HP's DreamScreen: Not quite dreamy, but great potential

The scoop: DreamScreen 100, by HP, about $250 (for 10.2-inch model; the 13.3-inch model costs $300).

What it is: At first glance, the DreamScreen looks like an ordinary, everyday digital photo frame, and those features are included (displaying images on a very nice 10.2-inch LCD glass screen, but there's more. First is a Wi-Fi connection and an Ethernet port, allowing you to place the device in different locations in the home, or as an accessory on your desktop (if you have multiple Ethernet drops in your office, that is). The network connectivity turns the device into an Internet application device, and includes apps such as Facebook (viewing status updates and photos of friends), Snapfish (viewing photo albums), and Pandora (streaming music). Speaking of music, the HP SmartRadio application includes hundreds, if not thousands, of Internet Radio stations that can be played through the DreamScreen's embedded speakers. Other apps include an alarm clock and a Weather app that gives you an instant view of the current conditions (yes, I know you can look outside), but also gives you a four-day forecast.

Click to see: Picture of HP's dream screeen

If connected to your home network, you can also stream music, play videos and view photos from other connected PCs on the network, or you can copy them to the DreamScreen's 2GB internal memory.

Why it's cool: HP has raised the bar on the Internet-connected digital photo frame, showing off what a device like this can be. The applications included on the device look fantastic, with the potential for more applications coming soon (HP, here's some advice, get some more apps for the device). The multimedia streaming (photos, videos and music) are a great start, but more widget-like apps that can be accessed quickly (for example, getting updates on sports scores, etc.) could turn this device into something even more valuable for a family or in the office.

Some caveats: The sleek screen and user interface design imply that the screen is a touch-screen, as it looks like an iPhone or even HP's own TouchSmart line of PCs. Several colleagues that saw this immediately tried to open applications by touching the screen. To give HP some credit, you can touch the outside border of the DreamScreen, which gives you some options like adjusting the volume, hitting "OK" or going "back", but what's really needed is an iPhone-like touch interface (maybe the next version will have that). The device also gets around the lack of a touch-screen by giving you a small remote control, but unfortunately the remote needs some work. The remote doesn't respond some of the time, and there's no "Home" button that brings you to the main menu screen (instead, you have to remember to hit "Back", sometimes several times, in order to get there. Again, building a touch interface could solve a lot of these problems.

While I love the gazillions of Internet Radio stations available through the SmartRadio application, finding cool stations is a problem, as it comes with a mediocre search function (you can search by country or genre only). Searching for something like an '80s station involves searching through all of the "Pop" genres, giving you all the other decades and other sub-topics. In addition, the list of stations only displays 50 at a time, so to find the next 50 involves loading up another long list.