If you’re looking for a greeting card that can also be a gift, look no further than the Pandigital Photo Greeting Card sets sold at Amazon.com.  There are three themed sets:  birthday, holiday (not Christmas specific), and general.  Each set has three cards, each with a different design, and costs $34.99.  The cards contain a 1.4″ digital photo frame that can hold up to fifty photos.  Each card uses 2 3v button cell batteries, included, and these are user-replaceable.  You’ll get one USB cable with each set of three cards, so the recipient won’t be able to change or add pictures to the frame.

Filed in categories: Digital Cameras and Gear, News

Tagged: Digital Photo Frame, Greeting cards, Spotlight Gadgets

Pandigital Greeting Cards with Digital Photo Frame originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on October 2, 2010 at 1:05 pm.

I’m sure you’ve seen those mugs that you can have custom printed with a photo.  The Digital Photo Mug from ThinkGeek goes one better than those mugs.  This travel mug – for hot or cold beverages – has a 1.5″ LCD digital photo frame mounted right on the front.  The frame can hold up to 45 pictures;  just load them up using the included USB cable.  The photo frame pops out of the mounting so you can throw the mug in the dishwasher.  The Digital Photo Mug is $24.99.

Filed in categories: Gear, News

Tagged: Digital Photo Frame, Spotlight Gadgets, Travel Mug

Digital Photo Mug from ThinkGeek originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on May 17, 2010 at 8:53 am.

Now you can use WiFi and email to almost effortlessly add photos to a digital picture frame.  The Kodak Pulse frame has its own email address;  you email pictures to the frame and they’re automatically added to the frame’s library.  Kodak says you can store up to 4000 images in the 512 MB of internal memory.  The frame can connect to Facebook and the Kodak Gallery sites, so you’ll see new pictures as friends and family post them.  You can also add pictures from a USB drive or from memory cards.  The Pulse has a 7″ screen with 800 X 600 display resolution.  The Kodak Pulse works with Windows or Mac computers, and it’s compatible with 802.11 b/g or b/g/n routers.  The Pulse digital frame is $119.95 from Kodak.

Filed in categories: Digital Cameras and Gear, News

Tagged: Digital Photo Frame, Wireless

Kodak Pulse Wireless Digital Frame originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on May 2, 2010 at 6:18 am.

This is a nifty device from Sungale that combines a modern styled LED desk lamp with a 3.5 LCD screen. The screen has a resolution of 320X240 and is capable of displaying slide shows from images saved to SD, MMC or MS cards. This desk accessory is priced at $79.99

Filed in categories: Home Tech, News

Tagged: Digital Photo Frame, LED, Spotlight Gadgets

LED lamp with a built in digital photo frame originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on February 7, 2010 at 8:15 am.

Not so long ago, proud parents carried small photo albums called brag books loaded with pictures of their families.  Brookstone is offering the 21st century version of the brag book – the My Life Pocket Digital Photo Frame.  This portable frame offers a 3.5″ screen with 320 X 240 resolution.  It has a rechargeable battery for up to three hours of viewing, and it comes with an A/C adapter.  The unit holds up to 4000 pictures in its internal 128 mb of storage.  It comes with the software (both Windows and Mac)  necessary to resize your photos to best fit the My Life.  It’s about $70 at Brookstone.

Filed in categories: Home Tech, News

Tagged: Digital Photo Frame, Spotlight Gadgets

My Life Pocket Digital Photo Frame originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on January 24, 2010 at 9:21 am.

Recently we had a post about a digital frame with a built-in scanner.  Now here’s the iMo Photo Frame with a built-in printer!  Pictures display on an 8″ 800 X 600 pixel LCD screen.  The frame has 1 GB internal memory, and it has slots for USB, SD, CF, and other memory cards.  The built-in printer produces 300 X 300 dpi prints.  The iMo frame comes with a 12-print cartridge.  Replacement cartridges contain everything needed – paper and ink – for 36 prints.  The frame is $99.99.  Replacement cartridges are $19.99.

Filed in categories: Digital Cameras and Gear, Home Tech, News

Tagged: Digital Photo Frame, Photo printer

iMo Digital Photo Frame Printer originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on January 5, 2010 at 10:58 am.

The Scanning Digital Picture Frame from Hammacher Schlemmer offers a wealth of options for $199.95  It has an 8″ TFT LCD screen with 800 X 600 resolution, and it has 1 GB of internal storage to store up to 3000 images.  It has a 300 dpi scanner built-in to make adding pictures easy.  You can display pictures, play MPEG videos, and even play mp3 files.  It can also display a picture calendar and a clock.  You can transfer your files to MS/SD/xD/MMC/CF cards or to a USB drive to save them on your computer (Windows or Mac).  There is also a Pict-Bridge connector for easy transfer from your camera.  All this, and a remote control, too.

Filed in categories: Home Tech, News

Tagged: Digital Photo Frame, Scanner, Spotlight Gadgets

Scanning Digital Picture Frame from Hammacher Schlemmer originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on December 14, 2009 at 5:53 pm.

Pete The Gadget Geek Stanley sent me a tip about this nifty digital photo frame called the Shake a Pix. It’s about the size of a credit card, has a built in USB connect to charge and transfer pix. But the cool feature is the fact that it has a built in motion sensor. To change the image, just give it a little shake.

Filed in categories: Digital Cameras and Gear

Tagged: Digital Photo Frame, Photography, Spotlight Gadgets

Shake Shake Shake your Digital Photo Frame originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on May 27, 2009 at 4:50 pm.

This little digital photo frame from Brando has to be the cutest one I’ve seen yet. It has two media slots – USB and SD. The resolution is only 320 x 234, but it not only shows your photos, but can play MP3 and MP4 files as well. All for $89.00.

Filed in categories: Uncategorized

Tagged: Digital Photo Frame, MP3, MP4, Spotlight Gadgets

Spotlight Gadget – Brando QTV Digital Photo Frame originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on January 6, 2009 at 7:32 am.

I have always enjoy reviewing digital photo frames, so I was very excited when I was given the opportunity to review my first WiFi enabled frame from D-Link. The DSM-210 Internet Photo Frame has 1GB of internal memory and is 10″ diagonally. Sounds like a nice feature set, let’s see how it rates…

Hardware Specifications

Display: 10” TFT LCD, 16:9 Format, 800 x 480 Resolution
Internal memory: 1GB
Memory card formats: SD (Secure Digital), MMC (Multimedia Card), Memory Stick
Supported photo format: JPEG
Network: Wireless 802.11g, Wired LAN: 10/100Mbps Ethernet
Size: 8 x 12 x 1.3 inches
Weight: 1.3lbs

Package Contents

Internet Photo Frame
Remote Control with Battery
Power Adapter
Ethernet Cable
Quick Setup Guide
Stand
Black and White Faceplates
CD-ROM with Widget Software and Product Documentation

The frame is made of Black plastic and ships with two magnetic faceplates that are very easy to swap. In the image above, you see the frame with the White faceplate installed. In each bottom corner is a small circular cutout. One is for the IR remote and the other is a window for the motion sensor. Instead of implementing a timer feature to allow you to automatically turn the frame on and off depending on the time of day, the motion sensor will shut off the display after a period of time that no motion is detected, and will turn it back on when movement resumes. Personally, I would like a timer too…

Here you see the Black faceplate installed. You’ll also notice the glowing D-Link logo and image control buttons for previous and next picture, play and pause. The buttons are touch sensitive and only glow for a few seconds once you touch the frame. I don’t really like using the touch controls as they don’t seem to always work when I use them.

