and the frame is now shipping; now we just need to try it out and see how it looks. It certainly can't be any worse than that dreadful eStarling digital picture frame we just finished reviewing. – Charlie White

Product Page [Digital Spectrum Solutions, Inc.]

After that, get the real story on that eStarling picture frame, a second attempt at a Wi-Fi enabled display that flops just as badly as the first one did. Then Charlie and Stephen really separate the coolness from the lukewarm with their Rapid Fire Roundup of Cool Products they've seen during the week. It's all on the Coolness Roundup, a free download from the iTunes store or you can get it straight from the show's official website.

Program Site [Coolness Roundup]

At first we were startled to see a picture of the new eStarling picture frame on the front of the box, again showing that ugly eStarling logo that so marred the first iteration of the frame, except now it was on the bottom middle of the frame instead of the top right as it was before. But once we got it out of the box, it there was nary a logo to be found. In fact, it looks great. It has an attractive piano black finish that looks simple, elegant and nearly perfect. Come on over to the next page, and we'll tell you what else we noticed about this eStarling 2.0.

Also gone was that horrendous Wi-Fi antenna that stuck out the top like a stupid-looking sore thumb. Its 480x234 screen, measuring 7 inches diagonally, looked sufficiently big to be seen from a distance. Aside from the fact that there was no documentation or CD included in the package whatsoever, it was a promising out-of-box experience.

But wait a second here. That screen has almost a 16x9 aspect ratio, and it's not 4x3 either. It's neither one nor the other, and that gave us pause. It won't fit 4x3 photos which are the shape of most shots taken by consumers these days, nor will it fit 16x9 pics. There are going to be black bars on the screen somewhere in most cases. Uh-oh.

We loaded up some photos on a CompactFlash card and took a look at them in the frame, and were immediately disappointed with its low resolution. Not only were the pixels easily visible, the viewing angle of the screen was severely narrow. As we moved more than 45 degrees off-axis, the picture got significantly dimmer. Not good. Even looking at it straight on, the pictures looked noticeably dim.

Eager to set up the eStarling and explore its Wi-Fi and RSS feed capabilities, we went to the seeframe.com website, which serves as the repository for eStarling photos as well as the coordination point for RSS feed and emailed pictures that go directly to the frame. We set up the frame by downloading a small application from this website, and then connected the frame to a PC via its USB port. After noting our Wi-Fi network's ID, in choosing an email address, the eStarling congratulated us, telling us that "your frame is get connected and ready to use." Great, now we have set up us the bomb, and all your base are belong to us.

We entered the address of our Flickr RSS feed on this website, and also emailed a few pictures to our brand-new email address given to us by eStarling's seeframe.com site, and then it was time to sit back and wait for the pictures to appear on the frame that was connected to our Wi-Fi network. A few minutes later, there were a couple of the pictures from our Flickr RSS feed. The photos that we had emailed hadn't yet appeared, though. Anyway, it appeared that the Wi-Fi reception and connectivity problems of the ill-fated first version of the eStarling pitcher frame had been solved.

However, never mind that. The piss-poor image quality of this LCD panel made all that completely unimportant. The eStarling's screen is absolutely unacceptable. We tried displaying digital pictures of all different resolutions and aspect ratios on it, and all of them looked like we were viewing them on a cheap TV set. Yes, the images were in color, but that's about it. The display was just downright dim, blurry, and you could see scanlines and jaggies all through images that are normally tack-sharp. This display was so bad that it almost hurt our eyes to look at it.

The eStarling has improved since its first version, but until its manufacturer sees fit to put a display on board that has higher resolution than what you might find on a disposable kid's toy, we'd say you'd be making a big mistake to buy this eStarling picture frame. It has the worst LCD display we've ever seen—bad enough to make you want to send it back immediately. And that's just what we're going to do, again. – Charlie White

Product Page [eStarling]

PF Digital promises the following improvements in the eStarling photo frame:

- Full Wi-Fi range of at least 120 feet
- New motherboard and updated firmware
- Internal antenna not visible from the outside of the frame
- New front bezel design with no eStarling logo on the front of the frame
- Standalone feature allows frame to pull photos from any POP e-mail address without needing to connect to the eStarling server
- View photos on a media card without needing a wi-fi Internet connection

The last we heard from ThinkGeek, a new Wi-Fi transmitter was in the offing, which the company said would be shipped to us within a few weeks. Fast-forward six weeks, when we received this e-mail yesterday afternoon.

Clicking through the link on the e-mail, it was a simple matter to sign up for this recall program, which includes free shipping of the new unit, and a shipping label to return the hapless version 1.0 as soon as version 2.0 arrives. ThinkGeek will also accept returns of version 2.0 if doesn't measure up for 30 days after receiving it.

