It’s just possible that photo albums may soon be a thing of the past in the near future thanks to digital photo frames. My own opinion, for what it’s worth, is that it seems unlikely that traditional photo frames will disappear in the near or even mid future - they will always have a place - but, given the extra features of digital frames I could well imagine bulky photo albums being replaced in a fairly short timespan.

Digital photo frames are now a mainstream consumer product. They are no longer considered to be a high technology gadget and, given the huge number of sales in 2008 (which show no sign of slowing in 2009 by the way), this type of frame is now present in many homes.

The technology is fascinating for many of course, but the thing that will probably appeal to the majority of people, be they technophiles or technophobes, is the additonal functionality offerd by digital frames. Some things are expected - nobody is going to go for a frame that doesn’t have a good display with good image quality and clear colours which are a genuine representation of the subject of the picture. The desired size of the frame will very much be a matter of taste and will vary from individual to individual. Currently, the typical frame size is 7″ or 8″. That’s quite a reasonable size to fit on a desk or sideboard and will suit many people just fine. Larger sizes are certainly possible if you have the notion and the money.

The key points that may persuade users to opt for a digital photo frame rather than either a standard frame or a photo album are the facts that digital frames can store large numbers of photos and that no cost or resource is required to print physical copies of the photographs.

Digital photo frames can hold thousands of photos on a wide variety of memory storage devices - a lot of frames have their own onboard memory capacity, but those that don’t can readily use cheap memory cards as the storage medium. Photographs stored in this manner can be automatically cycled through to create a slide show with preset timings between the different images - or the picture on display can be set up in static mode and then changed manually.

This capability to store many more photographs than even the biggest traditional bound album is a big plus. No more grubbing around in the loft or searching through old carboard boxes hunting for that photo you’ve just remembered about.

The fact that the images are digitally stored is a big benefit also. It means that there is no requirement to pay processing charges, or to cover the printing costs for your photo collection in order to either view it yourself or to display it to your family, friends and colleagues.

People will still have their “favourite” snapshots and will probably continue to print out paper copies of a select few of these in future. It seems unlikely that traditional photo frames will disappear completely. However, given the ease of electronic storage and the other advantages enjoyed by digital frames, it doesn’t seem unreasonable to suppose that the days of traditional albums may very well be numbered.

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