These controls are the only ones available directly through the frame itself. All other interaction is done with the IR remote – so you don’t want to lose it.

On the back of the frame, you’ll find the stand, that can be oriented for landscape or portrait orientations. There are also mounting holes if you decide to hang the frame on a wall.

Although this frame is WiFi enabled, it also has an Ethernet jack if you prefer to connect it to your router with a cable.

On the top edge is the power switch and a WPS switch. WPS stands for WiFi Protected Setup. This is a new method of ‘pairing’ a WiFi device with a wireless router or access point. It’s sort of like pairing devices with Bluetooth as a PIN is required. This appears to be a new feature that not many wireless routers support. Don’t worry though, the DSM-210 can also connect to your wireless router the same way you usually connect devices. By the SSID name.

In addition to the built in 1GB of internal memory, there is also a USB port and a flash card slot that can accommodate SD, MMC and Memory Sticks.

The 10 inch display is one of the nicer ones I’ve seen, but I would say that the Aluratek digital frame that I reviewed a few months ago is somewhat better in that regard. The D-Link has very nice color and crispness. It’s bright and can be viewed easily at different angles. But surprisingly, there are no controls for adjusting contrast or brightness so that you can customize the display for your own person preferences.

The screen resolution is 800×480, which is a widescreen 16:9 format. The images that your digital camera captures are probably not going to be in widescreen format. So by default, your pictures will display in 4:3 format and you’ll see black bars on either side of the image. If this annoys you, you can have the image stretch to fit the screen or cropped to fit. Both of those options make the resulting image a little fuzzy though…

When you first turn on the frame, you’ll be presented with the main menu. If you have any USB flash drives or memory cards plugged in, you’ll see them in the Frame Memory listing. From there, you can pick which memory device you’d like to view images from. Unfortunately, you can’t tell the frame to view all the images in all connected memory devices (internal, USB and memory card slot).

When you choose one of the listed memory options, a thumbnail list will be displayed.

While you’re viewing an image, you can press the Menu button on the IR remote. When you do this, you will have the ability to save that image to internal memory. This feature seems a bit clunky to me as there is no progress indicator while the image is copying. The frame just freezes while the operation is happening. It’s also important to note that there isn’t a way to copy multiple images into internal memory from USB or a memory card. You have to do them all one at a time. This makes using internal memory a bit too tedious in my opinion.

As far as transition effects go, I like the Pan and Zoom one the best. It’s like the Ken Burns effect. Another omission is that you can’t set the number of seconds in between each image. As it is, the time is approximately 5 seconds, which to me feels too fast.

The image above is an example of what an image looks like in 4:3 format. Notice the Black bars on either side of the image.

As mentioned, one of the main features of the DSM-210 is the fact that it is WiFi enabled. Connecting to an open network is simple. I was able to connect to mine within seconds after initially powering on the frame. Once connected, it will check to see if there are any firmware updates and will allow you to download and install them.

If your WiFi network isn’t open, you can manually enter the SSID and connect that way.

You can also configure other network settings if needed.

If you have a NAS (network attached storage) device or a PC running Windows Media Player 11, you can share images with the frame that way.

You can also view images from various popular image sharing sites like flickr, Facebook, and Picasa. By creating an account on D-Link’s FrameCentral website, you can add all sorts of ‘channels’ to your frame. Just a sampling are shown below.

There are cartoon strips like Garfield. Local weather channel.

Nature and art images. RSS feed reader.

Calendars and news headlines.

You can then show just the content from an individual channel, or randomly show content from all channels. These channels are a nice feature as they allow you to view extra unknown content instead of your same images over and over. The only problem is that you can’t really interact with the info channels. For example, if you add an RSS feed, you might just see the title of a new post, instead of the whole post. Same goes with news headlines. There is no way to see the rest of an item. Although I initially added a bunch of channels to my frame, thinking they would be cool, I ended up removing all but image channels.

People can also email images to your frame as it has its own email address. Great for friends and family to send you snapshots that will automatically show up in the slideshow if you’re viewing all channels. Feel free to send my frame some images if you like: gadgeteer@framesend.com

Just when I was wrapping up my testing of this product, I ran into a problem… I was copying an image from a USB flash drive into the internal memory and it seemed to freeze the frame for way longer than the other times that I’d copied images. So after about 5 minutes, I just used the power switch on the frame to turn it off. When I turned the frame back on, the internal memory vanished. I don’t mean that the images that were there were gone, I mean that the option to even access internal memory vanished. Trying to copy images to internal memory does nothing now. And if that wasn’t weird, the option in the setup menu to reset the frame to factory defaults also vanished. I tried toggling power, pressing the physical reset switch and disconnecting power for several minutes. Nothing has fixed the issue. I finally ended up calling D-Link tech support. I was on hold for about 15 minutes before getting a tech person. He took all my info, put me on hold for several minutes several times and then told me he would create a case# for me and transfer me to tier two support. I was then on hold for several more minutes when the phone disconnected. Yay – not. So I called back, was on hold again, got transferred to tier two, answered questions again about the problem, and was told that one of the engineers for that product would call me in 1 hour because everyone was at lunch. No one ever called me back… Grrrr…

Even with the odd software / hardware (?) issue that I now have with it, I do still like this product as everything is still working with the frame except for the internal memory. I like the DSM-210 mainly for its WiFi and internet features. Being able to link to your Flickr and other photo sharing sites is really nice and the ability to receive images emailed to the frame is equally fun. I am definitely concerned about the disappearing internal memory and menu option, but think that somehow copying an image from my USB flash drive into memory scrambled things. I hope that the next firmware update might fix the issue. Until my frame can be restored to complete working order, I can’t fully recommend the D-Link DSM-210, but I will still enjoy using it in its current condition.

Filed in categories: Audio, Video, TV Gear, Wireless

Tagged: Digital Photo Frame

D-Link Internet Photo Frame DSM-210 Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on August 22, 2008 at 11:50 pm.

Here’s my quick look video review of digital photo keychains from Wholesale Keychains.com.

Hardware Specifications

1.5 inch keychain: 1.5 inch 128×128 LCD display, 4.8 MB internal memory which can store about 72 pictures, 5.5×4.1×1.2cm
TAO keychain: 1.4 inch 108×80 CSTN LCD display, 8 MB internal memory which can store 62 images, 1.8×1.8x 0.5 in

Features

Both keychains recharge via regular mini USB cable.
Both keychains require you to install a small application on your PC or Mac in order to copy images to the keychain.
The 1.5 inch keychain is PC only, while the Tao keychain has both PC and Mac apps (Mac version is a download on the TAO website).

Video Notes

Click thumbnail to see full size screen shot

On the left side, is a screen shot of the PC application for the 1.5 inch keychain and on the right side is a screen shot of the Mac application for the TAO keychain.

Price:1.5 inch keychain $19.99, TAO keychain $34.99. Engraving $5.99.

