Pandigital 7-Inch Digital Photo Frame with 2 Interchangeable Frames by Lamorinda Distributing
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Digital camera reviews of Pandigital 7-Inch Digital Photo Frame with 2 Interchangeable Frames
Digital camera Review: 8
Summary: 1 Stars
I bought ten to give as christmas presents to some employees. I kept one for myself to put our family pictures on. The frames look great but...
The first one I tried the pictures looked great. I put a 512MB SD card in with 200 pictures, some very short video (2minutes) of our summer vacation and five mp3 songs.
We have a good digital camera that takes 8 megapixal pictures but I resized them for the photo frame to 640x480.
The pictures started as advertised and look great. The music played in the backgroung great also. My family was really happy. We all sat around watching the slideshow. Then I started to realize the problems.
The slideshow stopped playing after approx 65 pictures. It just froze and wouldn't play. I restarted it and this time it stopped playing after approx 55 pictures. I took the video off the card and the same thing happened. I took the music off the card and the same thing happened. I moved the pictures to another sd card and the same thing happened.
I gave up on the photos for now and tried the video. By the way, the frame will not play a combination of video and photos. One must physically switch from one to the other. It would be nice if the frame would play both together without user interaction. Getting past this limitation I tried to play some short videos. Video just doesn't work despite trying several formats and resolutions, .avi, mpg, mpg2, mpg4. Video just doesn't work, period. Some formats will play in very slow motion. Most just don't play.
Then I tested the frames ability to plug into the computer with a USB cable. My computer is running Windows XP home with USB 2 ports. One can transfer photos from the computer to the sd card on the frame but not onto the 64MB built into the computer. The only way to transfer photos to the built in memory is through a laborious process using the handheld remote one picture at a time. After coping five pictures I was worn out.
OK. I figured that I just got a bad frame and opened up one of my other ten. This one had a bad screen with horizontal lines blanked out.
OK. I opened another and the same problems that I had with the first one I had with this one.
I tried one more and the same problems.
I went to their website [...] and tried calling. The first three days that I called the line was busy. I dialed hundreds of times (automatic speed dial). Busy.
On the fourth day I got through to a voice mail system and the only mail box was full. I emailed them. No response after two weeks.
I took all ten Pandigital photo frames back. CompUSA was fine with the return. I got the employees gift cards instead. My recommendation. Don't buy the 8" Pandigital photo frame.
Digital camera Review: Advice on using this product
Summary: 2 Stars
At $120 advertised price I had to downgrade to 2 stars. I got the version without the second frame but with 128MB of internal memory for less than $80 with a special deal at a bricks and mortar. Others have commented on various good and bad points. So I'll try to stick to advice on using the unit.
I suggest using the remote control if the unit has one instead of using the on-unit buttons. The on-unit buttons require some practice to be able to use all the functions available. Sometimes you have to just press a button, other times hold down for several seconds, other times hold for 1 second, depending on what you are trying to do.
For me, it is easiest to download from computer via included USB cable. The interface for downloading from a flash card seems a bit clunky to me. I have not gotten movies to play yet, but I have not tried too hard.
With firmware (I think) dated 2007-05-13 the optimum picture size for quality vs file sizes is 832Wx468H. This avoids some atrifacts from the resizing of photos, prevents the unit from making it's own cropping decisions, and will probably allow you to fit several hundred jpgs into 128MB of memory. This does take a lot of time to crop and resize all your photos yourself on the computer prior to loading them onto the unit.
I also have gotten decent quality up to 1108x436 but this will crop your photos on the sides. Files close to optimum size (832x468) but off by a bit will tend to interpolate poorly leaving ugly artifacts. If you deviate from 468H then I suggest you go quite a bit bigger as the resize algorithm works better with higher resolution photos that with lower resolution photos. If you do not match the 16:9 aspect ratio of the 832x468 then the system will crop, stretch, or add black bars on top or sides according to some logic I have not quite figured out, but black bars seem to be used if W:H ratio is outside of the range 1:0.55 to 1:0.75.
Even at 832Wx468H the quality is not what it could be. It appears that the logic converts whatever you put in to 416Wx234H (half of 832Wx468H) if it is not using black bars. This is a 16x9 ratio. The native resolution of the LCD is 480Wx234H however, so in the horizontal direction it then has to get converted again to 480W. I don't know if the conversion is digital or if an analog 416 signal is being sent to the 480 wide screen. This apparent double conversion means you lose sharpness in the horizontal direction.
If you put in smaller than 400H you will probably get black bars all around as it seems the unit goes ahead and downsizes it by about half even though the photo is larger than the actual screen resolution.
Digital camera Review: Almost Perfect
Summary: 3 Stars
I plugged in my 1GB SD card with about 20 pictures and it worked great. The photos also look great. Perfect $100 gift for my mom.
Problems:
1. Video does not work. It looked like slow motion. Useless.
2. I have a 2GB SD card with 15,000 photos on it. The frame only sees 2000 photos. It appears to be limited to 2000 photos.
3. Web support does not exist.
I can live without the video, but I wanted a frame that will play all my photos on my SD card.
Digital camera Review: Awesome product
Summary: 5 Stars
Bought 2 for the Moms for Christmas, loaded them with pictures of the family, especially the grandkids, before they opened them and they both loved them. Easy to use, both Moms have digital cameras and their respective memory cards worked perfect as well. Actually the only negative is after you start the thing you can't take your eyes off of it!!Digital camera Review: Bad resolution
Summary: 1 Stars
We loaded up some photos and they looked blocky and bad. Immediately returned them. These were photos taken on a Digital Rebel and look great on the computer and in print.