Review: Parrot Photo Viewer Bluetooth digital photo frame

In 2005 we took a look at the Digital Photo Display from Philips. With its 7in screen, it was able to display photos directly from its internal memory or from a memory card.

But it was also very expensive at £170.

The Parrot Photo Viewer is a similar device but with an LCD screen that's half the size (3.5in). It therefore seems a little odd that the price tag is 229 euros (approx £158) - just £12 shy of the Philips.

In its defence, the Photo Viewer is Bluetooth-enabled so will accept photos from any passing Bluetooth camera phone.

In terms of ease of use, the Photo Viewer excels. A simple on-screen menu is controlled by three buttons at the rear of the frame and there are very few options.

Single photos can be viewed or you can opt to see all images in a slideshow.

We tested the Photo Viewer with a Nokia N70 phone and it worked flawlessly, taking around 15 seconds for a single photo to be transferred and automatically rescaled.

Impressively, the Photo Viewer will automatically rotate the picture on screen when you move the device from portrait to landscape and vice versa.

When it's in a landscape orientation, horizontal viewing angles are reasonably good but the same can't be said for vertical viewing angles.

Should you sit the Photo Viewer on its side in a portrait style, the poor viewing angles become even more of a problem.

Just 32MB of built-in memory is included and this can't be upgraded via a memory card or any other means.

However, as it resizes all images, you should be able to get around 100 on the device at any one time.

Unlike the Philips alternative, there's no internal battery so the unit needs to be constantly hooked up to the mains.

If you decide to wall-mount the frame, having the white cable trail down to a power socket won't look particularly impressive.

That said, we don't see too many people wanting to mount such a small frame on the wall; it's more likely to be placed on a side table.

We like the Bluetooth component in the Photo Viewer and its ease of use, but unless you've got money to burn it's a lot to spend on a small 3.5in LCD screen, especially when you consider the poor viewing angles.