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Digital photo frames make good gifts. Just cram them full of pictures of the kids and voila; you have a fine present for the in-laws that looks pricey and personal. And yet many of us haven't picked one up for ourselves. Why? Probably because we can't justify spending a couple hundred dollars on a screen that does little more than deliver a slideshow – a task our televisions, computers, and even cell phones are perfectly capable of performing.

That logic doesn't hold for HP's $269.99 DreamScreen, a highly multipurpose digital photo frame that, in all likelihood, will spend most of its operational time engaged in other activities. To be sure, its 10.2-inch widescreen display is clear, bright, and colourful, and does a great job of flipping through photos. But the DreamScreen is capable of so much more.

The frame's main menu – a simple and intuitive graphical interface clearly inspired by HP's accessible TouchSmart software – lets users quickly surf through no less than nine different applications, including: Calendar, Clock, Weather, Videos, Photos, Music, Facebook, Snapfish, and HP SmartRadio. The clock and calendar programs are pretty basic; similar applications can be found on many other digital photo frames. It's the rest that turn the DreamScreen into something special in the photo frame world.

Hewlett-Packard

DreamScreen, unlike most digital photo frames, does a lot more than just deliver a slideshow

Wireless connectivity lets the device tap into to the Internet to grab information from Facebook. You can scroll through your friends' updates, view their photo albums, and keep tabs on upcoming events. You can't enter any updates of your own, but that's not the point. The Facebook functionality is simply meant to be a way to quickly check up on what's happening in your friends' lives while wiping the sleep out of your eyes or waiting for water to boil, depending on where you set up the frame.

Ditto for the Snapfish app. You won't be creating albums or ordering prints with this program, but rather viewing existing collections in your account, which should prove very handy for people who use the popular online photo service to store their pictures.

The HP SmartRadio application, meanwhile, streams a couple dozen international Web radio stations through the frame's quiet but clear stereo speakers. Stations range from XFM London and ESPN Radio to CBC Radio One and CHUM 104.5 Toronto.

If the radio stations don't satisfy you can always listen to your own tunes via the Music app. Users have the option of accessing files from the frame's two-gigabyte flash drive, a USB key, or a memory card (supported formats include SD/SDHC, CompactFlash I/II, MicroDrive, xD Picture Card, Memory Stick, and Memory Stick Pro).

The network connection also means you can stream music and photo files from PCs on your home network to the frame. Setup is simple, but if you have any problems you can just reference a handy demo video accessible from the Video app.

On the subject of video, it looks surprisingly good on the DreamScreen's 800-by-480 screen, which is adequate for checking out family movies if not full-length feature films. Unfortunately, you can't stream video from computers to the frame. However, if you don't want to fill the onboard memory with giant MPEG files you can access movies from USB keys and memory cards.

Users navigate through all of these apps via a tiny remote that fits into a slot on the frame's back side when not in use. This, unfortunately, is one of the DreamScreen's few disappointments. The remote feels flimsy, and is woefully inadequate for times when it becomes necessary to input text, such as entering network passwords or signing into Facebook or SnapFish. It also makes setting the alarm more of a chore than it should be.

You can opt use the touch sensitive controls along the frame's lower and right edges (they light up on contact), but they offer the same functionality as the remote, only in a different form. A more elegant solution would have been integration of HP's vaunted touch screen technology, which is finding its way into ever more of the company's computers.

Of course, touch functionality likely would have increased the frame's price, which is already about $100 more than what most people are looking to spend on a ten-inch digital photo frame. Keep in mind, though, that the DreamScreen is a far more useful and satisfying device than most photo frames; one likely to be used on a daily basis rather than only when friends and family happen to be visiting.

And that's why the DreamScreen, unlike most digital photo frames, is a present people are more likely to purchase for themselves than for others.