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Digital photo frames are often criticized by technology gurus for being simple and mundane gadgets. If this is so it causes me to wonder how some manufactures still can make them so exasperating.

Wanting to get the full consumer experience I recently purchased Pandigital frame from a local electronics superstore for review.  From the box I learned that 7” Pandigital frame has the following features: 1GB Internal Memory that holds up to holds up to 6400 images, LCD display, 4:3 Aspect Ratio,  SD/MS/MS-PRO/MMC/XD Card Reader compatibility, remote control, alarm clock, calendar, programmable ON/Off timer, audio, video and is both bluetooth and WiFi compatible.

While I selected the Pandigital PAN7000DW specifically for its WiFi function, I was soon to learn that getting WiFi was not going to be easy. While the frame’s box was quick to communicate that it is WiFi compatible, only after reading through the instruction manual did I learn that the generic WiFi adaptor I also bought for it would not work. Buried deep in the user’s manual, which is sealed in the frame’s box, are instructions to specifically buy a Pandigital WiFi adaptor… which, inconveniently, only can be purchased online for $23.99.

With a suggested list price of $99.99 the frame, the Pandigital PAN7000DW has a nice crisp picture will integrate with a variety of home interior styles.  However the physical design of the frame has some serious flaws including:

• The piece of glass that nests in the plastic frame is not secured and therefore could be broken if one is not careful.
• The adjustable foot is “light weight” and feels like it could snap and break when compared to the way the rest of the frame is constructed.
• The single speaker’s volume was barely audible, sounding almost as if the speaker was blown.
• The remote control, when stored on the back of the frame, totally covers the speaker and further muffles the sound.
• The WiFi adaptor hangs off the side in clear site instead of being hidden.

I also found some glitches with the internal functions of the Pandigital Frame including:

• The clock’s 1/8^th inch high numeric readout is very difficult to read.
• There is no “snooze” functionality built into the alarm clock.
• Fading from picture to picture in a slideshow was jumpy.
• When Zoom function was engaged, the top of the picture as obstructed with a ½ inch darkened band that displayed the image’s file name, time and date.
• The “back/previous” picture review function would not work.
• There was an approximate 10 second delay from the time on pressed the zoom button to the actual zoomed up image being displayed.
• Music files, loaded to internal memory, would NOT play when viewing a slideshow either streamed via WiFi or from an external memory card.

While I found the glitches, hiccups and design snafus of the Pandigital PAN7000DW a bit annoying; setting up the WiFi connectivity was exasperating.

Before I go into details, let’s be clear about WiFi connectivity in digital frame. A WiFi can be configured to communicate out through a router, over the internet and directly into a photo hosting website and/or it can be set to connect and pull pictures right off a local PC.

So while tedious and time consuming, I did find setting up WiFi connectivity to the 3 compatible photo hosting sites (Windows Frame It, SnapFish and Picasa) on the Internet was easy.

However, setting up the WiFi connectivity so that the frame could display pictures stored on a PC was SUPER exasperating.  First off, the instructions guiding one to set up a Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) Server, published in Pandigital’s owner’s manual, are minimal and wrong. A 25 minute call to Pandigital Customer support finally resulted in some guidance that helped.  The polite support tech told me that while he had never actually set up this type of WiFi connectivity he assured me all that needed to be done was to make sure that the desired image files were being “shared” in Windows Media Player 11 and “the frame would do the rest.” So after spending some time fiddling, futzing and tweaking I finally got it to work. Well, it worked yesterday. Today is a whole new day and for some reason the Pandigital frame has lost its WiFi connection to the PC and the files it displayed yesterday. Why doesn’t it see the files it saw yesterday? I am not sure as nothing was changed.

After spending hours, reading manuals, searching the internet for solutions, reading online support information, being on hold, talking to customer support and then trial and error tweaking to get it to work yesterday I give up. I don’t have the time to figure out NOW what is going wrong. At this point this mundane Pandigital frame is just another lost cause and I am resigned to be another exasperated consumer.

