Bluetooth is French company Parrot’s Raison d’etre, and while they haven’t pursued all the options yet – like Bluetooth-enabled cheesburgers, they have managed to squeeze radios into many other doodads.
Today they debuted their latest Bluetooth-equipped picture frames with colorful 7-inch, 720-by-480-pixel screens — a huge improvement over the squinty-small 3.5-inch frame they introduced last summer. The 7-incher has 128MB of built-in memory – enough for 500 photos, they say. And it includes a sensor that adjusts screen brightness according to the room lighting. The only thing it doesn’t’ have is frickin’ slots for memory cars —which is the most important feature on a digital frame.
Parrot says you can load photos from a “Bluetooth-enabled cell phone, digital camera, laptop other storage device.” Well, few cell phone pics are going to show up well on such a large screen. And there is exactly one Bluetooth-enabled digicam — Kodak’s V610 – which takes pictures that are slightly better than those from a cell phone. Wireless transfer from a computer is kinda cool. But if you could pick just one wireless technology, why not the near-ubiquitous Wi-Fi? (Check in tomorrow for news of such a product.)
On the plus side, the frame is quite plush-looking, with the choice of handsome black or tan leather finishes. These will be available when the frame goes on sale this spring for $249. And Parrot says it will offer more styles later this year.
