Customer Reviews: Read 43 more reviews...
 Great Frame and Picture Quality with One Major Flaw! December 16, 2007
P. Morris
97 out of 97 found this review helpful
After doing extensive research on other brands, we settled on this frame because of the price and features. After we bought it, we were pleasantly suprised to learn it is rated the highest by Consumer Reports magazine, and now we know why.
The picture quality is excellent. I started off with a free frame (gift) from another manufacturer that had half this resolution, and it did not give my pictures justice. Upgrading to this frame made a difference in the world to my picture quality. Do not buy anything less than 800x600, or your pictures just won't look good.
My favorite feature about this frame is the auto-sizing software available as a free download from the manufacturer's website. All you do is download it onto your computer, and any pictures you have on your hard drive will automatically be resized when transferred to your frame using the software.
One user complained about how slow it was transferring from a memory card onto the frame. This is because the frame automatically resizes your pictures to 800x600. This does take a little longer, but saves you hours of manually resizing your photos for the frame, so this *IS NOT* a flaw.
The one and only flaw I experienced (and maybe I have a defective unit) was I spent 2 hours copying thousands of photos onto the internal memory in the picture frame. So, I went and took more pictures with my digital camera, and slipped the memory card into the frame. I hit "copy" so it would copy from my card onto the internal memory. Little did I know, and the manual *DOES NOT* say this, but doing this will override any existing pictures on the memory. You can imagine how FURIOUS I was when I discovered that the thousands of photos I had stored on the frame were completely wiped out, and in their place were the 13 pictures I had copied. Please test this feature out first to see if it is indeed working on your unit before you find out the hard way, like I did. I plan on writing customer service about this (and hope I can get someone who speaks understandable English)
and seeing if this is a known flaw. The workaround on this would be to load the photos on your card onto your PC, then load them onto the internal picture frame. This is a major inconvenience, in my opinion.
I have not tried the movie files feature on this yet because it does not support the version my camera uses, and I am too lazy to figure out how to convert the movie files.
The sound is pretty decent, and adding mp3's to the slideshow is such a neat feature.
I also love the motion sensor on this frame. I never have to remember to turn the frame on and off.
All in all, this is a wonderful picture frame for ease of use, picture quality, and overall features. I would have rated it a 5 if not for the one serious flaw I mentioned. As a matter of fact, if this frame did not shine in the other areas I mentioned, I would have rated it less than a 4 because of the serious flaw. But, it has many saving graces, so a 4 is suitable, in my humble opinion. I will post an update from customer service once I hear back from them. I hope it will be easily fixed with a future firmware upgrade, etc.
****UPDATE**** 12/22/07 - I didn't get anywhere with customer service, but found out on my own when you insert a memory card and copy it to your frame, IT DOES NOT wipe out your existing pictures as originally thought.
It just overrides them with the new pictures and will not display the old pictures until you delete the new ones out. At this point, the old pictures are not listed on any menu when viewing from the frame. You have to hook up your frame to your computer, and navigate around until you see a folder in the software called "Spart Pic Software." This is where the old pictures are placed. Why this folder is not on the frame itself is beyond me, and why you have to hook up the frame to a computer to even see it is even dumber. And why this is NOT mentioned anywhere in the manual is just even stupider! (Is that even a word?) This is still a major flaw in my opinion. Why can't it just simply add the new pictures into the existing pictures folder without creating all of these inconvenient problems???? This is something I hope they fix with a firmware update.
 Superb picture quality and easy to learn to use December 13, 2007
Gerald C. Davison (Los Angeles)
31 out of 32 found this review helpful
I respectfully disagree with the negative reviewer who didn't like how long it takes to transfer photos from cards. I don't find this characteristic bothersome (what's the rush anyway?), though I wouldn't mind being able to suspend the operation once it is started. But these are minor "problems." Overriding them, in my view, are the stunningly clear quality of the photos and the many options one has vis a vis display time, transition effects, and order of presentation.
Very Nice Frame December 14, 2007
just a guy
10 out of 10 found this review helpful
This frame produces very sharp pictures. The transfer process is a snap. Plug in your SD card and then come back in a few minutes and your pics are on the screen. Anybody can walkup an add pics anytime they want. There is no need to use a computer. The image quality was clearly better than other frames.Great for the technically challenged who want to use this type of device. The motion sensor halps increase screen life by shutting the screen off if no one (i.e. no motion) is detected in the room.
 Two Chances, Two Failures January 5, 2008
David Jones (Magnolia, DE United States)
9 out of 14 found this review helpful
Got this for my wife for Xmas, and had immediate problems. Would not load photos from a mini-card to the frame's memory. Then after 30 minutes it just went completely blank. Dead as a doorknob. Returned it and exchanged it. Second time around, it never went dead but still had the freeze-up problems. It wouldn't load pictures from a mini-disk (though it would play them from the disk). It never recognized my SanDisk at all. Bad, bad product experience. I am shocked that Consumer Reports got this one so wrong.
This frame is wonderful! February 29, 2008
Ariel (Las Vegas, NV)
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
This is the fourth digital frame I've ever purchased. Each time I decide to buy a digital frame, I scour the internet looking for the best one. The last frame I bought was an 11" SmartParts, and it was absolutely beautiful.
I almost passed on this frame because of the negative reviews. I soon discovered that there are negative reviews for all the digital frames. You really just have to decide what you want out of a digital frame.
This one has everything I was looking for and more.
First of all, the frame is beautiful. I really do not like the way it looks in the picture online. It is very easy to use. I bought a 2GB memory card, and when it's plugged into the digital frame, you can either select copy (to copy pictures onto the internal storage) or view (to just watch them on the memory card).
The slide show has a lot of settings. You can select the transitions that you want. You can set the display time as low as 1 second. You can set it to display 1, 2, 3, or 4 pictures at a time.
It's easy to use, functions well. Don't let the negative reviews scare you away. This is a great frame.
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