We’ve seen a fair amount of new digital photo frames around recently, with more advanced models combining music or video playback with their primary purpose of showing off your snaps.

Neovo gets back to basics with the V-10, sporting a design that looks remarkably similar to an actual photo frame.

A black plastic bezel combines nicely with the white casing. Although it does feel a little cheap, it’s a good minimalist design, and practical enough to appeal to most people.

All of the inputs are cleverly hidden under a flip-up hood at the top, and when it's switched on the controls light up along the side and bottom of the bezel. The controls are very responsive, an important consideration, as we've had some frustrating times with similar designs in the past.

The 5-in-1 memory card reader supports SD, Memory Stick, CompactFlash and a couple of other formats, or you can copy photos to the 128MB of internal memory using the USB to mini-USB cable supplied. It’s a shame Neovo didn’t include a full-sized USB port on the frame to allow users to plug in flash drives and other portable storage devices, and view photos directly off them.

The rechargeable battery inside the photo frame lasted between 45 minutes and an hour depending on how it was used, which was long enough to unplug it briefly to carry around and show off pictures, but we’d have liked to have seen a bit better performance here. It can, of course, be left plugged into a mains socket.

The quality of the screen, testament to Neovo’s experience in the monitor market, is excellent, and did a fantastic job of showing off our favourite pictures with superb clarity and colour reproduction. You’ll find a range of slideshow transitions to choose from, it’s easy to adjust display times and there’s a built in clock and calendar for a bit of added appeal.

Unfortunately the downside is that the V-10 costs quite a lot relative to its competitors, especially when you consider the lack of additional media support, fairly limited connectivity and short battery life. On the other hand, the display is excellent and it’s very easy to use, so if you’re looking for a no-nonsense solution and the budget is not too tight it’s an impressive choice.

Vista compatible: Yes