Filed in categories: Audio, Video, TV Gear, Video Reviews

Tagged: Digital Photo Frame

Digital Photo Keychains Video Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on June 26, 2008 at 4:33 pm.

If you are in the market for a digital photo frame, I have one to show you today that so far beats the pants off of all the frames I’ve reviewed to date. The ADMPF311F 11″ Digital Photo Frame from Aluratek is impressive both in size and style.

Hardware Specs

11 inch display
800 x 480 Screen Resolution
Supports card formats: CF, MS, SD, MMC and XD
Supports image / video / audio formats: JPEG, MPEG, AVI, MP3, BMP and WMA
AC Adapter 110-240 VAC Voltage Range
13.25″ x 10″ inches

Package Contents

Digital Photo Frame
1GB SD memory
Remote Control
USB 2.0 Cable (Type A to mini-B)
Power Adapter
Instructional Manual
Warranty / Registration Card

This is the largest digital photo frame that I’ve reviewed so far and I have to say that bigger is definitely better…

It has a wonderful wood frame that gives it a very classic style that I can appreciate. This particular model only appears to be available in what appears to be an Oak finish, so it might to fit into everyone’s decor.

The back of the device is made of a Silvery Grey plastic. The stand only allows you to position this frame in a landscape position. There are also nail holes if you prefer to mount the frame on the wall.

On the left side of the frame, you’ll find two USB connection points and two media card slots. On the Right, is the power status LED, six navigation buttons, the power switch and AC adapter port.

The mini USB connector allows you to plug the frame into your computer in order to use the frame like a card reader for copying images, movies and audio. The full sized USB connector gives you the ability to use flash drives with the frame.

The two media card slots can accommodate CF, MS, SD, MMC and XD cards. The frame itself does not have any internal memory of its own. Your images, music and video have to be stored on cards or USB storage devices. Don’t worry though, a 1GB SD card is included with the frame.

The navigation buttons on the Right side of the frame give you some of the same functionality that the included remote provides. Unfortunately, not all of the functionality is there, so it is very important that you don’t lose the remote.

The plastic membrane style infrared remote has 17 buttons. It’s easy to operate and understand. I didn’t need to refer to the instruction manual in order to immediately start using this frame to view my images.

After you power on the device, it will display a brief splash screen with the Aluratek logo, and will then go into the default image viewing mode. Thumbnails images from the installed media cards are displayed and can be scrolled by using the up and down buttons on the remote or the frame. It will default to the CF slot first, then the SD slot and lastly, the USB slot. To switch between different cards to see all the images, you have to press the Card Select button on the remote to toggle through them.

Pressing the Setup button will show you a short menu of settings that can be customized.

There are 10 transition effects that you can choose from.

One of the best features included in the frame’s software is the ability to set automatic power on and off times. This is done through the calendar screen. You can’t set individual on / off times for specific days though.

In photo mode, you can view view by individual images or as a slide show. If you view by slide show and have .MP3 or .WMA music files stored on the same media card as the images, a song will play in the background while images are cycling. Besides turning the volume all the off, I wasn’t able to find a setting to turn off the feature of background music.

Images can be viewed in 4:3 or 16:9 format. In the image above, the Left image is in 4:3 and the Right is in 16:9. Changing modes is done using the remote control. Widescreen looks significantly better in my opinion as it uses the whole display. I don’t like all the Black space around the image in 4:3 mode. One caveat though… the format setting isn’t retained after a power off.

I have to say that the image quality with this frame is fantastic. Easily better than any other frame I’ve ever reviewed. Pictures are clear and crisp and colors are vivid and brilliant. I asked the PR person that sent me the frame what the max resolution is. She told me 800 x 480. But I notice that lots of sites selling the frame claim that the resolution is 1024 x 768. It’s really hard to photograph a display, but the image above was taken without a flash and has only been cropped and resized. Otherwise, it looks pretty true to what the frame is capable of. Nice huh?

The frame has a very good viewing angle, so you don’t have to be directly in front to see the image clearly.

Music and video modes show the files in a list like you see above. For the most part, the interface is very simple and easy to navigate. I didn’t find any of the modes to be confusing or hard to use.

The speakers built into the frame are decent. Music sounds pretty good. It’s not going to replace your iPod and speaker combo, but for a very simple audio player, it works fine.

Playing video through this device will not win any awards. For one thing, it only supports .AVI format. I tested a few .AVI files and didn’t have any issues or problems playing them, but this isn’t the device that I would want to use to play those times of files all the time.

No one that buys a digital photo frame is going to buy one for it’s audio and video capabilities, so I don’t really even count those features as important. At least they aren’t to me. But as a digital image viewer the ADMPF311F does a very nice job as far as image quality. This frame would be significantly better if it had a WiFi mode to allow for wireless image copying. I’d also like it if it would allow you to do a slideshow with images on all cards instead of having to manually switch between each one. But other than those 2 requests, I can’t think of much else I would want in a frame. The Aluratek looks great with the wood frame, displays great images and even comes with a 1GB card. If you’re in the market for a digital photo frame, this is one to consider.

You can find this frame for sale on various retail sites from $159.95 and up.

Filed in categories: Home Tech

Tagged: Digital Photo Frame

Aluratek 11″ Digital Photo Frame Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on May 27, 2008 at 9:45 pm.

If you’re in the market for a small digital picture frame, Edge Tech Corp has one that I’d like to tell you about. It doesn’t have an abundance of gee whiz features, but it is easy to use. Let’s take a closer look.

Hardware Specifications

Display:7.0″ Active Matrix LCD, Resolution:480 x 234
Music:Built-in MP3 player with integrated speakers for MP3 playback. Earphone jack, stereo speakers
Supported audio / video formats:AVI, JPEG, MP3, MPEG-1, and MPEG-4 files
Compatibility:Supports SD, MultiMedia (MMC) Cards, Memory Stick, Memory Stick Pro, Memory Stick Pro Duo, and USB flash drive devices
Power:External power supply included. AC Adapter; Input 100-240V; Output 12V, 1.5A.
Size:7″ Screen (Diagonal) 9″ (L) x 1.2″ (W) x 6.25″ (H)
Weight:1.75 lbs

Package Contents

Hi-Res 7″ Digital Picture Frame
Remote control
User manual
AC power supply

This frame comes assembled in one piece. No stands to attach and no changeable frames. Luckily, the design is pretty basic, so it should fit well with almost any decor.

It’s not tiny like the Brando Digital Photo Album that I just reviewed, but this one is on the small size at 7 inches. As you can see from the image above, the frame around the display is made of transparent and white plastic. The small circle in the center bottom part of the frame is the infrared eye for the included handheld remote. More about the remote in a bit.

If you look at the back of the frame, you’ll see all the control buttons and stand. There are also two wall hanging mounts so that you could attach the frame to a wall in either portrait or landscape orientation.

There are buttons to navigate the menus, select items, exit menus and toggle power. A small LED to the Right of the power switch glows when the frame is turned on.

On the Right side of the frame, you will find a power connector for the included AC adapter, an earphone jack, USB connector and a card slot that will accommodate SD, Memory Stick flash cards. This is actually one of the first card reading digital frames that I’ve reviewed that does not have a CompactFlash slot. Since my main camera (Nikon Coolpix 8800) uses CF cards, I was a bit disappointed, but not overly so.

