Intro
In the olden days, when some people thought APS cameras were the next big thing - or a good idea even - most of us would give our films to a photo lab and get back the negatives and a set of prints.
Some of us would then dutifully put these snaps into albums – and then never look at them again.
Other people (with a life, friends would say) just stuck their photos in shoeboxes – and then never looked at them again.
At one point I had over 40 photo albums - even though I'd exercised some discretion over what made it into them.
Then, a few years ago, I went digital and abandoned prints all together.
Completely unintentionally, I switched to the digital equivalent of a shoebox - a computer hard drive.
And I'm not alone, according to research by Philips, which shows that most people don't bother printing out their digital snaps.
Except for a few pictures dotted around the house, I rarely look at my photos. This seems like an awful waste of time and effort, not to mention trees, photographic equipment and hard-disk space.
So I have been watching the development - and falling prices - of digital photo frames with much interest, as they appear to be the display solution that my photography - digital or otherwise - has been waiting for.
Click for larger image
These digital photo albums come in a variety of shapes and sizes and allow you to display hundreds of pictures in a permanent slideshow.
Now that they can be picked up for less than £50, I thought it was time to take a closer look and find out if such products are what I've been waiting for or just another place to store photos that I'll never look at.
For this review, I checked out the £130 Philips 7FF1 Digital PhotoFrame. This is described as a 7in model but, as you'll find out on the next page, the visible screen diagonal is a good bit less…
