It’s no secret that I love taking pictures – and I love scrapbooking them. But while a majority of the pictures I take will end up in a scrapbook, it  might take a while for them to get there! And, unfortunately, not everyone who comes over to our house wants to look through all the scrapbooks I have made. Before you suggest that I frame my pictures, let me say that there aren’t enough frames in the world - or spots for them in our house — to hold my pictures.

So when I got the opportunity to review the GiiNii 7″ Wedge Digital Picture Frame, I was pretty excited. I thought a digital picture frame would be a great way to display my pictures in a way that everyone — including my husband and me — could look at pretty much without any effort.

The Basics

The GiiNii 7″ Wedge Digital Picture Frame has a lot of functionality for its size. Features include a 7″ LCD Wide Screen with 800×480 resolution, built-in 512MB memory to store your pictures, and the ability to support the most SD, MMC, XD and MS memory cards and to connect to the pictures on your PC or Mac, though the USB cord is not included. (I just used my camera cord, which worked fine — and is something that most people with a digital camera should have around the house.) The Wedge also offers a calendar, clock and alarm plus speakers and brightness adjustment.

In addition, the Wedge can play music and videos, though I’ll be honest — I did not test those capabilities. With DVRs, DVD players, iPods, etc… I really do not need something else to play music and videos right now. I am much more interested in a new way to display my photos!

I had this item out of the box and all set up with a few pictures of our new puppy in no time at all. All you have to do is plug the Wedge in, press power and start loading pictures — either by simply inserting the memory card from your camera or by attaching the Wedge to your computer via a USB cord. The on-screen navigation makes everything pretty easy. In other words, a monkey could probably figure out how to set this thing up.

Pros

1) The features — and their accessibility. I like how quickly I was able to get my photos onto the Wedge, how crisp the picture is and the fact that I can select how I want them to play in a slideshow (random or in order) and even the kind of transitions between photos. (I like fade, although there are also fancier options.)

2) Cost.  At $79.95 from Amazon.com, the GiiNii 7″ Wedge Digital Picture Frame won’t break the bank.

3) If you can’t be bothered to unplug or turn off the Wedge at night, just enable EnerGiiNii On. That will cause the unit to automatically operate at low power consumption during the night (11pm-7am) and automatically resume normal during the daytime.  It’s a nice feature — but it leads me to the biggest con.

Cons

1) The GiiNii 7″ Wedge Digital Picture Frame requires a power cord. I know that not all digital picture frames are wireless – and perhaps it’s a function of cost (i.e. if this frame were wireless, it might be more expensive) — but the cord sticking out from the frame on my bookshelf to the outlet on the wall does not really fit in with my decor. Yes, I know I can figure out a place for the frame that allows me to hide the cord, but it would be nice if this were wireless. I’m hopeful that GiiNii will come out with a wireless version in the near future.

2) Some people might want more internal memory than 512MB to store their pictures, as would I if I wanted to have all my thousands of pictures on my digital picture frame. But that’s just not necessary. You can always delete pictures and add more, or stick your memory card in for more variety. Resizing pictures is another option; the smaller the picture, the more pictures will fit on the Wedge.

The Bottom Line

The GiiNii 7″ Wedge Digital Picture Frame is a welcome addition to our family room (once I hide that cord), and most likely to yours as well. It may not have a couple features that you’d find in a more expensive digital picture frame, but it allows you to keep some of your money – while still displaying your favorite pictures in style.

The GiiNii 7″ Wedge Digital Picture Frame is available for $79.95 at Amazon.com.

Check out some of the other reviews in our 2008 Tech Gift Guide.