If you’re wondering about the USB slot, it’s to allow you to plug in a flash drive like the Kingston DataTraveler drive you see here.

To start using this frame, you fill up a flash card or USB flash drive with images, videos and or music. These files can be contained in folders or all dumped into the root of the flash device. Once you load up the content, then put the card in the slot and press the power button.

A few seconds later, you’ll see the main screen, which shows if you have a USB drive, flash card or both installed. Using the navigation buttons on the back of the frame, or the buttons on the remote, you navigate to either the USB drive or Flash drive and press the Enter button.

The next menu you’ll be greeted with, will give you the choice of viewing photos, listening to music, watching videos, or viewing files.

Choosing photos will then display a thumbnail view of the images on the selected flash device. You can pick individual photos to view in full screen, or just press the Play button on the remote to start slideshow mode.

Slideshow mode works as you would expect, it will display an image for several seconds and then load the next image. Various transitional effects are used between the images. You can leave the default set to random so that a new tranasition is used each time, or you can pick a specific effect.

The display is bright and the colors are vivid. I found the viewing angle to be very good as well.

Choosing the music option will allow you to play .MP3 files through the built in speakers. The music player is very simple and only gives you minimal information about the song. For the most part, you wouldn’t use this frame as your sole mp3 player. The real reason for this feature is the ability to play music behind your slide shows.

The Edge digital frame can also play video files. The documentation claims compatiblity with MPEG1, MPEG4 and AVI files. My testing yielded dismal results with MPEG files…

I actually was only able to get one MPEG4 file to play. You see what it looked like above… All the other MPEG4 files that I tried just caused the screen to go completely Black. AVI files on the other hand seemed to work fine though…

The files feature gives you a file manager type of interface to navigate through the flash media inserted into the frame.

You can use the buttons on the back side of the frame to traverse the menus, but using the remote is much easier and can be done from across the room. You can even rotate and zoom the images.

The Edge digital frame is a nice small frame. The added MP3 player is a nice feature, but the one feature that is missing that I would like to see is the ability to set an auto on and off time. It would also be nice if the resolution was higher as the images do appear a bit blocky up close. This isn’t something that you really notice if you are viewing the frame from several feet away though. All in all, this frame does appear to be less expensive (with the current rebate and free shipping) that similar frames of the same size and resolution. So if you’re in the market for a digital frame and have a tight budget, this one shouldn’t disappoint you.

Filed in categories: Home Tech

Tagged: Digital Photo Frame

EDGE 7″ Digital Picture Frame with MP3 Player originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on January 7, 2008 at 8:04 pm.

I’ve reviewed several digital photo frames over the years, but this is the first
itty bitty frame I’ve had the opportunity to review. It’s the Digital Photo
Album from Brando. This frame has a
display that is only 2.4 inches. Sounds like it might be too small doesn’t it?
Let’s find out.

Hardware Specifications

2.4 inches TFT LCD Panel
320×240 Pixels Resolution
Supports JPG/BMP/GIF
Powered by USB port or Powered by Built-in Li-Ion Battery
Built-in 16MB memory (Store up to 32 photos)
Built-in 3.7V Li-Ion battery
Playing time ~5 hours
Size: 70x57x15mm without frame, 110x98x15mm with Transparent frame
Weight: 42g without frame, 63g with Transparent frame

Package Contents

2.4 inch LCD Digital Photo Frame
Transparent frame or Heart-Shape frame
Two Stands (35mm and 60mm)
USB AC adapter
USB cable
User Manual
Driver CD

There are two different plastic frame styles available. A transparent frame and
a heart shaped  frame. I was sent both styles to review.

Either frame snaps over the actual display very easily and is held there by
friction.

The controls are located on the back of the frame. There are three buttons. A
menu button with navigation buttons on either side of it. There is also a mini
USB connector.

Two frame stands are also included. One is shorter than the other. I’m not quite
sure why there are two of them… Neither one allows you to place the stand in a
portrait position.

The display is only 2.4 inches, with a resolution of 320 x 240 pixels. Even
though that is very small, it’s bright and has vibrant colors, making images
look surprisingly good.

In order to load your images on the digital album, you have to unfortunately
install some special proprietary software. I was surprised that I wasn’t able to
just plug the USB cable into my Mac and copy pictures into the 16mb of memory
like any other flash drive. Nope, no such luck. I thought maybe it was just a
Mac thing, so I tried it on a PC and had the same result. The frame was not
detected as a flash device. So I installed the software … grumble, grumble…

Click thumbnail to see full size screen shot

The software is easy enough to use. You just choose the images located on your
computer that you want to send to the frame, and click the sync button. They are
then automatically resized and cropped to fit the small digital album display
size. Unfortunately, I found that the images that I sent to the frame were
rotated into  portrait mode by default.

To user interface for the frame is simple. Just press the middle menu button and
you’ll be presented with the menu you see in the image above. As you can see,
there aren’t that many options.

Display Mode – Choose between auto slide show or manual slide show and
duration between slides
Clock Set – Set the time and date
Auto On/Off - Set an auto on and auto off time for the frame. Only works
when the frame is not connected to power / USB
Clock Disp – Show or not show a 24hr format clock in bottom right corner
of display
LCD Contrast – Display brightness adjuster
Delete – Allows you to delete the last image viewed from memory 
Exit – Back to slide show

The automatic slide show mode has several transitions that it uses to go from
photo to photo. You don’t have any control over which transitions are used, but
you can set how many seconds between photos.

Some people might not like how small this frame is, but it is just so cute
that I can’t help but like it. I actually like it better than larger frames. I
guess it’s because this frame doesn’t take up that much space and I can just
plug it into a USB port an not have to tie up a power outlet. Although it has a
rechargeable battery built into it, I find that I just leave it plugged into a
USB port all the time.

There are three things that would make this little USB digital frame even
better than it is… More memory would be my first wish. 16 megabytes is pretty
low. Even better would be the ability to copy images directly to the frame
without having to dork with the proprietary software. And last but not least,
enable the auto on / off feature to work even when plugged into USB and / or the
included AC adapter.

Even with those few complaints, I think I’ll continue to use this little
frame. It’s cute and I like it )

Filed in categories: Home Tech

Tagged: Digital Photo Frame

Brando USB 2.4″ Digital Photo Album originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on January 7, 2008 at 7:47 pm.

Over the years, I have had the opportunity to review 4 different digital photo frames. The last such review was the Tricod Frame just this past summer. Although I did like this device, I ended up giving it to my Dad, because it lacked one feature that I’ve always longed for in a digital photo frame. Today I’m going to tell you about the 7FF1 (what a wonderful product name) Digital Photo Display from Philips. Guess what? It has the feature I’ve been wishing for. You’ll just have to continue reading to find out what that feature is…

Hardware Specs

5.4 x 3.6 inch, 133ppi, 16-bit (65,536) color 720×480 resolution LCD display
Vertical dot pitch: 0.1905 mm, Horizontal dot pitch: 0.1905 mm
Brightness: 200 nits
Viewing angle (CR>5): Horizontal (-85°~85°), Vertical (-85°~85°)
Backlight Half-Life time: 20,000 hours
12 mb of internal memory
Rechargeable Lithium ion battery
Compact flash (Type I) and SD/MMC/Memory stick slots

Package Contents

Digital photo display
Photo display stand
Power adapter
USB female cable
USB male cable
Quick start guide
CD with user manual

Hardware Design
Front

Designed with a thick clear and White Lucite type frame, this device fits in nicely with my similarly styled Apple hardware. Unlike some other frames that I have reviewed, this one does not allow for customization of the frame around the LCD display. However, there is a wood frame version available.

