Digital Picture Frame

[Skippy123]

I just spent $130 on a digital picture frame and I don't like the look of peoples skin (not very good quality). Has anyone bought one they like?? I would love any suggestions.; thank you

 

[ChargerGrrl]

Hey Skippy: I don''t have a digi pic frame- sorry! Hubby and I are thinking of buying each of our parents one for xmas and loading it up with family pics. So, I''m very interested in these things!

I have a list of stores to visit this week and check them out. Can you tell me where you bought the frame? Just curious!

 

[Skippy123]

Hey Charger; good to see ya!!

I bought it from Costco; it is the pandigital 8 inches. I was poking around amazon and I noticed the one people love is $230 but I don't want to spend that much. I hope the digital techsters chime in soon

. hehee

 

[ChargerGrrl]

crap- Costco is on my list!

Yeah, $230 is a bit over our budget for this.

I''m gonna do a bit of research online and see what I come up with- ideal specs, brands, etc.... But yeah, hope more PSers chime in with their experiences and picks!

 

[Skippy123]

Charger, I told hubby I didn't like it and he did an adjustment to the color and it now looks great!

I uploaded all the pics!! It is my parents Christmas gift; I am so excited to give it to them because they don't use the computer so I took all the family digital pics and uploaded them so they can enjoy

I think Mara and Steph are getting dig pic frames too so maybe they will chime in and say if they like theirs too!

 

[pennquaker09]

Skippy, I was thinking about buying one of those, but I''m not sure because I really don''t use my camera much.

 

[Miranda]

I''m so glad you started this thread. I want to get one for MIL and FIL for xmas, but, didn''t know which one. I''m happy to hear the Costco frame is working well!

 

[meresal]

I got a digital picture frame for Xmas last year, and I have two major issues with it...

Like yourselves, I wanted to upload pictures onto it and take it to work. However, the one that I got has to plug in, and you have to put your photo disk into the actual frame, and it rotates through ALL of your pictures. A year later, I have yet to use it. Mine was about $95, and that is probably why it didn''t have any more options... but I suggest making sure you can upload photos to the frame.

Best of luck!!

 

[ChargerGrrl]

So I went digital picture-frame shopping yesterday, and I did good!

I ended up getting the 7" frame at Bed Bath & Beyond. I believe that the brand is Pandigital (blue box). It ended up costing $77 after the 20% coupon. The 8" was about $50 more, and I just couldn't justify the difference in price for an extra inch.

The frame is a rich, dark wood and it also comes with a second frame (clear lucite) for a different look

There's a ton of features on the frame, and I really only just scratched the surface while "playing" with it yesterday. It has slots for memory cards and such, but you can also just xfer pics directly to it from your PC via the USB cord that's included. This is the route I took, and it was super-easy. I xferred about 40 pics onto it. You can choose to feature a single pic, or set it to slide show.

The quality looked good. It really showcases landscape (horizontal) pics best, taking up the whole display. Portrait (vertical)pics look kinda funny, but they work. I noticed that our pro wedding pics looked a bit better than the snapshots from our canon camera. So pic quality has something to do with it.

All in all, I think that this is a cool gift for our parents. I hope they like it!

Skippy- I later went to Costco, and saw the same brand but they didn't have the 7" one I purchased at BB&B

 

[Skippy123]

Date: 12/12/2007 12:36:53 PM
Author: ChargerGrrl
So I went digital picture-frame shopping yesterday, and I did good!

I ended up getting the 7'' frame at Bed Bath & Beyond. I believe that the brand is Pandigital (blue box). It ended up costing $77 after the 20% coupon. The 8'' was about $50 more, and I just couldn''t justify the difference in price for an extra inch.

Oh, that is good; I got the 8 inch one but figured in the coupon and it is almost the same price. I almost thought about returning it. Glad you found a frame!

Mara and Steph got the Kodak Share but I looked those up and they are closer to $200.

