[bluevortex]

Guys need some help. My Nan has asked me to find out asbout getting my mum a digital photo frame for christmas. Budget is up to £80. I've been looking on Amazon and all the frames have mixed reviews, buggy software, difficult to use and so on.

Does anybody have one that's good for around this money? My mum owns a ceramic art studio and she wants it for display on her desk in the shop.

Much appreciated

Blue

[KUNGFOOKID]

One of the main things to consider is the screen resolution.For a frame between 7 and 10 inches you want 800x480 or 800x600 - any lower and the picture quality is rather poor.Also check viewing angles as some are much better than others.If posible check brightness levels - many on display in the shops are ramped up to full brightness just to produce a reasonable picture which gives you no room for further adjustment if some of your pics are a bit dark.
I have recently bought a Kodak 8" frame with remote control for £79.99 plus a 2GB memory card for only £8.50 which can store a huge amount of photos.The frame itself has a good bright screen with pretty good viewing angles.It is very easy to set up and to transfer photos to it from a pc or directly from a camera - both connecting by usb.Because it is 800x480 (widescreen format ) the photo's do not fill the whole screen but leave bars down the sides but they still look very good.You can let the frame expand to full screen but you lose the edges of the pictures - not always a problem depending on the subject and framing of the photo.

[bluevortex]

Thanks some good advice - i will look into the Kodak frame. Its seems every one i look at or read a review of is let down or flawed in some way. Maybe im being to critical but i am buying blind so worth doing the homework.

[richard plumb]

the only thing i'd say is don't buy blind. Many of the ones I've seen have terrible viewing angles which completely ruins them as photo frames, at least for me. I wanted something that you can just put on the mantlepiece and occasionally glance at from anywhere in the room.

I ended up buying a philips one. Best viewing angles and overall quality of the ones I looked at, and the frame looked like a photo frame, rather than a piece of computer equipment.

That was a couple of years ago though, so its possible that things have improved - although the quest for cheap prices means maybe not...

[Agincourt]

Having bought a 9" Philips frame for myself a couple of months ago, I have just bought another 2 as Christmas presents for my parents and my in-laws. It had everything I required (good image quality and size and interfaces) without unnecessary gimmicks. I am very happy with it as a picture frame (it's on top of a piano with a load of ordinary photo frames and some visitors have been startled when the picture changes, not realizing what it was) and the controls on the frame work well but I have a slight reservation over the software. Although you can view photographs straight off the memory card or 'drag and drop' off your computer hard drive using the USB connection, the frame doesn't recognise your existing folder structure. It's better to create folders and copy photos using the supplied software although this is slow and relatively clunky.
If you accept that you are never going to find the perfect solution, this probably comes reasonably close

[KUNGFOOKID]

With regard to the last post about photo transfer to frame i have found no problem.With a memory card in my Kodak frame all i need do is connect the frame to my pc with a usb lead and power it up and it is detected as a removable drive.You can just drag and drop jpeg's on to the memory card quick as you like.When the frame is switched on it will auto run a slideshow from the memory card.

[bluevortex]

Originally Posted by Agincourt

Having bought a 9" Philips frame for myself a couple of months ago, I have just bought another 2 as Christmas presents for my parents and my in-laws. It had everything I required (good image quality and size and interfaces) without unnecessary gimmicks. I am very happy with it as a picture frame (it's on top of a piano with a load of ordinary photo frames and some visitors have been startled when the picture changes, not realizing what it was) and the controls on the frame work well but I have a slight reservation over the software. Although you can view photographs straight off the memory card or 'drag and drop' off your computer hard drive using the USB connection, the frame doesn't recognise your existing folder structure. It's better to create folders and copy photos using the supplied software although this is slow and relatively clunky.
If you accept that you are never going to find the perfect solution, this probably comes reasonably close

Which Phillips frame did you buy?

[Agincourt]

The frame I got is the 9" model - 9FF2M4/00. It's over your budget - £143 from Amazon but I think there is a 7" model available. Could you get your brother/sister/aunt/uncle to chip in?

Answering KUNGFOOKID's point - I don't have any problems dragging and dropping photos onto the frame (either its internal memory or the additional memory card) via the USB cable but the parent file structure is lost and all the photographs are dumped into one single folder. If you want to retain your file structure (my photographs are all organized by month) you have to create folders on the frame and import the photographs into them using the supplied Philips software. Not a major issue, but it does slow down the transfer process.