At 5.4 x 3.6 inches, the display is a nice size, neither too big or too small.

Back

When you flip the 7FF1 over, you will be presented with a row of control buttons, a socket for the table stand, the On/Off switch, media card slots, USB connector and an AC adapter connector.

A chrome plated table stand is included with the frame. It’s keyed, so that you can only attach it one way.

You just line it up and give it a turn to lock it in place. The stand is pretty heavy, which keeps the frame from scooting around on your desk when you don’t want it to.

Without manipulating the stand, you can set the frame up in either landscape or portrait orientation.

The 7FF1 includes 2 media card slots. One for Compact Flash and one for SD, MMC or Memory stick.

In addition to the card slots, the frame has 12 megabytes of internal memory that you can use to copy images into. As cheap as flash memory is, you would think they would have included more. But then it’s also odd that they included any at all. I guess it’s there for people that don’t have an extra flash card that they can just leave plugged into the frame.

You can also use the included USB cables to attach your digital camera to the frame for image downloading, or even your PC / Mac. When you plug the frame into your computer, it shows up as an external drive that you can drag and drop photos to.

The On / Off switch has an LED that shows the status of charging the internal Lithium ion battery. The battery will charge no matter if the frame is powered on or off. More about using the frame unplugged in a bit.

The row of buttons along the top back edge of the frame allow you to interact with the display and onscreen menus. I will warn you now that navigating through the menus can be very frustrating. They really need to work on that aspect of the product.

In setup mode, you have the ability to change the different settings for the slideshow. This includes screen orientation, frequency (speed that pictures change), transition effects and order. The frequency can be set from 5 seconds up to 1 day.

The transition effects are really pretty good with this frame. Better implemented than other frames I’ve reviewed. They just seem smoother to me.

Ok, here we go. This is the function I’ve been waiting for! With the Philips 7FF1, you can set an auto on and auto off time. Yay! This means that you can have the frame set to turn on around 5pm when you get home from work, and then turn off at 11pm when you go to bed. Nice! There’s also a setting to change the brightness level between 6pm and 6am. The weird thing is that this is hard coded. You can’t change the time, just the brightness level that changes.

The status screen tells you how much space is left in internal memory.

There are 3 viewing modes. One mode is the thumbnail view as seen above.

There is also a browse mode, which you can have display information pertaining to the photo in a status bar below it. In this mode, one image will remain on the display until you press an arrow key to advance or go back to a previous photo.

In slideshow mode, images will continuously cycle depending on the transition effect and frequency settings.

In use, I found the Philips 7FF1 digital photo display to be a welcome addition to my home. It has a very crisp, bright screen with good color saturation. The pictures shown in this review do not do it justice.

In landscape or portrait orientation, this frame can fit into almost any decor. While it does have a contemporary flavor, the style is simple and basic.

Besides the auto power features, I’ve not yet mentioned one other feature that sets this digital photo frame apart from others. This one has a rechargeable battery. You can use the 7FF1 untethered to a power cord. That may sound exciting and great, but the only problem is that the battery life is pretty crappy. I was able to get 2hrs per charge when using all the default settings for brightness etc. To me, that really doesn’t make this feature all that useful, except maybe for passing it around at a party.

It seems that the only online retailer that I can find for this product is Amazon. Their price is around $167, which isn’t too horrible considering the great image quality of this particular frame. If I was in the market for a digital photo frame, this would be the one that I would buy for myself.

Filed in categories: Home Tech

Tagged: Digital Photo Frame

Philips 7FF1AW/37 Digital Photo Display originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on October 17, 2006 at 11:38 am.

Digital photo frames sure have come down in price over the past few years. I reviewed the Digi-Frame DF-560 in May of 2002. At that time this 5.6 inch frame had a whopping price tag of $549! Now here it is 4 years later and I’m going to show you a digital frame from Tricod Inc. that looks almost identical to the DF-560, but costs $400 less. At $149, this frame can even play music and video. Check it out.

Hardware Specs

Display: 5.6″ TFT Active Matrix
Resolution: 320 x 234
Music Format: MP3
Video Format: MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4
Picture Format: JPEG
Audio: Input/Output, 2 built-in SPers
Video: Input/Output, S-Video NTSC/PAL
Media card support: Compact-Flash (CF), Smart-Media (SM), Memory-Stick (MS), Secure Digital (SD), Micro-Drive (MD), and xD via card adaptor (separate)
Power: AC Adaptor
Power Input: 100-240VAC
Power Output: 12V, 1.5A, 50-60Hz 18W
Dimension: 210(L) x 171(W) x 38mm (H)
Weight: 2.75 lbs.

Package Contents

Digital photo frame
3 plastic frames
Remote
Audio / Video cables
AC adapter
User manual

This is a very nice looking digital photo frame that you can customize somewhat, with the 3 different plastic snap on frames that are included. I like the burl wood frame best, but it also comes with Grey and Brown versions. The frames are easy to pop on and take off, whenever you’re ready for a different look.

A screw in plastic stand is also included. You can use the frame either in portrait or landscape orientation. If you prefer to hang the frame on the wall, a nail hanger is built into the back of the case. As you can see, the speakers are also located on the back of the frame.

Located along the top edge of the frame are the main controls. There is a Power slide switch, Power status LED, Volume adjustment wheel, Brightness Adjustment wheel and Color adjustment wheel.

Along the left side of the frame are the 2 media card slots. Unlike the Digi-Mate frame I reviewed eons ago, this frame can accommodate CF, SM, MS, SD, MD and xD (with an adapter) cards.

On the opposite side there is the AC adapter connector and Audio / Video out jacks. With the A/V out jacks and the included cables, you can connect this frame to your TV set for larger screen viewing.

A small handheld IR remote is also included. It has real buttons too! Yay! The remote is powered by 1 CR2025 coin cell battery, which can be found at most drug stores like CVS.

To use the frame, you just plug in a flash card (or 2) and power it on.

If you have a card in each slot, you’ll be given the choice of which card to read from. Unfortunately, this frame will not automatically access the 2nd card during a slideshow.

After choosing the desired card, you are then given a choice of which media functions to use. The options are: Photo, Music, Video and File.

Choosing Photo will first display a page of thumbnails of all the .JPG images on your media card. The frame will traverse folders to display all the images thumbnails. At this point, you can scroll through all the pages and select an image starting point for a slide show.

Images will automatically cycle every 1, 3, 5 or 10 seconds. This time interval is controlled through the hand held remote. At anytime, you can pause the display or get information on a particular image.

