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Photo : Digital Spectrum U-40101 10.4" MemoryFrame MF-8104 Premium Wireless Digital Picture Frame |
- disappointedFirst of all to be fair, this is a beautiful looking frame and photos looked nice on it.
I purchased this frame for its networking capabilities but was disappointed in how difficult it was to set up. I understand my experience may not be indicative of others but for me the benefits of having a wireless frame outweighed the high cost. It was not convenient.
Set up was tenuous and after several hours of trying to get the frame to recognize my home network I gave up. It just has to be easier.
Before buying I did read a review where I think a more tech savy person than me said it took him a while to get the frame online if he did at all.
I sent the item back and tried estarlings wireless frame version which I set up in about 10 minutes and love!!
This frame again is beautiful and the display is very nice but there are other cheaper frames that do the same thing. I paid a price for wireless technology and without that technology working for me, it was not worth the price premium.
Amazon was great with delivery and return so at least that part of the purchase experience was good.
Rating:
- Promising but falls short of what you should get for the costAfter a many hours of research on a frame that I could give to parents/in-laws for Christmas, I thought that the ML-8104 was the panacea of the market: WiFi, RSS, and good screen size. All we want to do is point the frame to one of our SmugMug albums so the folks can see the latest photos without needing to sneakernet anything.
Unfortunately, it's good for me (but not for Digital Spectrum) that I chose to buy locally at a place with a good return policy. The device just doesn't live up to expectations.
- Secure wireless support dubious at best: I use WPA2 (personal) on my network, and the frame just wouldn't associate. To troubleshoot, I disabled WPA altogether, and it joined perfect. I'd hoped the problem was fixed via a software update, but to no avail. A fully updated frame claims to work with WPA2, but it does not. (I even tried the included circa-2000 setup software, but no luck.) I use a Linksys 801.11G WAP, which isn't exactly esoteric hardware.
- Keyboard entry is atrocious: There is no "repeat" available, whether using the hard keys or the remote. Every move/change/anything on the frame requires a press-and-release button sequence. This is not fun when entering in your WPA2 passphrase (see above) 10 or more times while trying to figure out what's wrong. It's also detrimental to any possible RSS capability (see below). Certainly a touchscreen is out of the question at this price point, but something less frustrating would have been nice.
- RSS is a no-go. As mentioned above, I use SmugMug, which provides RSS feeds of each of your albums in a standard photostream format that I've never seen NOT recognized. However, after spending 5 minutes (yes, I timed it) entering the RSS URL via the onscreen keyboard, it failed. I tried again, this time running a packet sniffer to see if it was actually attempting to retrieve the URL - it was, but with no results.
- Desktop configuration is kludgy. The software creates a text file that you need to copy onto an SD card, then boot the frame with the card inserted. Not a bad method, but how hard would it be to use the upstream USB cable to directly connect the frame and do live configuration changes or, better yet, entering in the long and painful RSS URLs? Cut-and-paste is soooo 1990s, but it works like a charm. Let's not overlook the simple stuff.
- Nonstandard frame. It wasn't clear from any of the writeups or other literature, but the box comes with 3 different frames (good thing). However, it's not compatible with any standard frame. The included frames are plastic-feeling, but not bad.
- Overall sluggish in response. If not for the other stuff, this point would have fallen squarely in the "admittedly chronic early adopter" category. Nobody's expecting a speedy computer-in-a-frame, but putting this device through its paces took a LONG time due to the combination of button-per-action behavior and the sluggish response overall. It can take 0.25-0.5 sec per keypress, and longer if you're going to a menu from a slideshow.
I did not try this with Windows Vista or XP (don't use them at all), so maybe that experience is different. Again, all we wanted was a WiFi frame that would display new pictures for the family when we uploaded new content. The advertised RSS ability was a major selling point, and we're not about to move all of our content to a new provider that may be better-supported by what turned out to be a mediocre photo frame.
I strongly recommend passing on this one, or at least buying it where you can return it later in the day after you're disappointed.
Rating:
- Best of a ragtag collectionAt this point in time, there are limited options for internet-enabled, wireless picture frames. I'm aware of the Digital Spectrum 8104, Kodak EX811/1011, eStarling 2.0, and the i-Mate Momento frames. I dismissed the eStarling frame due to a reportedly low-quality display, not to mention the truly disastrous debut of its predecessor. I dismissed the otherwise promising i-Mate Momento due to its requirement of a subscription to its web service, which in turn connected to various RSS feeds from photo sharing websites. Let's face it, there's a pretty decent chance that i-Mate will be a memory sometime soon, then what would happen to the web service? And of course, the ongoing expense is an obvious downside. That left Kodak and Digital Spectrum. I have had both the EX1011 and 8104 in my possession. Both had limitations, crummy remotes, and idiosyncracies, but in the end, both looked good and did pretty much what they claimed to do. Here's a summary of their relative pluses and minuses:
Kodak EX1011
+ Less bulky in back. Looks more like a conventional picture frame.
