I'm a Schools IT Support Technician, and a happily married mother of a four year old boy.
I'm a Schools IT Support Technician, and a happily married mother of a four year old boy.
Member since:24.01.2007
Reviews:11
Members who trust:2
I bought this frame from Argos for 89.99 following an extensive trawl of internet reviews.
Features which attracted me to the frame:
You can use a USB memory stick with it It is 800 x 480 pixel resolutions, twice the resolution of some other frames. It has interchangeable face plates to change the look of the frame.
Features which put me off but weren't deal breakers: No random function on slide show Bloated Kodak software (according to other reviewers on Amazon) Pictures cropped to fit aspect ratio of frame
The Reality. Bought the frame and being rather anal about these things allowed the whole package to reach the ambient temperature in the house before unpacking. The product is well packaged, using cardboard rather than polystyrene which is easier to recycle/dispose of. The manual seemed fairly straightforward, though I must confess the process was pretty intuitiive so I didn't really use it much. The only thing I really needed to check were the icons on the buttons on the remote control. I didn't install the software on my PC as I was planning just to use the frame with a USB stick and the memory card from my camera.
Upon setting the frame up on the table the viewing angle was all wrong and it seemed a bit unstable My husband then noticed that you can 'pull out' the frame rest at the back , thus improving the viewing angle vastly. I'm not sure whether I'd have noticed this left to my own devices! My husband then proceeded to drop the frame on the floor!! Luckily the frame was unharmed, so I can vouch for it's robustness.
I loaded my 512 MB USBmemory stick with about 100 images on the root of the drive, rather than in sub folders as I wanted to keep things simple, at least to start with. I then put them in the frame and started the frame up - instant hassle free slide show. The images are a tad cropped horizontally but other than that they are excellent. I use a 4.0 MP CanonIxus camera with the default settings for movies and pictures and they all seem to work straight away with no distortion or 'stretching' - as long as they are in landscape orientation, in portrait orientation there are black bands on screen but this is understandable and preferable to a distorted image!
You can also set the frame to turn it self off and on at certain times, which is quite nice. I haven't found a way to start it with muted sound though so it can be quite frightening when it plays a film with sound and you forgot it was there!I would say the frame is very good overall and well worth the money. Here are my plus points:
Good image quality
Plays movies with sounds
Fairly robust, has had toddlers fingers poking it and emerged unscathed.
The remote control is nice to have, and the range is quite good
The transformer plug has a green light on it so you can see instantly if powered
I have a few minor niggles which I set out below:
No random feature for slideshow
The black bevel of the frame refects the top part of the image at certain angles making it look like there is a line on the top part of the screen
Plug transformer hums slightly (very slightly)
The all black frame starts to look dusty very quickly
USB stick positioned so that it sticks out the side of the frame and can look unwieldy. I have a sandiskmicro USB stick and that just about fits behind the frame, but other more cumbersome sticks are clearly visible.
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
Screen Size: 8 in inch - without Loudspeakers - without USB, with USB - without Remote Control, with Remote Control - Screen Format: 4:3 - Resolution: 800 pixel - 600 pixel Pixels
Screen Size: 10.2 in inch - without Loudspeakers - with USB - with Remote Control - Screen Format: 5:3 (15:9) - Resolution: 1024 pixel - 600 pixel Pixels
Very informative, i'll be giving this one a miss as i wanted non cropped pictures plus a random feature. Saved me a lot of hassle by reading this. Thanks! :)
exceptional by (7%):
very helpful by (93%):