Image quality on this frame is much better than I remember with the other frame I reviewed. The colors are vivid, and the screen is bright. This one has a wider viewing angle, so you don’t have to be completely facing it or at eye level to get a good image. It’s also fast at switching images, even with images that are over 1.5mb each.

Using the remote you can change the transition effect between pictures. There are 14 different basic effects. Nothing too fancy though. Mainly scroll left to right, right to left, up / down, down / up, blinds, crossfade, etc.

In addition to displaying your photos, this frame can also play MP3 audio files.

Choosing the Music function will show a list of all the .MP3 files found on the selected flash card. Songs inside folders will also be displayed in the list. Selecting a song will begin playback. Pressing Info while a song is playing, will bring up a live equalizer view that moves to the beat of the music.

The first song in the root of the flash card will be used as background music to start your slide shows. Unfortunately, you have no real control over this feature, other than only putting the songs you wish to use as background music in the root of the card. Or if you don’t want music at all, not putting music in the root of the flash card. The frame will not use songs in other folders for slide show background music.

Another feature of the frame is the ability to play AVI and MPEG video files. I didn’t have much luck with this feature though… Playback was stuttery at best. At the worst, it just froze the display.

In File mode, you are presented with a file manager style listing that you can use to scroll through all the files and folders on the flash card. Scrolling over an image will display the thumbnail for that image, or start video playback and audio playback of MP3 files.

Disregarding the problem with video playback, I really enjoyed testing this frame. I wasn’t expecting to really be that impressed with it, but I actually was. There is one feature though that could make this frame so much better… a timer function. It would be great if you could program it to automatically turn off during certain hours of the day. Why have it displaying pictures in the wee hours of the morning, when no one is awake to view them? That said, I think this frame would make a wonderful gift for just about anyone. I think I just might give this one to my Dad for Father’s Day!

Filed in categories: Home Tech

Tagged: Digital Photo Frame

Tricod Inc. 5.6 Inch Digital Photo Frame originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on June 4, 2006 at 12:34 pm.

Product Requirements:
A wall outlet and access to a phone line

Have you heard the stories of how Bill Gates has these large, fla,t plasma
screens in all his house’s rooms that change their pictures depending on
whatever they are programmed to display? Yah, I heard those stories too, and I
thought to myself that that had to be the ultimate. I mean, how cool
would it be to view changing pictures, stock quotes, television programs and
whatever – almost like the TV in Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sharon Stone’s
apartment in
Total Recall. However, It wasn’t as if I was about to shell out
several grand just to see how enjoyable this type experience might be, so I just
figured I wouldn’t be getting anything like that…at least until people were
living on Mars.

Of course I had heard about the new, reasonably priced small digital frames.
While their prices made the possibility of owning a device that could display
changing digital pictures a little bit more feasible to me; I still wasn’t quite
sold on the concept, simply because these frames weren’t connected like
Bill’s.

For those of you that aren’t familiar with what a digital frame is, let me
give you the short course. These are frames with a built in display that will
show your digital pictures directly from either a built in memory chip that you
download pictures from your PC to, or from a memory card, in a manner similar to
a slide show. You can decide how fast or slow you would like to see your
pictures go by, or you can display a single picture if you happen to have a
favorite.

While this is a neat concept, and even at it’s most expensive considerably
less than Bill Gates’ solution; nonetheless the idea was still lacking
something in my opinion. It just seemed that if you were going to have a
device such as this sitting on your desk, it might as well be able to do
something more…like display the weather, headlines, or your daily horoscope –
and still allow you to view your favorite photos.

Then I had the opportunity to review the
Ceiva Internet
Connected Digital Picture Frame.

Now granted, the Ceiva is in no way ever going to be confused with one of the
plasma screens in Bill’s house. But hey – if you are on a budget, then this is
the way to experience a connected digital picture display.

What do I mean by connected? I mean that this frame actually plugs
into your phone line and by use of an internal modem, receives downloaded
pictures and information. Now we’re talking!

The evening I took the Ceiva out of its box and hooked it up, I knew I had
found a product that I was going to really like. Once I realized what this
digital frame was capable of, I started praising it to Julie…and now she wants
one, too!

But I digress…

So let’s talk about what comes in the box. You get the frame itself, which is made of wood and measures 8" x 10." The frame has a built in LCD screen which measures 5" x 7". This basically makes your pictures look like they are resting in a matted frame. There is a power cord, a dual phone jack, and a length of phone line.

Installation is ridiculously easy: You basically just plug the proper end of the power cord into the back of the Ceiva and then you run the phone cord from the Ceiva to either the dual phone jack or an empty phone jack. Once you have done this, you are then ready to register your frame, and begin receiving downloads via the modem. You can register your frame either through the Ceiva internet site, or by calling a toll-free number.

You will need your frame’s unique serial number, which is located on the underside of the frame stand.

I did my setup via the internet by visiting
Ceiva’s site.

After registering, you will need to purchase a subscription to the Ceiva
service. I suppose that you can look at the subscription as a con, but I don’t.
For roughly $7 a month you get unlimited access to the Ceiva network, your own
webpage on the Ceiva site, and the ability for people to send you content that
will upload directly to your Ceiva.

Once you have purchased your subscription then you are ready to start having
fun. You can choose from a wide variety of "channels," and these will be the
information content that your frame will display daily.

Some of the currently available channels include: ABCNEWS.com Headlines, ESPN
Sports Headlines, ESPN Team Standings, Local Weather, The Wall Street Journal
Online, TV Guide, USATODAY.com, as well as various art gallery listings, comic
listings, daily horoscopes and lottery results. I’m telling you, this is pretty
cool!

You can also upload pictures from your computer for your frame to display.

In case you don’t have access to the internet or a digital camera then you
don’t have to despair. Your friends and relatives can keep you in fresh content,
and they can even send you personalized
postcards directly
from the Ceiva site. All they are required to do is
fill
out a form to get a Ceiva member name. That name allows you to be able to
designate those that can send you content. This means that you won’t receive
"Spam" or dirty pictures from strangers on your Ceiva.

Once I had set up my frame and uploaded a few pictures, I had to IM Julie and
tell her that she needed to send me some photos, too. Ever since, she has been
sending me a picture or two a day. Since the Ceiva will only hold 20 images at a
time, old images will collect on your Ceiva homepage – just in case you want to
see them again or add them to a customizable online album that you can view
photos from or upload to your Ceiva from.

I’m sure that I don’t need to tell you that this is a great way to keep in
touch with someone you care about when you are a great distance away. In fact,
an ideal use for the Ceiva might be for spouses that are separated because of
their jobs or for kids that are away at college that want to get pictures from
family and friends.

Getting new content couldn’t be easier because
each night, sometime between midnight and 5:00 am, your Ceiva frame will
connect to the internet through the internal modem – downloading any pictures
that are waiting for you and all your fresh daily content. This process only
takes a couple of minutes and therefore barely ties up your phone line.

Once you have received your pictures, you can use the buttons on the rear of
the Ceiva to control them…

The white picture button will either advance your photos frame by frame, or it will allow you to select one photo that you would like to keep on continuous display. When this button is held down for a length of time, it will dial into the Ceiva site, allowing you to download any new content that is there waiting for you. The black brightness button allows you to adjust the display to a comfortable viewing brightness.

