digital photo frame?

[cryssi]

Anyone have one or know of a good one? I forgot which one DH wants (his b-day is coming up). Thanks!

 

[captaincrash]

I had a Kodak Smart Frame several years ago - a 5.7" diagonal screen. I broke it by accident and have wanted a replacement for some time. Here is what it looked like - the display was just a VGA 640x480 and it was a fraction smaller then a 5x7 size. It worked fine and I got it on clearance for $138 about 4 years ago. At the time it was retailing for $300-360! I sold the broken unit on eBay with full disclosure of the damaged condition for ... $190! These things have come down in price now a days!

I know sharper image sells one (Vista Frame) - quality and value unknown but the refund policy is pretty good there. And a simple search on eBay will reveal several models. I would be careful to get one which will not require a suscription (avoid Cevia made frames - be careful of the others) - and will accept a memory card. Expect to spend $100 to $200 and buy new. If you have a Fry's electronics - they proabably have a couple models for sale.

Other than that - here's some stuff I dug up casually...

This is the Vialta Vista frame sold by Sharper Image - slightly smaller display then the others but it probably works reliably:

Here is one I find interesting - it's 8" in size and looks a lot like one I thought I saw at the Sharper Image - but I don't think this is the one.

Radio Shack makes a little one that has a 3.5" screen. I would not expect much from this but it proabably can be had for under $100 - ther is a buy-it-now offer on eBay for $46 + $18 shipping. Can't vouch for the other particulars (seller reliability - or performance of the unit). Here is an image of it:

About 3 months ago I almost bought a frame from Pacific Digital - and at the last minute I discovered the unit would NOT accept plug in memory cards - so it's display capacity was limited to USB upload alone and a modest internal memory capacity. That would have been far too limiting for my desired use. Which reminds me - the Kodak was really slow about converting my 3 mega-pixel images down to VGA - so it cycled extremely slow. Plus it produced a lot of heat - so I always had fears it would not last. But a good friend of mine still has his running today - and it's still working. Of course, you can program it to turn on and off to display for certain times of the day when you're around. that would limit the run time to the minimum and extend life significantly.

Here is what the Pacific Digital MV-8000 frames look like ~ nice looking but eware of the USB upload only model - it sells for far less and should probably be avoided:

Here is a PhotoSHARE frame - it is 7" and has a 16x9 ratio display - which is sort of ODD. It may convert your images to a slighly distorted presentation - I would be skeptical of it - and I did see one at Ritz Cameras but I vaguely recall seeing a low resolution spec on the package and I was disinterested on discovering that. But I think it was pretty inexpensive - or relatively so for what it was. Here is an image of it:

At Best Buy I've seen these Westinghouse frames. They look exactly like the Kodak frames. Other than that I know nothing except if you have a Best Buy near by then you can see it.

AND finally... if you don't mind spending $450 or so - on eBay I found this bigEframe... it is a 19" diagonal LCD panel! I have no idea what the performance or reliability of this is but it looks like a nice sized format. No fans and it runs silently. I am taking a hard look at this since I have taken nearly 35,000 images in the past 6 years and would love to view them more than simply having a screen saver flip through them on my computer. Here's in image of the 19" frame - it is very simple in finishing:

 

[Charade]

Wow! You need to get out more. You have WAAAAAAAAAAAAAY too much extra time on your hands!!!

Anyways... thanks for all the work you put into that post. I've been thinking about getting a digital photo frame. There are many choices now compared to a few years ago.

 

[captaincrash]

Wow! You need to get out more. You have WAAAAAAAAAAAAAY too much extra time on your hands!!!

Anyways... thanks for all the work you put into that post. I've been thinking about getting a digital photo frame. There are many choices now compared to a few years ago.

Well...

I posted in the middle of the evening so everyone was asleep and I get by on relatively little sleep. Plus, as I admitted, I have been wanting a screen for a while - even to the point of nearly buying a seemingly underpriced Pacific Digital frame until I figured out it was not typical with USB upload only, fixed memory and no card slots for expansion of storage capacity.

I also type, draft & search reasonably fast - and generally multi-task on the fly. Right now I'm uploading a couple hundred images to a site as I draft this (I kno, easy enuf) - and I'm waiting for a download to finish on a huge file. Plus I'm monitoring an eBay closure that we have interest in.

I do get out enuf too... LOL! Thanks for the encouragement though.

Oh yeah - the most creative/complicated but versetile option for a digital photo frame is taking one of your oldest/ obsolete but functional notebook computers and converting it into a digital frame. Let me google it and see if I can find the link... OK, now I remember... I read about this in a recent issue of Popluar Science - you can look it up at your local library or click the link for a shortened copy of the article (photos below) and the estimated cost was $80 with an old notebook computer already in your possession:

http://www.popsci.com/popsci/how20/a4a95adebbf6a010vgnvcm1000004eecbccdrcrd.html