A Neat Gift: GiiNii Digital Picture Frame

A picture of Christie Lake appears on the GiiNii Digital Picture Frame that is sitting on my desk. I sigh as I look outside at the cold wind rustling through the dried stems of the tall grass and then back at the warm sun gleaming on the lake.  Another photo appears–Lauren and her friend are jumping out of the pontoon.  The photo fades away and the three beautiful purple Columbine flowers show up on the screen.  Instantly, I’m transported back into Colorado and I remember the path along where the Columbine peeked out from a flower bed.

Yes, that’s right, I’m gazing at my brand new toy, a seven-inch digital picture frame that holds up to 568 photos (at 2 megapixels each) thanks to 512 MB of memory.  The frame has a wedge design with a matte-silver finish and it sits right on top of my desk.   I can plug in this baby to my hard drive and download my photos directly to the frame or play my photos directly from a memory card.

Every now and then, I’m asked to review a book or a product.  For many years, I wrote at Epinions and recently at Viewpoints, so I do enjoy product reviews.  Whenever I’m excited about a product, I like to share it with my readers.  The GiiNii Digital Picture Frame is one of them.

The frame is simple enough at first– simply plug it in, turn it on and you’ll immediately see three pre-loaded pictures rotate.  There are four buttons on the side that control the different features.  The digital frame can play pictures, music and videos.  It also has a clock and alarm built in. 

As soon as I opened the User Guide, however, I knew I was in for some trouble.  The guide has pictures but it isn’t very user friendly.  For example, one of the pictures shows a power button, but the button is referred to as the “G” button in the rest of the guide.  I have found that the best way to navigate through the features is by actually playing with the buttons and following the selection prompts on the screen.  The GiiNii website has videos that explain the features, but the video is not captioned.  I emailed the company to see if they could provide captions for the instructional videos and I’m waiting to hear back from them. 

The resolution is a crisp 800 x 480 and the memory reader supports SD, MMC, MMC+, MS and XD.  The slide shows can be shown in the order that the pictures are loaded or randomly and the transitions between each slide can be customized.  The GiiNii frame has speakers for MP3, WAV, WMA, AVI, or MOV playback. 

Needless to say, I really like this digital frame.  When the snow starts falling in Chicago and the temperature plummets, I’m simply going to close my window blinds and watch my digital pictures transform me to warm places.

If you want to do the same, the GiiNii frame can be found on Amazon or at Target.  MSRP is $120 but is available at a bargain price of $79.95 on the Amazon link.

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