Digital Photo Frames: 04/2010

4/30/10

Pandigital PAN8008DW Photo Mail 8-Inch LED Digital Picture Frame (Black)

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Cheap Digital Spectrum NuVue 560 5.6-Inch Digital Photo Player (White) Review

As others have mentioned, ours did not come with a manual. However I found the manual in just a couple of minutes on the manufacturer's web site and printed it. We were able to get it to read from every memory card the relatives had, which included multimedia card, Sony memory stick, an XD card, and a flash memory card. The resolution is not great, but that is what allows it to hold a lot of photos and be less expensive than most digital frames.

I also liked this one because it was so simple (the company makes more advanced models, but some start up with a menu). If you ignore the extra buttons on this one, it just starts up playing a slide show and continuously rotates through all the pics on the memory card. This makes it a perfect gift for a non-tech person to have a lot of photos to look at. (you just have to take their card to a computer and load more pics on it when you want to add pics). Mine came with other cables, but we haven't used them.

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Sail Power 7 Inch Digital Picture Frame Al0700

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Cheap Pandigital PAN3502W02 3.5-Inch Digital Picture Frame (Black) Review

These people are either hating on this great little frame or are clearly over 40 and have no clue on how to work any of todays gadgets. Not the best, but great for its price. Super easy to set up and jump from menu to menu. BUY ONE!

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Nextar N5-105 5.6-Inch Digital Photo Frame

Cheap Nextar N5-105 5.6-Inch Digital Photo Frame Review

If you are looking for the finest screen resolution and most faithful color reproduction, keep looking. On the other hand, if you want an economical digital photo frame with adequate screen resolution and acceptable color reproduction, find this gem on sale and you'll be pleased.

The 320 x 234 screen is on the coarse side and if you stare at each individual photograph, you will see that it is coarse. On the other hand, if you're like me (and I suspect most people) and just glance at it occasionally, you won't notice the coarseness. The viewing angle is quite acceptable.

Color reproduction is good, but definitely not absolutely perfect. Again, not much difference here between what you see in most paper prints that haven't been processed in a photo manipulation program.

For best results, spend some time resizing the photos to 320 x 234 and run them through a color correction program. Resizing will also let you put many more photos onto even a small SD card. On a 2GB SD card, with resized photos, you should be able to put more than a thousand photos on it. Now that's quite a slide show, isn't it?

This unit has no frills. There are buttons to pause, go back, go forward, change aspect ratio and go into "power saving mode". It is a bit of a pain to deal with them and I doubt that many people will.

Personally, I just load a card with processed photos, put the unit on a shelf, plug it in and let it run. For those content with the smallish 5.6" screen, somewhat coarse resolution and merely acceptable color quality, this unit is more than adequate and a very good value if you get it on sale or heavily discounted.

Jerry

Cheap Pandigital 8-Inch LCD Digital Picture Frame Review

The Pandigital picture frame was reviewed online and given a good review about picture quality and ease of use. I purchased the frame for my elderly mother as a Christmas gift. It arrived in a matter of days, even in the Christmas rush! The directions were very simple to follow for set up and use. I saved pictures on a memory stick. Once I plugged it into the frame, the pictures came up automatically. The quality of the photos, both old and new is very good. There are many nice features on the frame, such as time on and off. The remote is very easy to use also. It was a nice surprise for my mom, as it contains many memories from past to present that she can look at!

Cheap 10" Widescreen Digital Photo Frame with Built-In MP3 Player, Supports SD, MMC, xD-Picture Card and CompactFlash memory cards Review

Cheap Digital Spectrum MF-800 Plus 8" Digital Frame & Multi-Media Player Review

Westinghouse 14.1-Inch LCD Digital Photo Frame

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The first frame I recieved did not work, and Westinghouse did not have very knowledgable employee on their customer service line. However, the store I got it from was very helpful in replacing it with another frame which worked very well. The picture on the frame is phenomenal. Even the very large blowup size is crystal clear. A wonderful frame!

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Cheap Vizit 10.4-Inch Digital Photo Frame with Cellular Connectivity (Gray/Black) Review

Haier PFW8 8-Inch Wifi Digital Photo Frame

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Cheap Kodak EasyShare D825 8-Inch Digital Frame with 512MB Internal Memory + Accessory Kit Review

COBY DP-5588 - Digital photo frame - 5.6" - 320 x 240

Cheap COBY DP-5588 - Digital photo frame - 5.6" - 320 x 240 Review

Cheap Tricod 15-Inch Digital Photo Frame (Rosewood) Review

I like this one- I only had it a few hours though so I will respond back after using it longer.
It is a crisp & clear & super easy to use- plug it in, put in a card, hit power.
Wish the frame wasn't so bulky but, the picture is great & the size of your picture is as promised.
15" diag. so your picture will be all but, 9" x 12".

Note: they do show this with a SDHC card but, the box only lists SD - However I just put in a SDHC extreme 4g & it worked fine.

Lightening Fast Shipping ! Thanks Amazon !

