Digital Picture Frame or Photo Albums?

The nice thing about the frame is that they don't have to take anything out to look at the pictures as it would be out in display.  Sometimes people don't want to take the extra steps in between. (Like getting out the album, etc.)

I'd stick with prints.  Even easier when you're digital to be honest.  Selectively create a CD with the best shots and run on down to Walmart.  I'm not sure exactly how but my wife hits some sort of kiosk deal there and creates prints from digital way cheaper than we can print them at home. 

Best of both worlds.

Besides, a real, honest to God photo in a frame looks better next to the loom.

http://www.ceiva.com/lmore/dpr/sending_photos.jsp

The auto update ones can get photos from anyone you send your password info to.

You mentioned sibs earlier, they could upload their pics and your parents would get them too, they might chip in for the cost of the frame and service again   

You can send pics from your cellphone if you are away or catch something funny that the lad does when you are out.

You get unlimited pic storage space on their servers.

Your parents can select which ones they might like to order prints from, if any.  Not sure what the cost of prints would be but beyond that, it's free to them. 

They still work with a memory card as the other ones do.

The 8 inch one retails for $250 with a 1-year pic plan.  After that the rate is 99 bucks per year, plans come in 1 and 3 year periods (3 yr is 250).

If they don't like the auto update you can drop that part after the 'free year' is up and just use it with the cards.

The 8 inch one can pop 50 new pics a day up for them, that's a dose for even the most doting grandparents.

The update phone call is free (here) and it takes place overnight.  It's automatic.

There are features that they will likely never use, wireless, broadband etc. but they are there if they ever want them.

When I looked at them before they were smaller and had fewer features.  Still, the only thing that stopped me buying it for my parents was it wouldn't do the free update from overseas and I didn't want to give them a gift that cost them 100s of quid a month making transtlantic calls while they slept.

In the end we bought them laptops instead.   

There may be other ones with better resolution but to parents the age that ours are, that isn't going to matter.

They go for a steal on eBay.

Did I mention it's automatic?

It's a good thing you said that anonomously....

I've got a digital photo frame at home (Phillips, and I don't remember the specs - but it's a smaller one).

Pros -
- it's neat-o
- the pictures look really good - bright, probably better looking than most prints
- once you set it up, you just turn it on and it works
- it holds ~90 jumbo-mega-pixel photos in the internal memory w/o a card
- basic set up w/ a memory card was super-duper easy


Cons -
- you pretty much have to keep it plugged in (it has a 1 hour battery)
- if you want to do anything special (besides just watch a basic slideshow), the menus are pretty confusing, and there's no good manual.  This also means that, if you get the frame into a funny state (like showing 6 copies of the same photo at once), it's not easy to undo it.  (And I mean not easy for a tech-head)

She can always hit the "enter" key instead of double-clicking.

Send them an Etch-A Sketch in the mail with your portaits drawn on them.   

Telling by the sun is the easiest.