Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Digital photo frame plays MP3s, video, does laundry


Over the years we’ve seen plenty of photo frames that include LCD screens for displaying digital photographs but few have been as cheap or as versatile as the Exemode DPS700 from KFE Japan.

KFE has plenty of prior for selling simple camcorders and the like for £50, so JPY10,000 for the DPS 700 photo frame isn’t too much of a shock – its abilities, however, are.

The white plastic frame, which looks like it would nicely complement an iMac, encloses a 7in widescreen TFT that has a resolution of 480x234 pixels. That screen is used for viewing JPEG photographs stored an any of five different card types – SD, MMC, Memory Stick, CompactFlash or xD-Picture Card.

Look closely at the bottom of the frame and you’ll spot a clue to the most surprising part – speakers. They are present because the DPS 700 can also play back MP3 and WMA audio files, as well as video files ranging from the various flavors of MPEG (not the black sheep MPEG-3 of course) through to DivX 5.0.

As if that weren’t enough, the menu software can display both English and Japanese and there are video and audio outputs, a headphone jack and a USB port for connecting a digital camera or another slab of media if those multiple card slots aren’t enough. It even comes with a remote control. Has there ever been a more feature-packed cheapo gadget?

Update: As ever, anyone outside Japan interested in getting one of these should drop us a line and we'll see if we can arrange something for you.
We're at usb-dog [[att]] digitalworldtokyo.com or just use the comments.

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