Digital Picture Frame

Posted by cameron

December 4, 2006 |

This is an unpaid product review so you can be certain it is an honest opinion. My wife has previously posted her list of favorite electronic gizmos so I took her word for it and purchased the number one item on her list for her birthday. After looking over the specs of her choice at the time, I didn’t think she would really be happy with it. It’s risky, I know, but I picked something different. Phillips just came out with a 9-inch Digital Picture Frame and after checking out the specs and reviews at Amazon I decided this would be a better choice. At the same time I decided to purchase a 1GB SD memory card for the digital frame thinking it was the same memory size as my digital camera, giving me plenty to play with. Included in the package are three extra frames of different colors, PC software and a USB cable. The first thing we noticed was that you can turn the frame on immediately because it has a rechargeable battery and included a demo set of pictures pre-loaded. She was immediately impressed and excited but wanted her favorite pictures on it. I loaded the Phillips software on my P.C.; hooked up the USB cable and proceeded to do the guy thing, make it work without reading the manual. Well, that didn’t work. What I thought was the instinctive approach just wasn’t. So I broke down and looked for the manual; there wasn’t one. Must be in the software somewhere? I found plenty of information about setting up the frame itself, but nothing on the PC software. I should have known better when I saw the software was Release 1.0 and no way to update online. Backup and punt? You bet. Plan B meant buying a Scandisk 5-in-1 card reader with a USB connection so I could just load up the memory card on my PC and then plug it into the frame. This picture frame system is designed to be a viewer for pictures residing on your digital camera memory card so it expects those file formats. If you forget everything else in this post you must remember that because you will not find it in the documentation. Anyway, this worked like a charm and I soon impressed her with a slide show. The picture frame comes with preset transitions and timings, all of which can be personalized. The presets make for a good show. The picture quality is good and, most importantly, the optional frames allow her to fit it into her décor. You cannot underestimate the importance of that to a woman. The Digital Picture Frame comes with many easy to use features. The one I particularly like is automatic turn on and turn off at times I set. It separates weekdays and weekends so I can leave it off when we are not home. The unit is relatively expensive but the hug she gave me was priceless…..now she wants another one! What have I done? Five stars. (Except for the PC software, that’s 0 stars).

Click on this thumbnail to see the Digital Picture Frame in it’s natural habitat.