For my second frame review I selected what I thought would be a simple and basic digital frame when I picked Kodak’s EasyShare M820. As I mentioned in my last review, when I review a frame I don’t just set it up, add a few pictures and then start writing. I feel that if I am going to do a fair review it is important that I actually use the frame for quite a few days and dig deep into all aspects of it to understand all it is and isn’t.

The Kodak EasyShare M820 digital photo frame is a basic stand alone card reader frame. However, it is important to note that it is a bit outdated due to the fact that most new digital frames in the market are now wifi. But it is what it is, and it is still for sale in the marketplace. As a card reader frame its pictures are accessed for display directly from any media card inserted into it. And/or the frame can also be loaded with up to 1000 pictures in its 128MB internal memory.

Because frame owners tend to keep and use their frames for years, the design and build quality of a frame is important. Overall Kodak has done an adequate job with the frames physical design. The look of the frame is not too flashy and not too trendy, which allows it to blend nicely into many decors. My only critique of frame’s physical design is that the plastics Kodak selected feel and look cheap. The plastic matte, surrounding the screen, is a bit too shiny and the plastic removable faceplate frame is a bit too dull.

When it comes to image quality and screen size I think Kodak could have done better. Unfortunately this EasyShare’s 8” screen is in the less desirable and awkward wide-screen format technically referred to as the 16:9 aspect ratio (Standard digital photo format ratio is 4:3). The screen’s resolution is 800 x 480 pixels. While color rendering was good, the overall image quality is not the clearest when compared to other frames. When looking at pictures being displayed on the Kodak frame I couldn’t help but think that they looked like someone had smeared a super thin coat of Vaseline over them. I also found that when viewing pictures at a 45° angle and less the picture darkened considerably.

Up until now it could be argued that my critique of this frame is a subjective opinion. So while opinion is one thing, experience is another. It was only after loading nearly 550 pictures, some video and music files in to the frame did my frustration level rise to the point that I wanted to box the thing back up and “just take it back.”

Major Points of Frame Frustration:

• Picture organized on a PC in a file, sub-file and sub-sub-file order become a management nightmare when moved over to the M820’s internal memory. The ability to maneuver through files and sub-files, with the intent to select pictures for Slideshow viewing, is quite confusing and nearly impossible on the frame.
• If the frame loses power you will lose the selections you made for Slideshow viewing and have to start all over again.
• Images can be rotated for correct display; however, you will lose the rotation if power is lost. Also even though the image rotates the thumbnail continues to remain sideways.
• The frame only shows pictures in .jpg format. Image files in the .bmp and .gif format will need to be reformatted for display in this frame.
• Photos can be enlarged with a built-in tool called “Zoom.” However, you cannot lock a picture to a zoomed in view. The zoom view is lost once you move off the picture and on to the next. Also you never get an unobstructed view of a zoomed picture. When zoomed in the picture is covered with menu buttons, zoom bar adjustment buttons and the photo’s title bar.
• There is a brightness adjustment built into the frame… however, when the tool is opened up a gray screen with the brightness level indicator bar drops over the image masking the actual image you have selected to judge your brightness adjustment on. Therefore you have to make the adjustment, and then back out of 2 menus to finally see the adjusted picture and check to see if the change is correct. The process of going in and out must be repeated until you are satisfied.
• The frame comes with Kodak EasyShare Software. However, this software actually loads as two completely separate programs that do NOT communicate to each other. Photos edited and/or “decorated” in one program must be saved and then reopened in the Kodak Digital Display software that acts as a photo management tool and linking software connecting the PC to the actual frame.
• The photo management tool built into the software allows you to build a Slideshow and place photos in a specific viewing order, however the frame will not recognize or display in that order.
• While the Slide Duration view time was set to 5 seconds per picture, the actual viewing time varied anywhere from 7 to 10 seconds. This does not include the time it takes to transition out of one picture and into the next.
• Slideshows put together in the software and activated in the frame would play. However, Slideshows created by selecting multiple photos stored in the internal memory would not play.
• Even when a slideshow was playing an error message stating “Pictures & video could not be found” was displayed on the Slideshow Info bar.
• Specific music files built into a Slideshow do not automatically play when the Slideshow is playing.   Figuring out just how to get them to play is not a simple process. However, once playing the Slideshow specific music does not automatically turn off once the source for image display reverts back to the images stored in internal memory.
• The “Fade” transition function would not work consistently. Dissolve, pixilation, and boxing transitions would also randomly occur when “Fade” was selected as the transition type.
• Music Files loaded in the internal memory seemed to have disappeared, but were finally found in a file labeled “Images.”
• While the frame does have ability play audio, don’t expect much from the two extremely small (about 3/4 inches round) speakers located on the bottom of the backside.