It's a remarkable effort on the part of ThinkGeek to make good on a product that was certainly not up to snuff. Nice move, ThinkGeek. We'll keep you updated, dear readers and fellow eStarling sufferers, on what happens. – Charlie White

Support (links to press release) [eStarling]

Momento will also be able to stream picture galleries (such as Flickr) via RSS, forward pictures from your inbox to other Momento Live users, and you can also send photos to the frame from your camera phone. If this really works, it'll slam-dunk that ill-fated eStarling. Both the 10.2-inch Momento100 and the 7-inch Momento70 will be available February 1. No word on the pricing of that Momento Live service, but you get your first month free. – Charlie White

Product Page [Momento Live, via Newlaunches]

But wait, there's more to our sordid tale:

So far, we've gotten the eStarling to communicate with a PC, after which it let us enter its special secret code that allows it to communicate with the eStarling website via Wi-Fi. Then, we entered our RSS feed URL from our Flickr site into the form on the eStarling site.

By the way, see that uploading email "addess" in the pic above?. That's where you can send us your finest pics and they might show up on the eStarling someday. No goatses, please.

Anyway, that's as far as we've gotten, because we've already been waiting for nearly an hour for the eStarling to download pictures from our Flickr feed, to no avail thus far. But since this is a continuing saga, there will be more to come. Stay tuned. – Charlie White

eStarling Hands-On Update: Buyer Beware [Part one of our continuing saga]

Support Site [eStarling]

I plugged in its AC adapter and connected it to a PC via its USB cable and it simply won't communicate with the Wi-Fi network. Even after configuring the Wi-Fi network to be completely open, still, no dice. There's more bad news, too:

When I had no luck hooking up the eStarling picture frame to Wi-Fi, nothing else would work. You can't even plug in a flash memory card and look at pictures unless you're connected to the Internet.

So I followed the documentation's directions to a URL that was not working (http://www.estarling.com/support). No, the actual support address is http://www.estarling.com/support.html. Sure, I figured that out easily, but many consumers will be stumped by that, especially grandma.

Then more bad news: this is a 16x9 picture frame that's packing a mere 480x234 pixels. Besides being a resolution that's way too low for its 7-inch screen, its aspect ratio isn't going to work out too well with 4x3 pictures (think either black bars on each side or stretched photos), and it'll fare especially poorly with vertically-oriented pics that will turn out to be just slim shots with expansive black bars on either side.

But wait, couldn't you just orient the frame vertically? Well yes, but then that horrible logo across the top will be running up the side, standing on end and looking even dumber.

We'll get some tech support Tuesday (between 9am and 7pm Eastern) and see if this thing will work at all, but so far, my assessment is that the eStarling is a highly undesirable product. It's cheaply made, is in an non-standard 16:9 aspect ratio with a relatively low-rez screen, and it's ugly as shit and can't be covered up with a conventional frame because of its odd size and permanent construction. It has a so-far nonworking USB dongle that's starting to develop an odd smell as it heats up.

And finally, its cheap screen makes a whining noise as you dim it, but it's quiet at its full brightness. I can only wonder what the guy we linked to yesterday at Gizgadg was thinking.

It's not looking good, and certainly not worth any heroic last-minute attempts to get one under your tree in time for Christmas. Caveat emptor. – Charlie White

It looks like an overall positive experience, where the photos look great and the build is solid. But our hearts sank when we saw that the gigantic logo plastered across the top looks just as obnoxiously intrusive as the catalog photography. Maybe there's a way to remove it. We'll be receiving our eStarling in the next few days, and will give you an update. – Charlie White

eStarling [Gizgadg]

Its claim to fame is its ability to subscribe to an RSS feed on the Flickr photo site, letting anyone with that account's password insert photos into the frame via the Interwebs. Could be ripe for pranksters. Plus, it can accept photos via email without needing to be hooked up to a computer.

Anyway, even though we've heard rumblings about it not working too well in its first iteration, we're hoping those difficulties have been ironed out. It's selling now for $250, and one is on the way here so we'll let you know how it works. – Charlie White

Product Page [PF Digital Inc.]

Of course, time has marched and bragging rights have been lost. See the 10-inch DigitalSpectrum frame that works with Vista, and has MP3 and Video playback.

Size aside, the problem is that many of these frames have really low pixel density, or garish colors. We'd have to see this frame before judging it. –Brian Lam

eStarling Wi-Fi Gmail / Flickr Enabled LCD Frame [ThinkGeek]

Finally, this could be the digital frame we've been waiting for. It's bigger than any of its competitors at 10.4 inches, displays photos from Flickr and other photo sharing sites, plays audio/video files and a lot more. Full spec list and a sneak peek at its Vista-esque user interface, after the jump. – Charlie White

Specifications: DigitalSpectrum MemoryFrame MF-8104 Premium
•Windows CE 5.0 Operating System
•Compatible with Windows Vista and Windows XP Home/Pro
•Windows Vista auto detection of the Picture Frame
•Automatic Display from Vista Pictures folder
•Built-in multi function card reader
•USB 2.0 Host and Device Connectivity
•Generous internal memory
•Integrated Wireless 802.11b/g Network Support (WEP/WPA)
•IP addressable for web content access (IPv4/IPv6)
•Displays photos and content from Internet Photo Sharing Sites
•RSS feed configurable
•Plays MP3, WMA and Streaming Audio files
•Integrated Stereo Speakers
•Displays ID3 Tags and album cover
•Plays MPEG, WMV Video and Streaming Video
•Blue Tooth, USB and Wireless support
•Embedded HTTP Web Server
•UPnP Support
•Auto Update - Flash Upgradeable as new features are added
•Wireless remote included
•Desk top and wall mount
•Changeable standard 8x10 frames to suite your d cor

RSS & Photo Sharing Sites:
• Windows Live Spaces
• Flikr
• AOL Pictures
• Webshots
• Configure you own RSS feeds!