So without further ado, here are some of the photos on my ever-changing Ceiva
display. These are un-retouched, and as you can see, the display quality is
quite good.

Of course the jiggly lines you see are not evident when viewing the Ceiva
live – that is a camera lens issue.

One of my favorite Ceiva features is the daily weather forecast…it looks like we might finally get some rain tomorrow!

Julie is supposed to be getting a Ceiva in the next couple weeks – soon it
will be my turn to send daily content to her – I can’t wait! :0)

While I honestly didn’t care one way or another about digital frames when I
started reviewing this product, I can now definitely say that I can’t imagine
not having the Ceiva sitting on my desk Of course, you can put yours
anywhere you would like, as long as your Ceiva will have access to a spare phone
jack. Even if it isn’t as fancy as one of Bill Gates’ plasma screens, it still
gets the job done.

The Ceiva Internet
Connected Digital Picture Frame is available from
eFrame Central and other retailers.

Price: $199.95
Subscription costs  $79.95 for 1 Year, and is purchased directly from
Ceiva. If you need Toll-free access, it is an additional $70.00 per year. You
can use Ceiva’s
local
number availability tool to find out if local access is available in your
area.

Pros:

Great way to keep in touch with someone in a visual way
Easy to use
Don’t have to have internet access to use
Relatively inexpensive

Cons:

Nothing really bothered me enough to deserve a con

Filed in categories: Home Tech

Tagged: Digital Photo Frame

Ceiva Internet Connected Digital Picture Frame Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on May 6, 2002 at 12:00 am.

Product Requirements:
Device:
Windows 95/98/NT or Macintosh
Free RS-232, RS-422  9pin Serial connector PC/MAC

I love photography but don’t consider myself an expert on the subject by any
means. I do know that I enjoy taking pictures and viewing them later. But, gone are
the days of sitting on the living room couch thumbing thru a regular paper photo
album. Now we have digital cameras and can view the images directly on our
computer monitor. That’s all well and good, but it might not be the most
enjoyable method for view pictures as not everyone has a computer or wants to
sit in front of one just to relive old memories.

That’s where a digital photo frame comes in. The digital frame looks like
your typical picture frame that probably almost everyone has somewhere in their home.
BUT, this frame doesn’t just display one picture, instead it can cycle thru 100′s or
even a 1000 images!

I recently took a look at a low end
digital frame from Kensington
which was my first foray into this type of device. It was fun to use, but was
very limited as it could only display 12 pictures and required a connection to a PC to transfer pictures.  The DF-560
Digi-Frame that I’ll be talking about today is a high end frame that makes
the Kensington look like a toy. But, is this frame worth the huge price tag?
Let’s find out….

Specs:

LCD: 5.6" diagonal, 230,400 dot (640 x 480), Active-Matrix color TFT LCD
Size (with frame attached): 9.0 x 6.7 x 1.7 in (170 x 228 x 44 mm)
Weight: 2 lb.
Image format: .JPG
Maximum number of images: 1,500
Storage format: Compact Flash or SmartMedia
Power: 100-240 VAC, 60Hz

First of all, the DF-560 looks great even before you turn it on. It comes complete with three interchangeable
snap-on decorator frames to
match your decor or your mood. The frames are made of a thick plastic and
include a wood burl look, metal look, and an aqua color. I really like the
wood look, so that is the one that I chose to use during the review period.
Other
frame packs are available as an optional purchase.

The rest of the device is housed in a black plastic case that is heavy enough
to stay put on any table that you place it on. An adjustable stand allows you to
position the frame in either a landscape or portrait orientation. A very cool feature of
the DF-560 rotates the pictures automatically when you physically change the frame from
landscape to portrait or visa versa. No setting adjustments are required for the
change to occur. It
just flips the screen as soon as you set the frame down in your desired orientation.

At the top of the device are the main controls. From left to right there is
the menu wheel, previous picture, pause picture, next picture, and the contrast
adjustment wheel.

On the lower back portion of the frame is a sliding power switch and power
supply jack. One minor gripe that I have about the Digi-Frame is the fact that
the power brick and supplied cable are heavy and bulky. I guess it’s not a big
deal since you won’t be moving the frame from location to location, but I did
want to mention it.

On the right side of the frame are the memory card slots. A really great
thing about the DF-560 is the fact that you don’t even NEED to connect it to a
PC or a Mac if you don’t want to or don’t have one. All you have to do is snap some pix with your
digital camera, pull out the CF or SmartMedia card with the .jpg images on it
and pop the card into the associated slot on the frame and viola, you’re all set! The
frame will automatically find all the images and start displaying them within a
few seconds.

Another way to get images into the frame is with the
included PC / MAC serial cable. With it, you can transfer images from email and
the internet to the device. Unfortunately though, this is a serial cable which
seems pretty stone age. If you want to use USB, you have to purchase a serial to
USB converter. In my opinion, due to the cost of this frame, serial, USB and
even firewire cables should have all been included.

Once you have a memory card full of images, you just plug it into the
Digi-Frame and turn it on. After a brief pause, the frame will beep and a
welcome screen will be displayed. That screen will quickly disappear and the
images on your memory card will begin displaying.

With the easy-to-use graphic on-screen menu system, you can choose
which of your stored images to display in up to ten different slide shows, each
with its own pictures and settings. Choose from nine different transition
effects, set the time between picture changes, add special effects, select
random or user-defined order, and more.

The different transition effects are:

Wipe
The screen is filled with black, then the new images "wipes" down from the top
of the screen.

Scattered Slides
Images are reduced in size and displayed at random positions on the screen.

Light Box
Images are reduced in size and displayed in the Scattered Slides mode, but one
on top of the other.

Black Stripes
The old image is overwritten with stripes, then the new images wipes from the
top.

Bouncing Thumbnails
A random selection of thumbnails from stored images is shown bouncing 
around the screen for a few seconds between images.

Fade Out
The current image quickly darkens to black, the next image in the show then
wipes down to replace it.

Dissolve
The current picture dissolves into the next picture in the show.

Mosaic
Large chunks disappear, revealing the next picture in the show.

Secret Panels
Panels slide to reveal the next picture in the show.

Random (default)
One of the effects above is randomly selected between each picture.

Personally, some of the transition effects are kind of annoying. I don’t like
the scattered slides or bouncing thumbnail type methods because you really can’t make
out what the thumbnails are anyway because they are too small and pixilated. I think the simple wipe or fade out
transition effects work the best.

There are quite a few other settings that you can adjust in the onscreen
menu. These include:

Auto Color Fill
Fills the unused portion of the screen wit a background color taken from the
displayed image.

Time Between Slides
You can select the amount of time between image changes from 1 second to 10
minutes.

Slide Order
You can chose to display images in your slideshow either in the order you
selected in the slideshow setup screen, or in a random order.

Display Quality
Select between Fastest, Medium, and Best.

Special Effect
Choose from None, Black and White, Sepia Tone, Starlight, Infra-red, and Random.

If you are the type of person that is really organized and likes to view
their images by topics or themes, you can create up to 10 different slide shows
per memory card all with their own saved settings. By using the on screen menu,
you can choose the individual pictures to add or remove for each slideshow.