I fought this frame for days… trying simply to set it up to store pictures, video and music files and then run a short Slideshow. While working with it I constantly found problems, inconsistencies and conflicts. It simply is not user friendly.  Searching to find solutions I read the 28 page User Guide in its entirety… more than once. Not finding answers in the User’s Guide I then went online to www.kodak.com /go/digitalframesupport for more help. There I found the “Extended User Guide” which was basically the same information as the User’s Guide with a little more info on how to use the software. I also tried to using the “Interactive Trouble Shooting & Repairs” tool. But this was no help either… too generalized.

At one point I even chatted with Kodak tech support for over 1 hour and 40 minutes trying to resolve the error message that had popped up on the screen. That message was, “Source Folder moved/deleted. Recreate folder and Update my slideshow.” To resolve the problem the Kodak technician twice guided me through the process of reformatting the frame’s internal drive. But this did not help. I finally got rid of the error message when on my own accord I simply unplugged the frame. When I told the technician what I did to solve the problem and who had earlier stated he “…was supporting frames for almost 2 years now,“ then said “All we need to do is to play with the frame to familiarize ourselves with the options.”

FINAL VERDICT: To sum it all up I have to say that I would never personally own or give this Kodak EasyShare M820 Frame of Frustration to anyone.

For my first digital photo frame review, I selected the Sony S-Frame Model DPF-V1000. To be thorough, I actually set Sony’s frame up and used it for over two weeks. I wanted to dig into it  and really get to know and use the frame the way a consumer would. As I was taking my notes, I noticed that for every good thing I liked about the frame I always felt the need to qualify what I wrote with a “but” statement.

I selected Sony’s frame because recently there has been much talk about the design of the frames in Sony’s S-Frame series. I have to say the frame’s overall design is beautiful to look at; the fit and finish is perfect. But, as every designer knows, “good design is in the details” and it is in the details where the frame falls a little short. First, surprisingly there is no integrated holster/caddy to store the small remote control that comes with it. Next, I found that the frame’s trendy high gloss black finish with shiny chrome accents was a fingerprint magnet.  Also, because the rear leg extends back 6 ½ inches the frame can really only be viewed from the right side when it sits on shelf and takes up quite a bit of space on a night stand.  Finally, the frame’s sleek and modern design style, looking much like a miniature computer screen, would most likely clash with more traditional décors.

The DPF-V1000’s 10.2” LCD wide-screen picture is clear and bright… the quality you would expect from Sony. But, because the screen is a wide-screen (16:9 aspect ratio) a little less than 1/3 of the screen becomes useless black bands when viewing photos generated by most consumer cameras which are 4:3 aspect ratio. The black banding becomes even more awkward to look at when the frame is turned on end to portrait mode.

Surprisingly the frame, which looks hi-tech, relies on older card reader technology.  As a stand-alone frame, it accommodates all the popular card formats.  Pictures files can be moved from the card and into the frame’s 1GB of memory. But, I have to admit I was a bit perplexed as to whether the upload was complete after I moved my pictures over. A simple “Upload Complete” message would have saved the time it took to look around and confirm that the pictures were actually moved.  Also in this wireless age, I found that fiddling, futzing and fingerprinting the frame to load it with a new batch of pictures from a card was a frustrating and tedious task. A Blue Tooth adapter is available for the frame that retails for $249.99. The adapter would be an additional $29.99 for a total of $279.98.