 

[Mara]

i did a fair amount of research on digi picture frames as we bought 3 this season for family.

many of the $100-150 frames have low resolution, something like 240x480. i wanted higher. i also wanted something like a 7" or 8" frame. internal memory so that we could load pictures onto the frame itself OR just plug in memory cards/sd cards, usb drives, etc. last requirement is that it not look like some space age alien thing with clear glass and lucite and all that, this is for older family members who have primarily wood and similar in their home so i wanted something that looked more like it could blend in and not be obvious that it was some newfangled device.

what i ended up with and we LOVE is the Kodak Easy Share SV811. black wood looking frame, 8" screen, 128mb internal memory and a beautiful crisp 800x480 resolution. Circuit City had it for 129 and i slacked a weekend and then had to pay 149. retail is 179 i guess. amazon.com and buy.com have it for 119 but it's sold out until after xmas. Many stores are sold out of it as well. so i finally just ponied up the 149 for 3 of them and bit the bullet.

i've already loaded pictures onto one of them, it truly is plug and play. i didn't even have to install the software CD it came with. also it syncs with your kodak/ofoto gallery which i LOVE as i have tons of albums on there that i share with family.

so anyway, i looked around a fair amount and this fit our bill and it was affordable. totally recommended. i read mixed reviews on a lot of products that are out there, and checked out the $100 ones that a lot of the stores have, and none of them had all the elements that we wanted like this one did. i didn't want to spend $100 for something when i could spend $130 or $140 and get everything i wanted. they have a 7" one as well but it doesn't have the same great resolution. there is also a wireless version of it that i think my friend told me she got on kodak's website on sale for like $200.

i want to get one for us but figure i'll wait til after holidays when they are back in stock at amazon and buy and get the same one for like 119. the funny thing is that next year they will probably be like 99 for the ones we are paying 200 for this year.

 

[Skippy123]

I saw the easy share for $150 so maybe I will go look at them to see if they make a big enough difference. My resolution is 650x480; thanks for chiming in here Mara.

 

[steph72276]

Mara, we got the easy share too...although Adam hasn''t loaded any pics yet so I guess I will have to get the instructions out and load them myself

....was it hard to figure out? I will let you guys know how they turn out when I load them on!

 

[Mara]

nope wasn''t hard at all steph. it''s supposed to be plug n''play so i just plugged it in, turned it on and then when the window popped up, i dragged and dropped into the drive when it showed up on my computer, and turned the photo frame off and on and then the pictures showed up and i think i chose slideshow. i didn''t really play around with it that much yet, i have to do it this wkd and get the rest of the pictures on then ship them this wkd to greg''s family.

 

[FacetFire]

I just bought one for my parents. Here is what I learned in my research. You want a 4:3 aspect ratio so that your pics don't get cut-off or distorted. That basically means getting 800x600 resolution, or something with that same ratio. That corresponds with the ratio that most people's photos are taken in.

I considered these two frames to be my best options:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8265968&type=product&id=1170289780516 (8" screen, great buy for the money)

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8448209&type=product&id=1183766988375 (larger 10" screen, more expensive, but awesome)

I ended up splurgng and getting the second one, and I am glad I did. It has a great picture and you can switch out the frame with any picture fram you buy at the store, which make it match any decor. I am preloading photos on it for my parents and I haven't had to mess with the photos at all...I just loaded them and they show up perfectly. It has an amazingly wide variety of methods for storing and getting photos. I am so happy I went with it for my folks, especially because I know they wanted a large screen, but I am probably going to buy the less expensive one for FI and I to have around our home.

Hope that helps!

 

[steph72276]

Mara...the Easy Share frame I had was not the same as yours....we thought we were getting an awesome deal the day after Thanksgiving on a 5.6" for $65, but the thing would not save my pictures on the frame. So I got frustrated, took it back and went to best buy where I found the same one you bought which they did have for $129, came home and it was loaded in 5 minutes! I actually got 2, one for my parents and one for the inlaws. I am def. going back to get myself one after the holidays. I love it and the picture quality is wonderful

 

[blushingbride]

I also just bought one for my DH - I got him the CEIVA - 8" LCD Digital Frame Photo Frame. I love the sleek, modern look of it and it has all the qualities I'm looking for:

- 8" TFT-LCD digital screen with 4:3 aspect ratio and 640 x 480 resolution; 250:1 contrast ratio

- Wide viewing angles; 30 ms response time

- Includes 2 interchangeable frames...LOVE this part(Black and wood), power cord, phone card, dual phone jack adapter, quick-start guide, owner's guide

- It also has weather, sports and news on it as well as other cool stuff

It has good reviews so, I'm going to give it whirl and see what happens at X-mas time!

 

[blushingbride]

Oh..I paid $200, but I''ve seen it for cheaper too.

 

[aljdewey]

Date: 12/14/2007 10:17:43 AM
Author: FacetFire

I just bought one for my parents. Here is what I learned in my research. You want a 4:3 aspect ratio so that your pics don''t get cut-off or distorted. That basically means getting 800x600 resolution, or something with that same ratio. That corresponds with the ratio that most people''s photos are taken in.

