Err Ceiva one is a receiver only, so that sucks. The photoco I see as low as $80 with shipping

Uh, I just mentioned in my post the NEW ceiva frames, which indeed have card readers, as well as picture plans.
the plan costs have come down now,

for 250$ I think, one gets an 8" sleek 640x480 picture frame, with a one year sub to their subscription plan.

frame can be had for 150$ or less

Two questions: (a) What's the best deal/quality to be had for $100-120? (b) Do these have the ability to display labels or descriptions of pictures at the same time as the picture?

not sure about labels, but I was just checking out the pandigital frames over the weekend, nice 7" versions, for 120$. I think that might be the one I would buy, if I didn't want any of the connectivity to internet features.

this one of course, had all the memory card slots, and usb for computer hookup.

SpaceBass, this is a great idea. I've got an old Toshiba laptop I'd like to do this with. What photo display software do you use with Linux? And is DSL a distribution, or did you just gut a Linux installation?

I also have a 7" Pandigital. Works great, no complaints. In regards to your label question, I doubt you will find any that have that capability. However it would not be hard to add the label to each picture you want to display.

Grr...
I bought the photo frame at Ritz Camera site, and it said in stock and today I see my order is backordered for a month or so I cancelled my order and bought a better one at Costco on sale for $150. 8.4" wooden digital frame, 800x600 resolution....

OP here with a follow up.

I got an SD card and loaded a few pics onto it to try out the frame before giving it to my parents. Very disappointing. Picture quality was poor, but that wasn't my biggest concern as they're not really "high-def" people. The viewing area is 7", but each picture loaded about half that size. So there was a large ring of "black space" around each picture. There was a zoom feature, but you can't use that in conjunction with the slide show. So, I would need to spend time re-sizing each picture first before loading onto the frame. I thought I read about some frames having an automatic re-sizing feature. Anyone have experience with automatic re-sizing? I want this thing to be easy to use, so I think I'm going to return this and find a better model.

FYI - I would share the brand of this frame, but it doesn't have one. I twas an $88 black friday deal at JC Penny. I guess you get what you pay for.

I purchased this over the weekend and returned it Monday morning. It's a cheap unit ($99 at Office Depot), but the resolution was very low (something like 236x480 or so). I own a 7" Philips and was going to give this Pandigital as a gift, but the Pandigital just didn't compare to the Philips. Looks like Office Depot has the 7" Philips on sale this week for $150, if you can locate one (all the OD in my area seem to be out of stock on the Philips unit).

/BEGIN RANT: I attempted to order one of these online at OfficeDepot.com; it was an extremely frustrating experience. While I could get one shipped to my home in Colorado, I could not get one sent to SC where the person to whom I am giving it lives. Nor could I order and pay for it through the online site and have another family member pick it up for me at a local store there, even though the store had some in stock (I spoke to the manager to check supply, who also informed me company policy is that the stores can not accept credit card orders over the phone). I had to cancel the online order and have the family member pick it up and pay for it, which I was a bit embarrased about (or my only other alternative was to have it delivered to me in CO and then overnight it to SC after it arrived, which would have been an expensive proposition). Apparently the OD.com supply chain is still operating in the "dark ages" relatively: (a) if you order online for delivery, it will only process if the one warehouse near the delivery point has it in stock; (b) if you order online for store pick-up, apparently looking at the same warehouse inventory, it will not process if that warehouse is out of stock, even if the stores are overflowing with an item or if another warehouse has it in stock (I understand that, upon ordering online, they then take the stock out of the warehouse and deliver it to the store). Based on what I was told, stores in that area in SC and warehouse in other areas (Maine and San Diego) had the item in stock, but there was no way that I could use their online system to pay for one and get it to or picked up in SC.

In some pick-up scenarios, I was given the option of placing the item on backorder. I did, but when I called Customer Service to check on time to clear, I was told that backorders on average usually clear in about 7 business days, but Customer Service could not or would not be specific about when this specific item would clear. My impression was that the "7 business days" timeframe is what they would tell anyone about any item which was backordered.

Given recent online ordering experience with Sears, Circuit City, and Sams, as well as other orders with OD, Office Depot's system seems to be lagging behind. I'll end this rant with a positive note: in the process I spoke with managers at several stores; all were friendly and helpful, a few extremely so. So whatever the problems are with their online operation, I think they are outside of the control of the store managers.

If I had known how much of a hassle dealing with OD.com was going to be, I probably would have paid the higher price and ordered from Amazon or another Yahoo seller.