Maybe to compensate for the fact that it is sold as a free standing frame, Sony packed it full of internal features. But, having to dig deep looking through layers and layers of menus to access those features is time consuming and confusing.  This coupled with the fact that for some reason the remote control required that I press the button numerous times in order for the frame to register my selection was extremely annoying.

While reviewing this frame, I learned that using an internal photo editing feature can be quite limiting. The frame’s Auto Touch -Up feature makes six basic corrections; but, going through the correction process with each picture one by one is quite slow and often results in a final “touched up” version that has negligible improvement.  Another feature called Creative Edit is a nice idea, but it is very limited in the choices it offers in the way of decorative borders and stamps. After using the photo frames built in picture editing, I came to the conclusion that ultimately it would be better to find a more robust PC or web solution (many of which are even free) for photo editing and decorative enhancement. It is also important that I note that photos edited in Photo Shop and converted to GIF file would not load onto the frame.

Finally, one of the features I was particularly interested in was the HDMI interface that would allow me to connect the frame to my Sony BRAVIA XBR LCD TV for big screen picture viewing. But, to make this connection I needed to dole out another $19.99 to purchase a special HDMI cable. Once connected, the show on my 46” TV screen had mixed results. New pictures that I shot using my camera’s super fine High Quality mode looked great on the TV.  Pictures I shot in the Normal Quality mode looked OK. Old paper prints that I had scanned and converted to a digital image looked OK when viewed on the frame, but looked horrible on the big screen. I realize this lack of quality is not due to a fault in the frame. My point is that while the HDMI connectivity feature is enticing, don’t expect that same clear image you get when viewing a small picture on a small screen to always transfer over to a larger screen.

FINAL VERDICT: I would have to say that considering the suggested list price of $249.99 the 10 Inch Sony S-Frame is an expensive sleek and shiny beauty on the outside, but cumbersome and perplexing on the inside.

Lately I have been doing quite a bit of surfing and I have come to the conclusion that the Internet is one mighty big pond with a lot of croaking about new products going on. Especially when it comes to technical devices/gadgets, the pond is full of “reviewer” frogs.

The big bull frog review sites, that have a lot of influence in the consumer market, are sites like PC Magazine, PC World, Engadget, and CNET. Each, with its own full time staff, will jump on just about every consumer related technology product and croak out an opinion about it.

Then over on another lily pad are smaller, yet highly specialized frogs, that focus their croaks on specific technologies. Particularly, for the digital frame industry, sites like Digital Frame Review, Image Acquire and Digital Frame Guy are some of frogs that croak the loudest.

But not to be out croaked are mainstream media sites like Forbes, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, each have proficient frogs dedicated to new technology reviews.

Finally there are the tadpoles… better known as “Bloggers.” Now don’t think that because they are small they are not heard. Tadpoles, while not professional reviewers, are big influencers as they share their thoughts and opinions about any and all products or services they swim upon.

So while the pond might be loud and full of different croaking frogs, unfortunately many will not get KISSed.

What do I mean by KISSed?

Well, think about it… people who are attracted to write tech reviews are naturally interested in new technology. Their interest, coupled with the fact that tech products/devices/gadgets are constantly being improved, sets them up to expect rapid advancements to be a part of each and every new product they come across.

Now don’t get me wrong there is nothing wrong with product development and product improvement. However, sometimes what makes a device a good consumer product is that fact that the developers knew how to K.I.S.S. it. You know… “Keep It Simple Stupid”. I can’t help but wonder if reviewers, who are technologically superior to the average consumer, want more and expect more than they average consumer.

So my advice to you as you is this… as you read reviews remember, sometimes the real prince of a product may ultimately have been KISSed for the consumer, not the frog.

So until the next post… that’s what CeivaJoe knows!

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