File Formats Supported:
Image: .JPG, .PNG, .BMP, .TIFF
Audio: MP3, WMA
Video: WMV, MPEG-4

In The Box
• Wireless Digital Photo Frame
• User Guide
• AC/DC power adapter
• Wireless Remote Control
• USB Cable
• 8x10 Picture Frame - Color and Style may Vary

Product page [DigitalSpectrum Inc.]

Now if Philips could just match the feature set of the now-defunct eStarling frame, which could not only receive photos via email but was WiFi-enabled, this would be a sure-fire hit. The eStarling could even play back a Flickr set that you could refresh from afar. C'mon Philips, make yours wireless, too. – Charlie White

Philips Simplicity Event [GadgetCentre]

We're liking the solid construction and clean design of this frame, now available in two styles—Modern like its 7-inch brother and pictured here, and Classic, which we don't have a picture of yet. We have quite a bit hands-on experience with the 7-inch unit, whose user interface is baffling at first but works well nonetheless. We are a bit disappointed that this latest model doesn't include WiFi support, such as the eStarling picture frame, which teased us early this year but then unceremoniously disappeared. If someone would roll out a frame with its features, it could clean up in this market, no doubt.

The next big revelation about this Philips frame will be its price. Will it go the Samsung route and cost well over $300, or will the company further commoditize this hot category and bring it into the $150 range? – Charlie White

Philips new and innovative 9 inch PhotoFrame [Far East Gizmos]

The jaw dropper is its price, $129, or you can get it without the infrared remote control, tabletop and wall mounting hardware, USB cable and earphones for $109. That's $100 less expensive than a comparable model from Philips cost just a couple of months ago, and a full $200 cheaper than Samsung's entry into the LCD picture frame market.

Perhaps these manufacturers are hearing about how you can make LCD picture frames yourself for almost free. Anyway, our favorite is still the WiFi-enabled eStarling picture frame, which only sold a few units before it mysteriously disappeared. Here's hoping there will be another WiFi-enabled LCD frame available soon. – Charlie White

MediaStreet's 128MB Digital Picture Frame [Bios Magazine]

Fidelity Electronics has introduced two LCD picture frames with higher resolution than most we've seen. The 5.6-inch DPF-8000F ($199, on the left) has a wider 960x234 screen that supports up to 10-megapixel JPEG pictures, while the 8-inch DPF-8000F ($249) has a 640x480 screen and support for up to 12 megapixels of JPEG goodness. Both are compatible with a variety of flash memory cards including CF, MMC, SD, MS and SM, and they can also display video on their screens or output it to a TV or external monitor. The 8-inch model also has a pair of stereo speakers and a multifunction music and video mode. Both have wireless remotes.

This is all well and good, but we're still wishing we could have one of those eStarling WiFi- enabled picture frames that could link up to online photo site Flikr, automatically displaying pictures placed in a specific directory. Too bad that eStarling frame has gone AWOL, where it's not available for purchase anywhere at any price. We know, we tried. It was also selling for $249, but alas, it was not to be. Does anyone know where one of these eStarling frames can be bought, and if so, is it worth it? Until we can get to the bottom of this, perhaps one of these Fidelity Electronics frames might be an acceptable substitute. – Charlie White

Product Page [Fidelity Electronics, via Bios Magazine]

Too bad there's not a WiFi connection going into the frame such as the one offered with the eStarling picture frame we mentioned back in January. That frame promised the ability to link with online photo hosting service Flickr, updating pictures as you add them to the Flickr account. However, we noticed that the eStarling currently can't be bought anywhere for any price right now. Not sure why that's happening, because it seemed like a good product.

As far as availability for this Samsung SDP-07, it's said to be currently only offered in Korea, selling for $310. No word on US availability yet. – Charlie White

Samsung SDP-07 Photo frame with Audio / Video playback [Newlaunches]

Looks like my wait is over, and mom is finally going to get a digital picture frame—but not the one from Ceiva. The eStarling is a 5.6-inch WiFi-enabled picture frame. Photos can be e-mailed directly to the frame, or loaded from an MMC/SD card. Better yet, the eStarling will pick up my flickr RSS feed and display that. It's a lot more expensive than the Ceiva ($249.99 versus $99.99), and I have yet to see details on the resolution of that color TFT screen. But the price is well worth the freedom from wires and forced use of photo-sharing services.

Starling WiFi picture frame [Niall Kennedy's Photo Stream]
eStarling Wi-Fi Gmail / Flickr Enabled LCD Frame

Options and pricing for digital photo frames [Amazon]