Now on to the most important aspect of this device: picture quality. Unlike
the Kensington frame that I reviewed, this frame has a pretty good viewing
angle. It doesn’t require you to be directly in front of the display to view the
images. Although being directly in front of the screen will give you the best
picture, viewing slightly from the side works as well. The screen is very crisp,
bright and has good color definition. The contrast wheel works really well for
making adjustments to the screen brightness.

As always, nothing is perfect though. There are a few ‘gotchas’ with the Digi-Frame as far as its display
abilities. Due to the fact that this frame has a max resolution of 640 x 480, it
will rescale larger images down in order to display them. This causes images to
sometimes appear blocky or pixilated. Although having the ability to just pop a
memory card into the frame directly from your camera, viewing images this way
may cause them to look less than stellar on the frame’s display. You do have two
ways around this problem though. You
can set your camera’s resolution down to a lower level, or you can resize and
resave the pictures before viewing them on the frame.

To give you an idea of what a I’m talking about, below you can see two images. The one on the left came directly out of my
digital camera (2048 x 1536) without any modification. The picture on the right is the same
image that I resized down to 640 x 480 and then resaved to the CF card. I
apologize for the image quality. It is VERY hard to take a picture of a
screen… Don’t pay attention to the colors in the images below as I probably
snapped the pics at slightly different angles. Pay more attention to the edges.
I think you’ll agree than the image on the left has a bad case of the jaggies.

This is really the weakest part of this digital frame. I think it could be so much better if it were able to do a better job at
resizing. It needs a way to smooth the jaggies away.

As a side note, the manual that comes with frame points out the fact that the
display’s backlight has a minimum life expectancy of at least 10,000 hours which is
equivalent to about 14 months of continuous 24hr use. If you only have the frame
powered on for 5hrs a day, it should last for 5yrs. That is one setting that
this frame doesn’t have that would be very useful… a way to have it power up
and down automatically during certain hours of the day.

On a positive note, I found the Digi-Frame to be quite fast at switching between pictures. Even
mega pixel images that were more than 1mb in size displayed quickly on the screen.

I like this frame very much, but wow it sure is expensive! I understand that
the average person is not going to have that kind of cash to lay out on such a
device. I know I wouldn’t be able to purchase one if I was in the market for a
digital frame… If the price were half as much, it had a larger screen, included a USB cable instead
of serial, and it had the feature of allow other people to send images to it
like the Ceiva frame (review to be posted tomorrow), I would be more apt to recommend it. As it is, I would say that
this is a nice frame for someone with lots of disposable income and doesn’t
necessarily have a PC or Mac..

Available from eframecentral.com
and other retailers.

Price: $549

Pros:
Doesn’t require a PC to use
Works with CF and / or SmartMedia cards
Can display up to 1,500 images

Cons:

Very expensive
Uses a serial cable to connect to PC / Mac instead of USB
Doesn’t have a setting to automatically power the unit on and off at specified
times
Scaled down images can appear blocky

Filed in categories: Home Tech

Tagged: Digital Photo Frame

Digi-Frame DF-560 Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on May 6, 2002 at 12:00 am.

Product Requirements:
PC or compatible running Windows 98 or
later
USB port
CDrom
50MB free hard disk space
Power outlet (110/120V AC, 60Hz)
Monitor capable of displaying 800 x 600 pixels in 16 bit color

I think digital cameras are one of the greatest inventions of the last 50 years.
With them, you don’t need to shell out money for prints. You either print them
yourself, or you just view them on your computer screen. Herein lies the only
problem with a digital camera in my opinion… Since I don’t use film cameras
anymore, I also don’t have physical prints anymore. That means I don’t really get the same
enjoyment out of my images as I once did. Remember curling up on the couch looking thru photo albums on
a boring day (maybe it’s a girl thing…) reliving fun memories? I don’t do that anymore, and I admit that I
kind of miss it. Sure, I could print the images out on photo paper using my
color printer, but hey, I’m too lazy to actually do that! I’m the Gadgeteer
after all, I need a gee whiz way to view my photos. ) The Kensington Digital
Photo Album is just such a potential gee whiz solution. It’s actually a photo album that
turns the pages for you!

It is an electronic picture frame that you can plug into your PC via a free
USB port and pull off up to 12 of your favorite images for a slideshow display in any room
(with an AC outlet) in your house.

Specs:
Display resolution: 320 x 240 pixels (4.5 x 3.4in images)
Viewable area: 5.7 inches diagonal
Image format: .JPG, .BMP, .TIF, .PSD, .PCX, .PNG, and .TGA
Number of internally stored images: 12
Additional storage format: None

The frame is a 9.75 x 6.00 x 2.00in in size. It has a plain grey silver case
that is neutral enough to fit into any decor. If you prefer more style, you can
actually customize the Digital Photo Album by purchasing other coverings for it
at http://www.eframes.com.

The frame has a nice weight to it that
allows it to sit securely on any flat surface.

A clever stand on the back of the frame allows you to rotate it into either a
landscape or portrait orientation. Below the stand is a snap off cover that
conceals the USB connector and AC jack.

The top of the frame has 5 buttons and a contrast wheel. The buttons give you
typical VCR-like controls to Start, Rewind, Forward, and Stop the slide show.
There is also a Sleep button that looks like a moon. This button turns off the
frame. The contrast wheel adjust the brightness setting.

The screen is bright and clear. It does have a few problems though. The main
problem is that pictures are best viewed head on. If you are at more than a 45
degree angle to the frame, you can not see the image. It is similar to many
laptop/notebook screens in that respect. Another problem is that pictures tend
to be  somewhat pixilated depending on the subject matter. I also noticed
that if I looked closely, that there were squiggly lines that floated up the
screen. This wasn’t noticeable just glancing at the pictures though, you had to
actually stare at them for a while to see it.

The unit can hold a maximum of 12 images which is the biggest drawback. It
does not have a slot for a compact flash or other memory card. Other digital
frame models do have a memory card feature, but of course they are more
expensive. To transfer
photos to the frame, you must use the supplied album manager software and USB
cable.

The software is as easy to use as your regular file manager. You just drag
and drop the images into the 12 slots and then click one button to transfer all
12 images to the frame. The transfer is really quick, only taking about 7
seconds to transfer all 12 images at once to the frame.

The software also allows for easy photo editing. You can size and rotate the
images to best fit in the 4.5 x 3.4in viewable area. In addition, you can vary the
slideshow timing interval between pictures from 1 second to 24 hours.

Besides transferring pictures to the digital photo album, you can also
transfer them to a website called the Digital Fridge. On this site, you can view
and download other people’s albums as well. It is a neat and free way to obtain
other interesting pictures for your frame.

I think this idea of a digital photo album is great. It just needs to be a
little more refined. This frame would be much better if only it had a memory
card slot. With only 12 pix max, it feels very limited. However, the ease of use
and price make it tempting to buy.
 

Available at eframecentral.com

Price: $89.95

Pros:
Simple to use
Can upload and download other people’s albums thru the web
Doesn’t need to be attached to a computer to view images

Cons:
12 pictures limit
Need to be right in front of the frame for the best view
Somewhat pixilated

Filed in categories: Home Tech

Tagged: Digital Photo Frame

Kensington Digital Photo Album Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on February 7, 2002 at 12:00 am.