If you like the idea of a digital photo frame but are concerned about shelling out nearly $100 or more for the gadget equivalent of a one-trick pony, the Insignia Infocast may sound intriguing.
The touch-screen-enabled, Internet-connected device can play music and show news and e-mails, besides displaying photos and video.
Sadly, while the Infocast is a decent digital photo frame and Internet radio player, it needs a lot of work before this $170 device can claim a featured spot in my living room.
My biggest problem with it is the display — an adequate 8 inches diagonally, but not all that sharp or touch-sensitive. Good-quality photos looked fine on it, but they didn’t look great. Videos shot on my iPod Nano or viewed through a YouTube application looked fair to dismal.
Beyond that, I often had to practically stab the screen with my finger to perform such tasks as opening applications or viewing e-mails. It seemed particularly bad when I was using the Infocast’s on-screen keyboard. I often found myself pressing the screen multiple times before anything happened. That got old quickly.
Made by Insignia, a brand sold by consumer electronics chain Best Buy Co., the Infocast uses technology from Chumby Industries, which makes the similarly versatile (and cuter) Chumby devices.
The Infocast comes with one “channel” (think of it as a folder) pre-loaded with apps such as a YouTube video player and ESPN News. To make it really useful and personalized, you’ll want to create your own channels and drag apps into them — all free — from an App Catalog you can access on the device.
I started out by adding “fun stuff,” “news” and “social” channels and filling them with apps.
I got chummy with ChumbySpy, which flits among different surveillance cameras around the world. It showed me important scenes such as pigs bumbling…