Wallets Go Digital

By Charles Passy Special to TheStreet.com 11/21/2007 1:56 PM EST Click here for more stories by Charles Passy

A wallet ranks right up there among the most mundane of gifts.

But here's a way to beat the stodginess rap: Go for a digital wallet.

After all, who's got room for pictures when there's so much other important stuff to store in your wallet -- credit cards, dry-cleaning receipts, a business card from a sales contact you met a decade ago.

Keeping a few family photos in your wallet, of course, is a requisite of parenthood. But it's also a duty that requires a degree of organization, as in remembering to swap out pics as the kids grow older.To say nothing of the fact that those prints start to look fairly shabby over time. Isn't that the reason the world has embraced digital photography in the first place?

Hence, gadget innovator and retailer Brookstone has introduced its Men's Digital Photo Wallet ($50) -- the high-tech way to keep your brood in your pocket.

The pitch: Brookstone makes storage the big issue. "Does your wallet look like George Costanza's overstuffed billfold?" the retailer asks, recalling a famous Seinfeld episode.

The company points out that up to 55 images can be stored on the "sleek, removable 1.4-inch screen" and that the gizmo is simple to use, since the device is rechargeable ("never needs batteries") and "connects to computer via USB ... for easy downloading."

The reality: The product is indeed user-friendly. I had no problems recharging the unit, transferring pictures or even doing some basic editing (pictures can be rotated, for example).

But the real issue is that the images look awfully small and somewhat blurry on that near postage stamp-size screen. By contrast, the photos I normally carry in my wallet are, well, wallet-size. And there's no denying that the unit, which can easily be removed from its own slot within the wallet, is bulkier than a bunch of snapshots, so what problem is it really solving?

That said, if you're comfortable with digital photography this does make for a fun, handy way to keep your mini-album's worth of pics up to date. (If you're like me, you're always waiting for the next year's crop of school photos that can be ordered in wallet-size.)

As for the bifold wallet, the "black Nappa leather" may be as soft as advertised, but the lack of key features, such as snaps or a license display window, made it a tough sell for me -- and Brookstone doesn't offer a choice of men's wallet styles or even colors. Oddly enough, Brookstone's version of this same wallet for women (also priced at $50) has the license display window.

Competing products: Among prominent retailers, Brookstone appears to have the digital photo wallet category all to itself at this point. But there are plenty of other products on the market that work in a similar fashion, such as digital photo keychains (Brookstone has one for $40). Another option worth considering: WalletPix ($40), a credit card-size digital photo album that's designed to fit in a wallet -- the wallet of your choice, that is.

Bottom line: It's a clever idea, but not quite the answer to all your photos-on-the-go problems. Still, it could be a good gift for a digital-photography buff.