Product Description

How many digital pictures are hidden on your PC? See, share and relive your memories with Philips Photo Frame, the easiest way to display your digital photos in stunning quality - without a PC. This model features an Interchangeable Frame.

Product Details

• Size: 8.5-Inch
• Color: Clear
• Brand: Philips
• Model: 9FF2M4/37
• Dimensions: 7.83" h x 10.24" w x 4.25" l, 2.20 pounds
• Display size: 9

Features

• Displays your digital photos with professional print quality and the full spectrum of colors
• 8.5-inch viewable TFT LCD display screen features of adjustable brightness to match ambient light conditions, and intuitive operation that doesn't require any programming
• Connects via USB directly to your camera or PC; supports up to 12-megapixel photos in the JPEG format
• Runs on AC power via the included adapter, or lasts up to 8 hours on its included rechargeable battery
• Weighs approximately 2.2 pounds, and measures 10.2 x 7.8 x 4.3 inches (W x H x D)

Manufacturer Description
How many digital pictures are hidden on your PC? See, share, organize and relive your memories with Philips Photo Frame, the easiest way to display your digital photos in stunning quality - without a PC.

Photo Frame Highlights

High Pixel Density Display The very best high density screen shows off your treasured photos with the same 'real life' rich detail and vibrant colors as high quality prints.

Rich, vibrant colors Full color display brings out the best in your photos with vibrant, real life colors by displaying the same full range of colors found in professionally printed photos.

Quality design and materials Top quality design and exquisite materials include a solid metal stand, stylish frame and detailed finishing that convey an impression of value and refined taste, adding luster to the photos displayed on Photo Frame.

Interchangeable frames A selection of interchangeable frames that snap onto your Photo Frame fits your personal taste and compliments your home or office decor.

Multiple viewing modes Flexible display modes give you the freedom to display your photos one image at one time, in thumbnail mode for quick, easy searches, or to create a slideshow of your most treasured photos.

Memory-Card Manager Memory-Card Manager is a set of two built-in memory card readers and featured software for displaying, editing, storing and organizing your memory card photos directly in one, hassle-free step - all without a PC. It accommodates two memory card slots: One slot accepts Compact Flash I (CF) cards while the second accommodates Memory Stick (MS,MSPro), secure digital (SD) Card and Multi Media Cards (MMC) and xD card. They all work as extended memory space - just like Photo Frame's internal memory.

Smart Album Smart Album allows you to create and manage albums, as well as to set up and adjust transition effects to your photo slideshows.

PhotoEffect Wizard The PhotoEffect Wizard is easy-to-use feature for you to rotate, zoom in, crop and even adjust photo color tones to black & white or sepia right in Photo Frame.

Easy USB connectivity A USB connector is built into the device for easy and quick downloading photos from a PC.

Run on built-in battery or AC AC or onboard battery power gives you the choice of operating your Photo Frame on standard AC power or cordlessly with the onboard rechargeable battery.

Advanced timer A timer turns your Photo Frame on and off at times you choose. You can select different time slots to fit your personal schedule and to save energy.

Customer Reviews

Good Frame, Software needs *lots* of work
First of all, once you got your images on the frame itself, and have an album organized, this is a great digital frame. But the road leading there is rocky indeed. It's provided software is anything but good.

This digital frame sports a 640x480 color display to show a slideshow of internally (or images stored on memory cards) stored images. The display is reasonably bright (but not very much, so it's not very usable in direct sunlight). Images can be imported directly from many different memory cards (e.g. compact flash, and others) without the aid of a computer, which is a nice touch. This feature seems to work only if you do not add any files to the card of your own (for examply, MacOS might add a '.DSstore' index file - this can cause the frame to reject the whole card). You can also run slide shows directly from the memory card inserted, which is another nice touch (see later comments on how badly this feature is implemented).

The frame comes with a number of separate differently colored, umm, frames, making it match multiple tastes, and is an extra help when giving it as a present when you do not know where the recipient will set it up.