[Triggaaar]

I've not been interested in digital frames up until reading this thread, but they really seem to have come of age. Decent screens, being able to set the on & off time, length of time each picture displayed, etc etc - then, a shocking bit of modern technology - the Kodak Easyshare lets you set it up at your relative's home, then change the photos it displays via the internet, without them having to touch it.
Wow, how amazing is that For your non technical grandparents or in-laws, they can have regularly updated pictures of their great/grandchildren without having to do a thing. Although that's probably not a feature I personally need, I'm all excited at mankind's progress. Well done humans.

[KiwiBud]

..thanks guys, great thread....

just got this one for my old man is it anygood http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Produc...o%2Bframes.htm cheers

[daverave]

Hi All,

Im also looking for a digital photo frame as a present for my folks for xmas (budget 80 to 100 quid) BUT they do not want any wires! Do any of these frames operate via battery? Can you recommend one within my budget?

Many thanks in advance

[hot-fuzz]

Originally Posted by johnh89

just got this one for my old man is it anygood http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Produc...o%2Bframes.htm cheers

If you have already bought it, then yo ucan tell us if its any good.

Originally Posted by daverave

Hi All,

Im also looking for a digital photo frame as a present for my folks for xmas (budget 80 to 100 quid) BUT they do not want any wires! Do any of these frames operate via battery? Can you recommend one within my budget?

Many thanks in advance

Thats the problem i have, but im not sure many do as the batteries wouldnt last long. Every one i have seen is battery powered. THere must be a battery powred one and would love to know how long it lasts.

[dave_bass5]

WOW, lots of old folk are going to get digiframes this year by the look of it.
mine included if i can get my act together.
Im looking at getting this one for mine. £53 from ebuyer.
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/129157

It would be nice to hear from anyone that has one.

Can anyone tell me what crop ratio these things use as i would like to re size my shots to match the screen res.

Cheers

[Simmo81]

This one any good?
http://www.play.com/Electronics/Elec...s/Product.html

£70 tops of my budget for a xmas pressie for my Dad

Like the way it looks more like a "normal" picture frame.

No idea if this is any good or not?

Cant seem to decide on any one particular frame to be honest.

i will have 2 wait 2 xmas day was hopeing someone would say it was ok have took a gamble looked a good deal thx anyhow.

[hot-fuzz]

Originally Posted by dave_bass5

WOW, lots of old folk are going to get digiframes this year by the look of it.
mine included if i can get my act together.
Im looking at getting this one for mine. £53 from ebuyer.
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/129157

It would be nice to hear from anyone that has one.

Can anyone tell me what crop ratio these things use as i would like to re size my shots to match the screen res.

Cheers

The resolution is crap on that one - 480x234

The Play.com one seems alot better

[ShadowmanUK]

Excellent thread, just what I was looking for.

I'm also interested in these frames but no little about them, hopefully you can answer these q's:-

Do they all have to run from a mains adapter? No options for batteries or is it not viable because of how much juice they require?

What about slideshow options, I don't want one that changes every 2mins can you push the picture changeover time up to hrs like... 1 or 2 hrs?

It sounds like the Philips are good ones, do any run on batteries and have slow slideshow options?

[richard plumb]

my philips one has a battery. Doesn't last that long (few hours I think), so I tend to keep the mains adapter in. If you're careful you can make it look pretty discrete.

You can adjust the timing of the photos and the transitions. I wanted to use mine as a proper frame, where the picture may have changed since the last time you glanced at it. So I didn't want any fancy wipes or constant changing. I think I set it to simply switch between photos and about every hour.

[ShadowmanUK]

Arr I see, a few hours on battery is no good

So you can make it change every hour, I've just got it in my mind that it will be constantly flicking between photo's which isn't what I want, it need to be on one photo for a good length of time.

What model did you go for if you don't mind?

[hot-fuzz]

Originally Posted by ShadowmanUK

Arr I see, a few hours on battery is no good

So you can make it change every hour, I've just got it in my mind that it will be constantly flicking between photo's which isn't what I want, it need to be on one photo for a good length of time.

What model did you go for if you don't mind?

On the philips site it only shows 4 (7" or 9" in differnet framing) :

http://www.photoframe.philips.com/EN/techspecs.html

They look pretty good.

[Stumpster]

Two issues with the Kodak easyshare wireless internet jobbies...

With wifi I do not get a full screen because the device does not display in full to speed it up.

Also, you will have to manually select kodak gallery each time the screen switches on (even if by timer)

The second problem is a bit of a pain but not getting a full screen... I would not have bothered with the wifi version if I had known.

All images now come from a memory card.


Stumps

[ste v p]

Everyone's getting a digital frame for Xmas it seems. I ended up going for the HP 7" one from play.com, gonna have a play, put some photos on and rewrap it for the parents. I think I'll let them pick up a memory card though. I'll let you know how it goes...

