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What is it?

The Sungale ID800WT is more than just a digital picture frame; it is a touchscreen device with built-in Wi-Fi.  Besides the main picture-viewing function, the ID800WT also plays video files, music, and has widget-like apps such as weather and stock quotes.  It retails for about $200.

The Good

As a digital picture frame, the ID800WT has good viewing angles on its 8-inch, 800 x 600, 4:3 screen, particularly compared to some other digital picture frames I’ve seen.  The colors popped nicely on the screen - the viewing experience is generally pleasant.  There is only 512 MB of internal memory, but there is a memory card slot for expanded storage capacity.  Accepted photo formats are JPG, TIF, PNG, and BMP. 

The touchscreen navigation is responsive and there are buttons on the back for navigating if you prefer (or if the touchscreen become unresponsive).
The built-in Wi-Fi allows the picture frame to be a multi-function device.  The included apps are YouTube, local weather, stock quotes, Yahoo or Google news (via RSS feed), IP radio, Picasa, Gmail (abbreviated alerts), local traffic, and a note pad.  Some other handy, non-internet based apps included on the device are a calendar, alarm clock, and a music player (WMA and MP3), which allows your slideshows to be set to a playlist.

The Bad

One of the big draws of the ID800WT is its Wi-Fi capabilities, however, the connection was a bit flaky on my network, even when I was right over the router.  I also had to switch my network to 802.11b from 802.11g just to get any connection at all.  So, flaky Wi-Fi and a slow network equaled a lot of frustration.

The menu system for selecting photo, video, and music files was not intuitive, nor very polished—the menu system looked rather DOS like.  This is definitely something that would scare technophobes.  Also, the user interfaces for the other apps were not as pleasant looking as I thought they should be - they felt more like first drafts rather than a final product.

The device also plays video, but I found the playback to be jittery.  Also, it only supports the AVI file format.  The instruction manual was also not very clear, perhaps due to poor translation from the original language.

The Crux:

While image quality on the ID800WT is good and it handles music well, the video support was not too hot and the menu navigation was just too unintuitive.  Also, the features that would make this an interesting device, such as all the Wi-Fi apps, are still a bit rough as far as user interface and the Wi-Fi connectivity too flaky.  With some tweaks, this could be a decent multi-function device, but I wouldn’t recommend it at this time, unless you intend to use it solely as a digital picture frame.

Product Page: [Sungale ID800WT]

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