Picture this, write now

Life

1 April 2005

Not content with making its mark on the mobile world, Nokia has recently begun to release digital products to complement its phones.
Where Nokia is renowned for making phones that are both practical and stylish, the Nokia Image Frame and Nokia Digital Pen are triumphs of style over substance.

The frame allows you to display your favourite digital photos or art without having to le to print, mount and frame the masterpieces. It sports a 5.1in LCD screen capable of displaying a 12-bit QVGA resolution (320 by 240 pixels) at up to 4096 colours. Pictures can be transferred to the frame via infrared as long as they are in the compatible JPEG or GIF file formats.

The picture frame itself is a stylish piece of kit that should look good on any desk. The images displayed can really only be viewed at close range — if you move too far away from the frame or try to view it from an angle, the picture all but disappears. The frame stores up to 50 images, which can be viewed one at a time or as part of a constantly changing slide-show.

It’s designed to be compatible with Nokia’s now extensive range of camera phones. Unfortunately, none of these phones really take a decent picture, so the image frame can be limited to displaying poorly lit pictures with a shoddy resolution. Thankfully the Infra-red connectivity of the device makes it compatible with more devices than just Nokia phones. For example, I was able to take pictures with a 2Megapixel digital camera with Bluetooth connectivity (reviewed next month), transfer these photos to my Nokia phone via Bluetooth, and then wirelessly to the image frame via IR transfer — a sort of wireless daisy chain.

There is no serious application for this product. It is no more than a desk toy — perhaps a more modern and technological replacement for the Newton’s cradles that are present on so many executives desks across the land. It may however make the perfect gift for the gadget fan who already has every other piece of technological tomfoolery.

Nokia Image Frame SU-4
€125
Weight: 425g
Display: 5.1in backlit STN colour LCD with 320 by 420 horizontal orientation, and 4096 colours
Compatibility: The Nokia Image Frame SU-4 is compatible with with phones and other device that support image sending over infrared.

Live! Verdict 3/5
This stylish image viewer will look well on any executive’s desk. But don’t tear up the family photo album just yet.