Completely agree with this.

Mara knew I was looking for a dig. pic frame, and she had suggested the Kodak 8" to me. I went shopping a few weeks ago, and I brought an SD card with pictures on it with me to try them out.

I noticed that many of them are widescreen (16:9 ratio), so you end up with black bars on either side of horizontal photos (much like what happens on some widescreen TVs). That gets even more compounded w/vertical pictures. The Kodak had that 16:9 ratio, and I ultimately decided against it for that reason.

I hit the net for more research, and found that most recommend the 4:3 as well. Two frames I found that do fit that bill are the Pandigital 8" frame and the Westinghouse 8". (None of the 7 inch frames do, for some reason).

Hubby got me the Pandigital, and I''m extremely happy with the product. 800x600 res; I plugged it in, put a card in and it played beautifully! Nice transitions between them, and the frame is a plain understated black with a cream mat inside.

I LOVED the picture quality on the HP frame, but the aesthetics of the frame itself was AWFUL. I''m hoping they improve this product cosmetically; it could be a real contender.

 

[Skippy123]

Date: 12/27/2007 4:29:03 PM
Author: aljdewey

Date: 12/14/2007 10:17:43 AM
Author: FacetFire

I just bought one for my parents. Here is what I learned in my research. You want a 4:3 aspect ratio so that your pics don't get cut-off or distorted. That basically means getting 800x600 resolution, or something with that same ratio. That corresponds with the ratio that most people's photos are taken in.

Completely agree with this.

Mara knew I was looking for a dig. pic frame, and she had suggested the Kodak 8' to me. I went shopping a few weeks ago, and I brought an SD card with pictures on it with me to try them out.

I noticed that many of them are widescreen (16:9 ratio), so you end up with black bars on either side of horizontal photos (much like what happens on some widescreen TVs). That gets even more compounded w/vertical pictures. The Kodak had that 16:9 ratio, and I ultimately decided against it for that reason.

I hit the net for more research, and found that most recommend the 4:3 as well. Two frames I found that do fit that bill are the Pandigital 8' frame and the Westinghouse 8'. (None of the 7 inch frames do, for some reason).

Hubby got me the Pandigital, and I'm extremely happy with the product. 800x600 res; I plugged it in, put a card in and it played beautifully! Nice transitions between them, and the frame is a plain understated black with a cream mat inside.

I LOVED the picture quality on the HP frame, but the aesthetics of the frame itself was AWFUL. I'm hoping they improve this product cosmetically; it could be a real contender.

I keep forgetting to update my thoughts. I looked at the Kodak and did not love it like I thought I would; I ended up loving the Pandigital too Alj! My problem was that I had to play with the color on it and now it is great!

Thanks for everyones thoughts!! Hope this thread helped others

 

[Mara]

can someone post a link to the pandigital? i want to get a frame for myself after seeing how much all our recipients loved theirs this season. we didn''t have any issues with horizontal pictures having any black bars, only vertical ones but we didn''t mind it as otherwise the digital picture frame will lower the resolution of the original uploaded image to fill the vertical frame, so our recipients couldn''t plug in the DPF and upload the high resolution pictures to their computers (and get prints made) so that wouldn''t have worked for us...but i''m curious about the pandigital one as well because i don''t need that option as i already have all the images myself. i am thinking though that i want to just get a cheapie one (aka $70 or something) for me because i''m going to keep it at work and i don''t want anything too nice...just want something that will hold images.

 

[Skippy123]

Date: 12/27/2007 6:26:46 PM
Author: Mara
can someone post a link to the pandigital? i want to get a frame for myself after seeing how much all our recipients loved theirs this season. we didn't have any issues with horizontal pictures having any black bars, only vertical ones but we didn't mind it as otherwise the digital picture frame will lower the resolution of the original uploaded image to fill the vertical frame, so our recipients couldn't plug in the DPF and upload the high resolution pictures to their computers (and get prints made) so that wouldn't have worked for us...but i'm curious about the pandigital one as well because i don't need that option as i already have all the images myself. i am thinking though that i want to just get a cheapie one (aka $70 or something) for me because i'm going to keep it at work and i don't want anything too nice...just want something that will hold images.

Here is the link PRODUCTS&cm_ite=1%20PRODUCT&cm_keycode=3">http://www.circuitcity.com/ccd/productDetail.do?oid=186194&WT.mc_n=3&WT.mc_t=U&cm_ven=COMPARISON%20SHOPPING&cm_cat=CNET&cm_pla=DATAFEED->PRODUCTS&cm_ite=1%20PRODUCT&cm_keycode=3 I found mine for $130. I also saw Blushingbrides model and that looked great too.