The frame runs entirely from internal software, which means that you cannot control it through an attached computer as I had expected. This is somewhat disappointing, as the internal software is not flexible. You can, however, use the provided (Windows only) software to organize your images prior to downloading them to the frame. Even though the PC software provided is woefully inadequate for this job (it can't access network volumes, or RSS feeds, it can't rotate images, or edit images beyond a very, very limited crop), it is still infinitely preferable to the built-in image organization software.

Images are collected into albums, and these albums can be played as slide shows. And organizing images is a chore made very, very difficult by Philips. The frame has two buttons, and a 4-way hat (itself also clickable) to control album set-up, which should be enough for the task. Strangely, though, the designers chose to implement one of the most brain-dead user interfaces I have encountered. This user-hostile interface extends to the frame's configuration menu, which does offer a host of nice features (among them, for example a clock, automatic on/off features that can turn on and off the frame at pre-set times etc.) - difficult as they are to access.

Since organizing a frame's pictures is such a difficult and annoying task, I have tried a simple work-around: Organize (and edit) images on my computer, and then download them to a cheap 128 MB compact flash (that way I was also able to optimize the images to 640x480). Although it worked in the end, I discovered to my dismay that you can't simply store images on a memory card. The frame is extremely sensitive to files it does not understand, and often rejects cards that contains files it does not understand (e.g. a file called '.DSstore'). This is the first device I ever encountered that exhibits so ill-implemented functionality. Note that you allegedly *can* fill a card and have it's contents automatically transfer to the frame (the self-contradicting instructions can be found on Philip's web FAQ, and seem to work more often than not). Having the frame recognize a memory card ist still hit and miss. The simplest way I found after a lot of trial and error was to connect the frame to a computer with the memory card already inserted, and then mount the card via frame as a mass storage device. You then can transfer images to the memory card, and most of the time, it recognizese the images.

The frame also comes with a built-in 1 hour rechargeable battery. While this is a nice idea, 1 hour is nowhere near a usable time for anything but the shortest demonstrations. The frame is therefore usually used while connected to a power outlet.

Once you have set up the frame (which can be set in either landscape or portrait orientation, with the software automatically adjusting the images in the slide show - like modern cameras the frame has the ability to detect it's orientation), and downloaded images into albums, you can start it having display slideshows.
To switch between images you can either have it use random transitions that vary greatly in style (some nice, some flashy, some downright garish), or settle on a single transition. Unfortunately, the frame insist on varying the selected transition even then. If, for example, you choose a 'slide' transition for all images, the frame will then randomize the direction of the slide between all images. A fade transition (my favorite, as it is the most sublte) will, for no reason at all, alternate between an image crossfade, and fade-to-black. Since there currently is no obvious means to upgrade the frame's firmware, I'm a bit sceptic that the it's only a simple matter of upgrade to improve this situation.

The images themselves, even though they are scaled to exactly match the screen, usually look very good. Since this is the frame's primary function, I'm willing to award it 3 stars, and overlook the horrific user interface.

Still, the list of shortcomings is unusually long:
- organizing images using the frame's firmware means submitting to one of the worst user interfaces I've encountered recently. For example, to select images presented on a 5x5 grid for display, you can only use left/right to navigate, not up/down. If you have more than a few images, this gets annoying *fast*. Another example: If you end your selection on a deselected image, and press 'slideshow', the whole selection is forgotten, and all images are shown.
- the (Windows-only) PC software is only marginally better equipped to organize images. It can't, for example set up image-to-image transitions
- the PC software can't remotely control any of the frame's configuration/settings
- actually, the PC software can't be used to control anything that is shown in frame (e.g. show a particular image).
- As soon as you connect the fame to a PC, the frame blanks and shows an infomation screen. Sadly, this precludes any use of a PC to greatly improve the frame's usability (e.g. have it subsribe to an RSS feed, or use the PC's image library and continually feed it images from there like network mp3 players)
- transition between images still randomize some parameters (e.g. direction of slide), and can't be set to a fixed setting
- you can either randomize all transitions, or have only one; no way of using a selection of transitions
- there is no light sensor that adapts the frame to the current ambient light
- although you can use memory cards to store images, you must be careful not to mess up the file structure or include files the frame does not like. This is downright silly - even my printer can can access images stored arbitrarily on a card
- does not support RAW files an your cards


In summary I believe the frame is good once you got your images on it, and do not plan on changing it's contents often. It has some serious drawbacks, but the fact that you can store a limited amount of images on-frame, and that it can read memory cards without the aid of a computer is nice. It has some neat functionality (like self-timed on/off), but the software is by no means perfect. With these reservations I can recommend it to those that are willing to put up with the hassle the frame puts you through before you can actually use it.

