Digital Home Thoughts: Framed in Bluetooth: The Parrot Photo Viewer Reviewed

How Well Does It Work?
Honestly, I wasn't expecting much. I figured this was just another gimmick and another company's entrance into the world of convergence. I was pleasantly surprised when my Bluetooth desktop PC was able to detect the Photo Viewer immediately and transferred an 8 megapixel picture in a few seconds. While the version of Bluetooth the frame supports is only 1.2, the speed is more than acceptable. The Photo Viewer gives you a real time representation of the picture being sent to the frame and the photo is drawn line by line as the picture is transferred.

Overall, it's quick and painless.

From my BlackBerry Pearl, things were only slightly more complex. Instead of just being able to send without pairing, I did have to pair my phone to the Photo Viewer. As soon as I did, the photos were flying over immediately. The take away, though, is that your results will vary with your phone and how much your carrier locks down things like Bluetooth file transfer. We were still able to transfer from all the phones we tried with it (Including a BlackBerry Pearl, Motorola Razrs, a Samsung Trace, and a SonyEricsson K750), so I wouldn' t call this too big a bug, just something you should know about.

Either way, Parrot earns themselves a big pat on the back for ease of use. I was expecting the software to be balky and glitchy, and instead found it to be nearly transparent to use; the hiccups, glitches, and weirdness were all to be blamed on the phone manufacturers themselves, not the frame.

Navigating the menu system is as simple as using the three buttons on the rear of the unit. There's a left arrow, a right arrow, and a center action button. To bring up the menu, press the center button, and then you can navigate through the options using the left and right arrow buttons.


Figure 4: The buttons on the back of the Parrot Photo Viewer.


Figure 5: The menus of the Parrot Photo Viewer.

The menus are logically arranged and the icons make sense for their function. You can rotate the picture left or right, set up your slideshow, delete a picture, undelete a picture (handy if you goof!)