[dave_bass5]

Originally Posted by ste1000

Everyone's getting a digital frame for Xmas it seems. I ended up going for the HP 7" one from play.com, gonna have a play, put some photos on and rewrap it for the parents. I think I'll let them pick up a memory card though. I'll let you know how it goes...

I was just looking at that one as well. Its a bit dearer than what i was hoping to get but it seems like its not too low res.
let us know what you think of it.

[brendan_dj]

Has anybody bought the LOGIK PF-A850WDE ?
Its a 8.5" digital frame available from Dixons (incl PCWorld) and also from pixmania.co.uk.

Neither outlet can tell us the screen resolution. Even the guy in the PC World shop didn't have a clue!

If somebody out there has purchased this, can you please give us the specifications and also your own personal comments?

Thanks

[Triggaaar]

This is doing my head in, I can't find a frame I'm happy with. Reading the reviews on amazon, there are lots of good frames, but some little problem with every one of them.

The Phillips on Amazon was £143, then £170, and it's just gone up to £188.
The Sugar PF1 10.2" gets great reviews, but changes picture every 30 secs on slow setting - that's no good. The 8" & 10.2" Linx also have a maximum picture view of a couple of minutes.

The 7" Samsung (SPF-72H) sounds good, but I'm not sure how big it really is. Amazon says it's 7" wide, but that could be a mistake. If it's 7" diagonal, £104 is a bit expensive.

Maybe the 8" frame from Jessops could be worth getting, but I haven't seen detailed reviews - I'll post a couple of questions in that thread.

Any more suggestions?

[Kopil]

Can anyone please help me with a spec that includes the following:

Aspect: Preferably 4:3
Screen: 7" or 8" high resolution
Card reader: incl. CF and USB pen drive
Power: Would like internal battery as well as mains
Slide show: Selection of transitions
Internal memory: Not essential but if present a reasonable size

We have been looking at:
Hama 8" (from Germany) - no internal battery
Jobo 7" PDJ701 - will not take USB pen drive
Linx Photo8W - only one transition, a black shutter

Jobo is the nearest to what we want. It has a mini-USB socket for connection to a PC but the makers say that you cannot use this to connect a USB pen drive to show photos.

Suggestions welcomed!

[ste v p]

Originally Posted by Simmo81

This one any good?
http://www.play.com/Electronics/Elec...s/Product.html

£70 tops of my budget for a xmas pressie for my Dad

Like the way it looks more like a "normal" picture frame.

No idea if this is any good or not?

Cant seem to decide on any one particular frame to be honest.

Right, got the frame from play.com - which as a side note is definitely my favourite purchasing website - and had a bit of a play with the frame.

First off it's pretty good looking, facias are ok easy to switch. It's not obvious at first how to copy images onto the internal memory from my USB key, but after a read of the instructions I just about managed it. Remote is a tidy little thing.

Image quality is pretty good but I have to say I was slightly disappointed with some of the brighter shots where the edges were not clear. This may have been because the images were moved around a little and this reduces jpeg quality. I'm unsure whether the frame compresses the images when they are transferred onto the internal memory so this may also be a factor

The screen itself could be seen from all angles which is good.

All in all I'm pleased with it. It was at the top end of my budget so couldn't have got much more. Having multiple inputs is useful for image display. Perhaps a wireless connection to the computer via e.g. bluetooth would be handy to make image transfer to the internal memory easier.

I hope the parents like it!

[Triggaaar]

Originally Posted by ste1000

Right, got the frame from play.com

What is the slowest time you can set the slideshow picture change to?

[dng007]

Originally Posted by Kopil

Can anyone please help me with a spec that includes the following:

Aspect: Preferably 4:3
Screen: 7" or 8" high resolution
Card reader: incl. CF and USB pen drive
Power: Would like internal battery as well as mains
Slide show: Selection of transitions
Internal memory: Not essential but if present a reasonable size

We have been looking at:
Hama 8" (from Germany) - no internal battery
Jobo 7" PDJ701 - will not take USB pen drive
Linx Photo8W - only one transition, a black shutter

Jobo is the nearest to what we want. It has a mini-USB socket for connection to a PC but the makers say that you cannot use this to connect a USB pen drive to show photos.

Suggestions welcomed!

From my own research - about the only 4:3 frames with the sort of features your after are the Philips ones - which also happen to be amongst the best when it comes to screen quality too. The cheapest you'll find is the Philips Philips 7FF1M4 - Dabs have it for £100 but not in stock - everywhere else has it for around £130 - including Argos if you wanted to see it in person first (be aware their site says they are excluded from 16-day money back guarantee though).