Digital Spectrum USB Digital Photo Frame (8x10)
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Average customer review:
Product Details
- Size: 8x10
- Brand: Digital Spectrum
- Model: U-30192
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 5.00" h x 13.00" w x 17.00" l, 9.00 pounds
- Display size: 10.4
Features
- Digital picture frame with bright 10.4-inch TFT LCD screen
- Stores 32-80 photos on 32 MB of memory; compatible with wide variety of memory card readers
- Fits 8 x 10-inch picture frame (one included)--use virtually any off-the-shelf wood picture frame
- Record or transfer WAV, voice, or music files to play with each picture--great for narrative shows and story book applications
- Features a two-position stand for either vertical or horizontal display
Editorial Reviews
From the Manufacturer
Now there's a new way to display digital photos instantly. Digital Spectrum's 8 x 10-inch MemoryFrame is a stand-alone, electronic "picture frame" that requires no camera memory card, PC, printer, paper, ink, or monthly subscription fee. You can easily and quickly transfer photos, on the spot, directly from a digital camera or card-reader into MemoryFrame. Then you can immediately play them back--in a continuous slideshow of vibrant, high-resolution images--on MemoryFrame's 10.4-inch active-matrix screen.
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The bundled software easily allows you to create custom slideshows that integrate photos from both your camera as well as images received by e-mail or stored in the "MyPictures" directory of your Windows PC (or other directories). These slideshows can be quickly downloaded via USB to your MemoryFrame for instant viewing enjoyment.
What's in the Box
MemoryFrame system unit, Digital PixMaster software CD, USB cable, AC power adapter with cable, 8-by-10-inch removable picture frame, user manual, warranty card
Customer Reviews
Fun and adequate but not stellar
This product is fun and makes a good photo frame, but I was not blown away; it met my expectations but did not exceed them.
You get a 5" by 7", 320x240, 4:3 aspect ratio LCD frame. The picture quality is decent, but not spectacular. I would say it is fairly faithful to the original pictures, but viewing them side to side with how they are displayed on a regular PC, they look inferior. But it is a 320x240, so it's not unexpected.
Viewing angle is a little limited, and the picutre colours and luminosity are noticeably different when viewed from different angles.
Setting up the frame was easy; in all, it took me about half an hour to get everything done (including installing drivers, programs, and even updating the firmware) and have it displaying my photos.
A couple of complaints; I would have liked the slide show to have a "random" feature, ditto with the transition effects. Also, it would have been nice to have a drag-and-drop from any Windows folder to the slide show composition screen. As it is, you can only place photos by using a clunky dialogue box to select pictures to be included in slide shows.
I'm conflicted about this product being good value for money, though; on the one hand, the screen is clearly NOT top of the notch and leaves quite a bit of room for improvement.
On the other hand, I looked around for similar products and found that they are substantially more expensive(Digi-Frame DF-560) or are clunky(Ceiva Picture Frame requires subscription and phone line connection). I guess the technology isn't mature enough for these types of products to be affordable and great quality (they are currently expensive and so-so quality).
I bought this to place on my office desk, and I'm pretty sure it will do its job. If you want a great looking frame, I would hold out a little more. If you can afford it, the Digi-Frame products look pretty good. ....
All in all, I find this product fun because it does what it says it does quite well, but the display is its achilles' heel. I have a feeling this category will pick up in popularity and technology soon so wait some more and you'll begin to see truly great products by around 2005. As a relatively early adoptor, I am content with it.
A unique product that almost delivers
This review is for the 8x10 frame. First it should be noted that the Frame is 8x10 not the screen. The screen is actually 6.5 x 8.5. The product is solid and feels sturdy. It has the ability to be used as either a stand alone frame or hung on a wall. Pictures are entered into the frame via a USB port that connects to either a computer or a card reader. The display is nice but you need to stand back a few feet to appreciate it as it looks washed out up close. The image definitely leans towards the darker side but nothing that would be considered distracting. It also has a nice side angle viewpoint. The product ships with a program called Digital Pixmaster which is where you can create slideshows with text, WAV files and transitions. Pictures can be displayed for various time lengths from 5 seconds to 8 hours. You can also rotate the image orientation picture by pictrue. The real disappointment is in the way the program handles text and .WAV files. First, there is no control over font, size or position of text. It appears as a black bar with white text at the bottom of the picture. Secondly, the WAV files attach to the individual picture and not to the slideshow thus making it impractical to play background music throughout a slideshow. Furthermore, the program only works with available internal memory. This pretty much rules out the ability to load a music track saved in WAV format becasue its just too big to fit in memory. You are relagated to playing sound bytes which do work quite well. Overall the software is easy to use and accomplishes the task of creating slideshows quite nicely. The manual is short, sweet and to the point. You really will be up and running in minutes. Connecting to a PC was easy and painless. So why only three stars? Because it promises things it really can't deliver. The screen is smaller then advertised, the software is very basic and the much hyped stero sound is wasted on small sound byte files because the memory in the frame cannot hold even a 2 minute song. There is promise of the ability to run a slideshow from a USB attached device but no word yet. These are all acceptable items if you do not pay anwhere near the asking price of $499. Overall, if you have the cash to burn and want the best picture frame in this size then this is the unit for you.
Poor power supply
The frame and the pictures it displays are fine. Sometimes it is a little hard to get it to download photos from my PC. My major complaint is the power supply. The original power supply dies after 4 months. It was repalced under warranty (after some grief with customer service). The raplacement died some months later after the warranty had expired. I then had to buy one. That one died after a few months and the company didn't have the replacement in stock. After months of waiting from them to stock the item I gave up and after lots of searching on the web I found a supply made by another compay. I had to change the connector to make it match the connector on the frame. It's been doing fine since then. I should note that my daughter has the same frame and has had almost identical problems. It looks like there are a lot more of these types of frames on the market now. I would do a lot of shopping before buying this one!