Cheap Poloroid 7-Inch Digital Photo Frame Review

This is a very nice photo frame with standard 480 x 237 resolution on a seven inch screen. The photo contrast and clarity are good, and it does a nice job of presenting them as a slide show, and have a really neat function of Mosaic presentation with up to 3 potos displayed at once. However, only downfall of this unit is that it does not play MP3's for music on a slide show. Others at this price and in it's class do. If you find a really good deal on this, buy it, you will not be dissapointed, but if it is at full price, check and see what else is there, you may be able to get more for the same money. I bought one of these on sale below the comparable competators, and I love it. Would work well in an office where music may be distracting.

DreamScreen 100 Digital Photo Frame

Cheap DreamScreen 100 Digital Photo Frame Review

Cheap Digital Spectrum Elite 7" Digital Photo Frame Review

After being dissapointed with my first digital photo frame experience, I did a bunch of research and decided to try out this frame.

I own the version that is called Nu-Touch, but it is this same frame, and even the owner's manual says "Elite" on it. Also, to preface this review, I am a serious photographer with a VERY critical eye for color and sharpness, so it is possible I would notice flaws that would not bother a "typical" user.

After about a week and a half of using the frame, I can say that it is a very good product. The 720 x 480 resolution on such a small screen, means that the gradients and transitions are so fine/smooth, that the images look very close to prints. Additionally, the LCD screen has very good brightness and contrast, and renders colors accurately, with NO perceptible flicker from screen refresh..... it is literally rock stable. There is also what appears to be perfectly uniform backlight brightness from edge to edge on the screen. Finally, at least in my case, I did not see a single dead or stuck pixel on the entire frame, which seems remarkable given my past experience with LCD screens in other applications (PC monitors etc.)

The display screen has an anti-reflective coating that is extremely effective. This frame is positioned under a tabletop lamp on my desk at work, and while there are a few small reflections of the bulb off the gloss-black frame, there are NO reflections on the image itself. This was a very nice surprise. The photos end up looking like good-quality matte finish prints, and this is aesthetically appealing in my opinion.

The user interface is simple to navigate, and I was able to figure out all aspects of setup without ever referring to the manual. The onscreen menu graphics are very refined as well, and this is a nice touch that makes the product a pleasure to use. If you do need the manual, it is concise and provides all required info to set up and use this frame.

I like the fact that the frame has a built-in Li-Ion battery, which allows you to unplug it and move it wherever you want while you are adding photos, working with settings etc. You can unplug it and hold it in front of you like a book, making it very easy to navigate with your thumbs using the cool "soft-keys" that light up a neat-looking blue while in use, but which disappear completely when the frame is left alone to display images. One added benefit of having no "hard buttons" is that the frame can be rotated 90 degrees to display "portrait" orientation images, and it will not look weird (i.e. with a bunch of visible buttons in a strange place).

The built-in memory should be able to store a large number of images that are sized to the screen's resolution of 720 x 480.

In general, the build-quality is excellent, including a nice and heavy metal desk stand that keeps the frame planted firmly in place.

The only negative I can think of about the frame, and it is a minor one, is that the gloss-black finish of the frame itself is prone to showing fingerprints. This is an issue since you have to touch this part of the frame when you are making adustments to settings etc. So keep some good-quality plexiglass cleaner around to use on your frame post-tweak to ensure that it looks its best. For daily use (i.e. turning on in the morning and off at night) this would not be an issue, since the power switch is on the back of the frame.

Also, the only reason I gave this product 4 stars instead of 5 is that I think the manufacturer should have written into the firmware the ability to set an automatic startup and shut off time for the frame. This would be very easy to do, and would have made this pretty much a perfect product in my opinion. Since the firmware that runs this frame, and apparently other frames by Digital Spectrum, appears to be user-updatable via downloads from the manufacturer website, perhaps this feature could be added in a future firmware update?

I only use this product for displaying still photos. I have not used, nor do I intend to use, the sound or video playback functions of this product, so I can't speak to those.

Bottom Line: If you are looking for a small-format digital picture frame, this one should be at the top of your list.

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ViewSonic DPG807BK 8-Inch SwifTouch Multimedia Digital Photo Frame

Cheap ViewSonic DPG807BK 8-Inch SwifTouch Multimedia Digital Photo Frame Review

The picture quality is pretty good. There are tons of ports for multiple number of devices and the frame doesn't not require any software installation. It is extremely easy to transfer pictures even to the devices plugged into the frame. The frame looks stylish. The buttons on the bottom look cool but they are sometimes hard to press. he only thing that's bad about the frame is that you can't display the pictures randomly and that's a pretty easy feature to implement. Overall great frame for the price.

Cheap Pandigital PAN5000W02 5-Inch Digital Picture Frame (Black) Review

Great frame, nice size for office desk. This is the second one I'm buying. First one for myself, second as a gift. Wish it didn't lose its settings when unplugged (or have power surges). I know it isn't portable, but an internal battery for saving functions would have been a +.