What I would look for in future frames
- remote control capabilities from PC
- even better: a networked picture frame (preferrably wireless) that is simply a client to a PC-based image server (like networked mp3 players). This may be implemented as an additional image source
- much improved software both on-frame and PC
- improved battery life

Great digital frame
This is a slick device that my wife has wanted to buy. We finally took the plunge and bought one.

One minor glitch is that this model does not support the Sony memory stick format. It would have been MUCH easier if I could have used my spare memory card for my Sony camera.

The software on the CD for moving pictures from a PC is pretty poor. I spent hours getting this to work. I put a detailed write-up on what I had to do at my web site, but I can't link to that from here.

Here is a summary of how to get photos from your PC to a slideshow on the Photo Frame:

1. Use Windows Explorer to copy the JPG files from your PC to the root directory on the Photo Frame
2. Use the Philips Photo Manager software to create multiple named photo albums on the Photo Frame
3. Use the software on the Photo Frame to move the photos from the default photo album to the desired photo album
4. Use the software on the Photo Frame to set up the Photo Slideshow options

After several hours of frustration, I was finally able to transfer pictures from my PC to the device. Here is how I did it.

First of all, the software that comes on the included CD-ROM is pretty flaky. You do need to install it in order to easily rename your photo albums (step 2 above). The software also allows you to copy files from the PC to photo albums on the Photo Frame device. After disconnecting the USB cable, the Photo Frame rarely was able to recognize the photos.

You need to go to the Philips web site, and download the newer version of the user manual. The newer manual has 70 pages, instead of the 20 page version on the CD-ROM.

The manual has a hint about the best way to copy files from the PC to the Photo Frame at the bottom of page 12. The previous text on page 12 says to use their Philips Photo Manager software program to copy the files from the PC to the Photo Frame. But that did NOT work for me.

Here is the text at the bottom of page 12 of the manual:
"Disconnect the USB cable. For Windows 2000 (and XP) systems, remember to safely remove hardware before disconnection. After a few seconds, all photos in the root directory will be automatically added to Photo Frame and the root directory will be emptied."

The way I got the photos to the Photo Frame was to connect the USB cable, and observe the various additional drive letters that appear in Windows Explorer. I copied the JPG files from the PC to the root directory on the Photo Frame.

Next, use the "Safely remove hardware" icon in the System tray. After Windows tells you it is "safe", unplug the Photo Frame. At this point, magic happens. You will see a notification as each picture file is copied. The firmware on the Photo Frame resizes the images to its default 720x540 resolution, and copies them to the default photo album. Then it deletes the original files from the root directory.

If you don't have many photo files, or the original JPG files are fairly small, this will go smoothly. I always take very high resolution pictures, so I got an "out of disk space" error message at this point. Apparently the Photo Frame can only hold about 12 MB of data!

The easy way way to get around this problem is to use a memory card to store the images, instead of copying them to the Photo Frame. As mentioned above, my camera uses Sony Memory Stick Duo Pro, which the Photo Frame does not support. I had to manually edit each image file (I used Paint Shop Pro), and resize it to the 720x540 resolution myself. This avoided the "out of disk space" error.

The procedure for moving the photos from the default album to another one is pretty easy. This uses the software that is built into the Photo Frame. It takes a while to get used to the navigation buttons, but it seems to work reliably.

Fine digital frame
I bought this for my wife. She loves it. Now we can have all our pictures available without proliferating frames all over the house. It has performed flawlessly. It has all the options we can use, but it took a little while to learn how to use it. We like the fact that you can have different sets of photos to choose from, so we can have vacation photos for showing to friends, and granddaughter photos for our own pleasure, and the frame can be set to cycle through just the photos in a particular set.