You know how early cars needed to be hand-cranked to start up? That’s the image that came to mind as I played around with Pandigital’s new 8-in. digital photo frame.

The PanTouch PAN8002W02T, priced at $170, is chock-full of cool capabilities. With 512MB of internal memory, abundant to hold up to 3,200 photos, the PanTouch offers more storage than many rival frames. The PanTouch plus features novel touchscreen buttons on the border of the display for easy access to pictures on your computer’s hard drive or albums on Google’s Picasa photo-sharing site. These screen controls, which additionally let you schedule times for the frame to turn on and off, are a nice convenience. Most frames require you to press buttons on the top or can only be operated by remote control.

Wi-Fi Woes

So, what’s my problem? Well, nearly every cool feature that gadget offers requires a bit of hand-cranking to work. To wirelessly download photos

to the frame from your computer or the Net, you have to buy a Wi-Fi adapter. The AirLink101 adapter I used sells for $40 on Amazon.com, bringing the total cost to $210 — abundant to buy comparable products from Kodak and others with Wi-Fi built in.

A Pandigital product manager says the company’s market studies show most customers still don’t want Wi-Fi. whether you wish to buck that purported trend, though the AirLink adapter is tiny, it still sticks out from the side like a blue, blinking sore thumb, spoiling the frame’s looks. Worse, with the adapter plugged in, inserting memory cards is a bit awkward, as the card slot sits right next to the adapter. The alternative to wireless is to connect the frame with your computer using a USB cord.

The design goofs don’t end there: that frame’s stand for sitting it on a desk or shelf…

Orginal post by Top Tech News