Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Digital photo frames have become a BIG seller over the past 12 to 18 months. There are so many makes and models to choose from, so getting a good quality digital photo frame is not an easy task. This is why I began testing digital photo frames a few months ago. In cooperation with a local electronics store, I have been allowed to try out several frames by Kodak, Pandigital, HP, Siren and Smartparts. My biggest surprise is that many of the frames have a fairly low resolution, even with some of the bigger frames (10 inches and up). Most of them seem to hover around 640x480, which is too low in my opinion, especially for a display larger than 7 inches. I also found that many of the frames have a 16:9 ratio, which tends to distort the pictures or requires you to do some fancy cropping to retain the original aspect ratio of the pictures. This aspect ratio changes resolutions to unusual sizes like 480x234 and 800x480. Several also have lackluster contrast ratios, and a few of the frames produced a washed out look to the colors of my photos. After testing 13 different frames I decided to purchase the Pandigital 8-inch LCD Digital Picture Frame (model: DPF802) for myself. This Pandigital model has a 4:3 aspect ratio, so the pictures don't get stretched or require special cropping by the end user. The resolution is 800x600, which is perfectly adequate for a frame of this size. The contrast and backlighting is nearly perfect, offering bright, colorful photos that look just as good in the frame as they do on my computer. The Pandigital DPF802 has memory slots for SD, XD, Memory Stick, Memory Stick Duo and CompactFlash cards, and also allows you to use a USB flash drive. Of course the frame comes with 128MB of built-in memory, but that is not nearly enough memory to store all of my favorite photos. Still, the built in memory gives you a good start on displaying your most favorite pictures, especially if you crop them to 800x600 before loading them into the frame. File format compatibility is about normal, compaired with all of the other digital photo frames that I tested; allowing JPEG, MP3, MPEG1, MPEG4 and Motion JPEG AVI. There is a handy remote that allows you to perform all of the functions that you can from the bottons on the back of the frame itself. I have found that the remote must be pointed at the frame directly, and from a fairly close distance (I recommend no further than 8 feet) in order to function properly. It offers customized settings for your picture slide show, including a handful of useful (yet somewhat bland) transition effects, speed between photos (only 3 speeds, which even the slowest setting is only about 20 seconds), a scheduled auto on/off timer, power saving auto-shutoff mode, and a few more. You can even use the calendar feature to set the frame to display a slide show on a particular day and time. And speaking of the calendar, you can set the frame to display a calendar and clock, while running a thumbnail sized slideshow of your photos off to the side. I enjoy this feature a great deal. The audio quality for MP3 playback is only fair, since the speakers are extremely small. If you want some gentle, soft music to play in the background while your slideshow plays, you may find this feature useful. I have decided to just leave out the audio entirely, as it just doesn't sound very good and becomes a distraction if the frame is left on for an extended period of time. Overall, I am extremely happy with the Pandigital 8-inch LCD Digital Picture Frame. I am not a professional, but I am an I.T. technician and serious digital photographer, and I have compaired this frame against 12 other market leading frames, and I am a very picky consumer when it comes to quality and performance. The video playback is dissapointing, offering rather slow frame rates, which causes choppy motion. However, I purchased the frame to display photos only, and for that this frame does an excellent job. How will this frame hold up over the months and years to come? I guess only time will tell. I will certainly edit this review, at a later time, if I find that the frame begins to malfunction. For now I am convinced that this frame is one of the best buys for the money. The below average video playback, thin sounding audio output, range restriction of the remote control, and lack of more customized speed and transition settings for the slideshow function prevent me from giving this frame any higher than a 4 star rating. But if you are looking for a medium sized frame that will produce bright, colorful, high resolution photos in their native 4:3 aspect ratio, then the Pandigital 8-inch LCD Digital Picture Frame deserves your serious consideration. P.S. I recommend purchasing/using a memory card for storing your photos, for use with this frame. I experienced frustratingly slow and unreliable results when plugging the frame into my PC with the provided USB cable. You can always transfer your photos from the memory card to the frame's built-in 128MB memory if you wish, which will be much faster and more reliable than plugging the frame directly into your computer for photo transfers. *** UPDATE (2/07/2008): I forgot to include the dimensions of this frame and the LCD display. The LCD panel itself measures 8" diagonally. The overall frame dimensions are 8 and 1/2" high, 10 and 1/4" wide, and roughly 1 and 1/2" deep. I should also note that one frustration I have with this photo frame is that you cannot power the unit on or off with the remote control. This is because the physical power switch is a mechanical slide type. So, the user will always have to reach behind the frame in order to power the display on and off. I have mine mounted on the wall, so reaching this switch has proven to be a bit of a challenge. Still, given the wonderful display properties and impressive feature-set of this digital photo frame, I stand by my original score. =o)