Digital

Best Digital Picture Frame? (Review of iGala Wireless Photo Frame)

The iGala Wireless Digital Picture Frame from newcomer Aequitas LLC is quickly turning heads among photo fanatics. The iGala may prove to be the best digital picture frame in a market already crowded with lackluster products. We can’t help being reminded by the iPhone in many respects – the touchscreen, the attractive uncluttered on-screen interface and internet capabilities (via built-in wireless). Oh, and the name. The iPhone was definitely on iGala engineers minds during the design process, and that’s not a criticism.

Also like the iPhone, the iGala finds itself in a maturing market crowded with digital frames that may look good on the Target shelf but ultimately disappoint due to dubious photo quality, poor design and more emphasis on swappable faceplates (hey, extra revenue right?) than usability. In that context iGala’s specs are pretty impressive and we like its chances. Peep this:

Touchscreen Interface
Built-In WiFi wireless
800 x 600 Resolution
Automatically updates photos over internet from email (Gmail) and Flickr
Load more photos via SD Media Card or any USB drive/device
1GB internal memory; store up to 5,000 photos
Auto Power Save, Alarm and Clock functions
No PC Needed
No subscription needed

The screen is plenty bright, sharp and nicely offset by the understated clear plastic bezel. Configuration of the unit with iPhone-esque buttons and keyboard via the touchscreen interface is a snap – you don’t want to set Flickr and Gmail configuration/url/username/password via two arrow buttons and an enter key, right?

For such a unique and powerful photo frame, the price (roughly $239 at the time of this writing) in our opinion is justified. There is really no other entry that can compete with the iGala at this time.

This is also a device that would look right at home on any executive desk and, if we may say so, would complement a high quality set of GLA-55 speakers very nicely.

LINUX provides the UI and performance muscle under the iGala’s pretty skin. So naturally we hope iGala will expand further on the nice start they’ve made. We see support for Facebook albums, TwitPic and more as smart next steps to make this the must-have digital photo frame for the well-connected geek. This would be a great project platform if it’s ever released to open source or supported by an extensible plugin architecture. But we digress.

As it stands already the iGala is a sweet looking, cutting edge picture frame that’s sending the competition scrambling back to the drawing boards. That’s going to be good for all of us.

I Want One!

Available from ThinkGeek (UPDATE: BACK IN STOCK 4/24).