 

[ChargerGrrl]

Date: 12/27/2007 6:26:46 PM
Author: Mara
can someone post a link to the pandigital? i want to get a frame for myself after seeing how much all our recipients loved theirs this season. we didn't have any issues with horizontal pictures having any black bars, only vertical ones but we didn't mind it as otherwise the digital picture frame will lower the resolution of the original uploaded image to fill the vertical frame, so our recipients couldn't plug in the DPF and upload the high resolution pictures to their computers (and get prints made) so that wouldn't have worked for us...but i'm curious about the pandigital one as well because i don't need that option as i already have all the images myself. i am thinking though that i want to just get a cheapie one (aka $70 or something) for me because i'm going to keep it at work and i don't want anything too nice...just want something that will hold images.

check out my last post above (from 12/12)- hope the info helps!

our parents LOVED the frame. yeah, we could've gone with a "better" one, but this version is perfect for them.

 

[MichelleCarmen]

Date: 12/27/2007 7:15:16 PM
Author: Skippy123

Here is the link PRODUCTS&cm_ite=1%20PRODUCT&cm_keycode=3''>http://www.circuitcity.com/ccd/productDetail.do?oid=186194&WT.mc_n=3&WT.mc_t=U&cm_ven=COMPARISON%20SHOPPING&cm_cat=CNET&cm_pla=DATAFEED->PRODUCTS&cm_ite=1%20PRODUCT&cm_keycode=3 I found mine for $130. I also saw Blushingbrides model and that looked great too.

Mara - my husband got me the 10" Pandigital frame for Christmas and it''s WONDERFUL! Great resolution. He got the 8" for his mom and she LOVES it!

I think the 10" was around $200, but the size is MUCH better than the 8", so it''s worth paying more. We had a chance to compare them in our home before we gave my MIL her frame and the pictures are easier to enjoy on the larger screen.

 

[sumbride]

Ok, I feel like such an idiot... I have two digital picture frames, received as gifts. One is the Kodak and one is the Pandigital. I haven''t opened the Pandigital yet, but I''m sitting here with the Kodak completely confuzzled.

It tells me NOT to hook it up to my Mac or it will damage the firmware. UGH!

It tells me not to hook it directly to the camera because it doesn''t support that kind of transfer. DOUBLE UGH!!!

And I can''t use my camera to move pictures from my computer to the memory card in my camera. I don''t know why.

I bought a card reader but I don''t think it works because it doesn''t show up for me to drag and drop.

So now I have TWO very expensive empty frames.

Can somebody set me on the right track? Or suggest a card reader or something? The sad thing is I work in IT. I really should be able to figure this out.

 

[sumbride]

I''m ok now... I went to Best Buy and got a card reader that actually works and my Kodak is buzzing away happily now. Great quality!

 

[risingsun]

We received a Kodak Easy Share KV710. Haven''t done a thing with it, yet! I hope it works and is "easy" to use

 

[MichelleCarmen]

SDL - yep the frames are great.

Just a general reference for all. Keep a close eye on the remote. They are TINY. Ours is smaller than a credit card and yes, I''m posting about it because we already lost it! lol Luckily the frame works w/out it.

 

[aljdewey]

Follow-up on this thread: I went to my parents house this weekend and heped her hook up the digital frame we bought for her; the 8" Westinghouse! (http://www.westinghousedigital.com/details.aspx?itemnum=107)

We didn't load stuff onto internal memory; I had purchased a 1gb SD card for $9.99 from Radio Shack and loaded the pics onto that. Plugged it in, loaded the card, and good to go.

That frame had a "mosaic" feature that allowed you to show 3-4 pictures at a time, but smaller sized. I turned that feature off since they wanted to see full-sized pics.

HUGE hit - Mom nearly started bawling she enjoyed the pictures so much. What an AWESOME thing these frames are!

This frame was on sale during the holidays for $119 at Best Buy!

 

[Mara]

i''m still not sure what i am going to do re: a DPF for myself..

i was looking at the westinghouse 702 7" one for $99 at amazon or buy.com, but it only has 480 resolution. i really want something like a 6 or 7 inch for my desk that has about 600+ resolution. i love the westinghouse mosaic picture option though.

hmmm. maybe i''ll wait a few months and see what else comes out!