Digital photos are great until you’re having a party or gathering and want to show them. Then, unless everyone huddles around your PC or passes around a clunky laptop, you’re forced to relive that 12 mega pixel shot of Jimmy scoring the winning goal on a 2.5” camera screen, or worse, fumble with a low definition composite video hookup to a TV.

Yes, the days of the traditional paper family photo album are gone. Flipping through pages of underdeveloped film prints is going the way of the highway toll taker or print media. Digital cameras let even the worst photographers freely take as many shots as needed to achieve that perfect shot worthy of display. And as digital picture frames continue to grow in physical size, quality, and market share, static wall-hung photos may soon commonly be replaced with beautifully framed hanging LCD monitors (this is a drawing of a digital picture frame I built, let me know if you have questions or want more information).

But some may ask, “What about the portability a small album of 4×6 prints offers? Grandma doesn’t want to carry a laptop filled with the latest pictures of the grand-kids to Sunday brunch.” To fill this need, a Czech company called Albumteam has developed and is selling a portable digital photo album called ALBUM (I would love to have attended that product naming meeting). The 7”, 800×480 screen will reveal more of the detail captured by your high resolution digital camera while storing thousands of those pictures, way more than any portable “brag book”, in its 4GB internal memory. At around ½” thick, the entire device is about the size of a small paperback book and easily fits in a purse or back pocket. With a protective genuine leather cover that doubles as a stand and simple user interface, passing around your photos has finally entered the 21st century.

Unfortunately for Albumteam, I suspect the ALBUM, while conceptually strong, will never attract more than a niche market or earn mass appeal. In an era of multifunction iPhones that both capture and display pictures amongst what seems like an infinitely expanding host of other uses, most people will not want to carry another specialized device.  Either way, having discovered this company while doing preliminary planning for the 2010 CES, I’ll be sure to check out their product(s) this January.