+ Has a brightness control. Can get very, very bright. In a bright setting, this frame would have a clear advantage over the 8104.
+ Kodak Gallery integration. Not the best photo sharing site, in my opinion, but it's the one supported by the 8104.
+ Plays videos from Media Player 11. On my network, though, videos were choppy. This might not be the fault of the frame.
-- Slideshow playlists from Kodak Gallery are set at the time you select an album and are not refreshed until you exit that slideshow and reselect Kodak Gallery. This means that newly added photos are not automatically displayed. This was a showstopper for me. My 80-year-old mom would be very frustrated trying to restart the slideshow.
-- After restarting, the frame will display only photos on the internal memory card. To reselect Kodak Gallery requires several steps. Again, not good for Mom.
- AC Adapter in the plug itself. Ugly if the outlet is in a visible location.
- 16:9 format. Not the best for photos, but works better than I expected, except for portrait mode photos.
- Frame itself looks plasticy
+- Slightly cool color temperature with high contrast.
Digital Spectrum 8401 Premium
+ Richer-looking frame
+ 4:3 format
++ Free integration with three good photo sharing websites -- Flickr, Webshots, and Windows Live.
+ Restarts with last-selected slideshow, including web-based.
+ Slideshow playlists are, by default, set to refresh every time through the playlist, so newly added photos are quickly displayed.
+ Has both black and wood-grain frames
+ Standard wooden frames fit this unit, so the options are nearly limitless
- Warm color temperature.
- Bulky piece on back makes the frame less elegant-looking.
- While the remote is a big larger (good), the buttons are relatively hard to press.
- Seemed a bit buggier than the Kodak. I have had to turn it off sometimes during setup operations.
- Cord seems a bit short
Both units had some difficulty with my WEP wireless encryption, but I do have a very wacky setup in my home due to my wireless broadband. I'll be setting this up at my mother's home, which will a more conventional wireless setup using an 802.11g DSL router. Hopefully, WPA won't be a problem.
In the end, I chose the 8104, primarily due to the fact that it will be easier for my mother to use and because the photos added to the websites are added automatically. I'm relatively satisfied.
1 year plus update
Things are still going pretty well with the 8104. Occasionally, I have had to turn the frame off and on when the timer seemed to stop. Digital Spectrum has continued to enhance the firmware. All in all, I'm still happy with the frame, despite its shortcomings. There are now several other new models available from other manufacturers and Kodak has improved their offering.
Rating:
- A technology, not a productI gave this picture frame two stars because, in the end, it has nice screen and it shows pictures. It's a nice technology.
But, this company clearly doesn't know the difference between a technology and a product. A technology is a wireless picture frame. A product is a wireless picture frame with a helpful owners manual, a clean interface, high quality, and working company website. This frame had none of these.
My first experience with the frame was taking it out of the box and reading the instructions. These were printed on a large sheet in a step by step fashion. The steps did not exactly match what I saw on the screen, but they were close.
The instructions said that the frame should be controlled from the remote. But my remote was broken. So I couldn't use the frame.
I went to the website and found out that the support links gave 404 errors . They were missing pages. The only contact information was for two PR guys.
When I finally found an email address and let them know what I needed they sent me a new remote. Or tried to. First they accidentally sent me the stand that holds up the back of the frame. Then they sent me a new remote.
When I started using the remote I found buttons that control the frame hidden on the back. The instructions hadn't mentioned them.
I tried to get the frame working with Flikr. There were no instructions for this. There was no screen for entering a password. I read another review that said the frame only works with Webshots. I switched.
Interestingly, when I switched to Webshots I found testing data in the dialog box for Webshots. Apparently that interface had been tested. Had the Flikr interface? No idea.
The frame's features are poorly thought through. The frame cycles through pictures, but the durations are fixed. You get something like 5 sec, 10 sec, 1 min, 5 min, 30 min, 1 hr. I wanted 15 minutes but there is no way to set that. In addition, the 30 minutes doesn't actually hold the picture for 30 minutes.
In the end this company has obviously not thought through their product or the customer experience. They exhibited shoddy business practices, poorly thought through interfaces, and a broken website. DSI feels like 3 guys working out of a garage.
I thank my lucky stars I got the frame as a gift. If I had actually paid over $300 I would have been livid. I fully expect it will break within a year.
Rating:
- Very Disappointing!- Video: Digital artifacts & color gradient rendering flaws are readily apparent.
- User Interface: Awkward to navigate, unforgiving, and very, very time consuming.
- Set up software: Useless, lacks configurable options available to the frame forcing you to fumble through the frame's poor user interface.
- Flickr support poorly implemented.
- Remote control is a cheap piece of junk.
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