With extended media playback capabilities

Dec 12, 2007 07:13 GMT  ·  By

The emergence of digital photography is the type of technological evolution that changes the course of history, and implicitly the photo frame concept. This is how digital photo frames were born, and that's exactly the type of device we'll talk about as follows, namely the Akita III, manufactured by Sumvision, a photo-display that actually doubles as an all-in-one media player.

Obviously, as in the case of any other digital photo frame, the display is the main selling point of the Akita III. Unfortunately, though, we're talking only about a 7-inch TFT LCD (142.4mm x 91.44mm actual viewing surface), capable of displaying photos at a 480 x 234 pixel resolution and a 16:9 aspect ratio.

However, Sumvision's digital photo frame has another ace up its sleeve, namely the fact that it works with a very large number of files. Thus, beside the obvious JPEG photos, the device also works with MP3, WMA,Xvid, MPEG4, MPEG1 and MPEG2 files, hence providing extended media playback functions. And in order to complete the setup, the manufacturers have also thrown in an 1.5W speaker unit, as well as a headphone unit.

Much like all of the other digital photo frames available on the market, the Akita III has also been equipped with an USB port (so that users can view the photos stored onto an USB flash drive) and a memory card reader that works with the SD/MMC/MS/xD formats. Furthermore, the device comes packed with a remote control, which can be used for accessing the various included functions, as for example the file navigation menu or the media playback controls.

The Sumvision Akita III digital photo frame retails for around 122 US dollars, which is a pretty good price for such an entry-level photo display, if we take into account all the features it has to offer.

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