Thoughts on Digital Picture Frames

Consumer Reports recently had a piece on digital photo frames, those little displays that sit on a desk or table or hang on a wall and electronically scroll through various pictures you have loaded on it.

As far as buying one goes, here's what they suggest:

Resist the temptation to go small and cheap. Such models’ display resolution is too low to do justice to the images of today’s high-megapixel cameras. And think twice before paying extra for bells and whistles you may not need, such as a built-in phone or printer.

And for those interested, they list the following frames as good buys (in order): HP df800, Philips 8FF3FPW/27, and Westinghouse DPF-0804.

I've seen these recently and have become interested in them. Every year I do a collage photo shoot (in a frame) that shows 20-30 of our family's "best" pictures from the previous year. We then hang the collage in our hallway. We have seven years done now, so there's really quite a history we've collected.

I've thought about buying a digital photo frame and replacing the current collage each year, but the prices are still fairly high ($120 to $150 for the models listed above.) But I'm still interested in them and thought I'd ask any of you with experience what you like and don't like about these. Anyone out there use them?

Comments

[Bill]

Don't have the digital frame, but like you, I have been interested. What we do now is have the 2 LCD monitors on my computers scrolling our archive of photos as a screensaver.

The difference between that and wall photos is dramatic. We regularly interrupt dinner to run over to the screen to hit the back arrow to see a great photo or a great memory. Collages (of which we have tons) are nice, but static and become part of the furniture. My kids go through the photo albums occasionally, but they regularly sit at the computer watching the images flick by randomly.

Because of the "Harry Potter" nature of the pictures I have considered digital frames a superior choice for displaying pictures. Being a cheapo has limited my purchases to zero though. I'd love to get a 8 to 10" frame with decent quality for less than $50 and maybe then I'd be a buyer. At $150 the price is still too steep for me.

[Sean]

Timely question. Like Bill, I thought the main thing to look for was a larger screen at a lower price. But CR's ratings don't give any model an "Excellent" on picture quality? What is that all about?

[MelMoitzen]

Anything under 9" is a joke so far as visibility in a typical casual setup. Period. You and your guests shouldn't have to get right on top of a picture frame to see what's going on.

Also, you should know how to crop your images with a basic editing program before loading them if you buy a frame with a 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio (as most digital frames are) from the typical 4:3 ratio of your original image in order to fill up the screen. If you don't, you'll wind up with a lot of unused pixels. Most of your landscape (horizontally)-oriented photos will withstand a crop to 16:9. Use the cropping exercise as an opportunity to zoom in on the faces people really want to see.

The other challenge comes with your great photos that are portrait (vertically)-oriented. Unless you buy a huge frame or one with a 4:3 aspect ratio, don't even bother loading them--they will appear far too small given the vertical limitations of the screen.

[pharmboy]

my wife bought me one as a wedding gift in June 2006 back when they weren't as mainstream and were a bit pricier. She got it at Brookstone and we love it, the pictures look great on it.

[Mark]

I'm too cheap to buy one for myself right now, but if I were in the market for one I'd want one that you can connect to a local wireless network. That way you can upload pictures from your computer without the hassle of having to load them manually into the picture frame. I'm pretty sure that's available now, but if it's not I call dibs.

[Colin]

I actually made one from a few laptops that my office was trashing. Great quality, high resolution, 10GB of pictures and a 17" screen to boot! All I did was disassemble the laptop, flip the screen around (like a tablet PC) and mount it in a shadow box with a custom matte. All-in-all I only spent about $15. A great use for that old laptop you have laying around. My wife, the decorator, even approved!

There are a few DIY instructions out on the web and I would be happy to answer any questions if anyone wanted to give it a shot. I have a few pics of the finally product as well.

Definitely the frugal alternative to a 9" $150 version.

[CF]

Have considered them also, but resisted based on price. May try Colin's suggestion, but actually love the idea of what you do - the collage is a great idea!

[F]

I also use my laptop screen saver to display pictures randomly. If I'm inside, my laptop is usually within sight because my home is a simple studio.

I have to disagree with the comment about small ones. They are great for the office. I received one as a gift and have it in my office. So instead of four million frames like everyone else, I have one in my office with probably 50 pictures loaded on it. It's great!

I have to disagree with the comment about small ones. They are great for the office. I received one as a gift and have it in my office. So instead of four million frames like everyone else, I have one in my office with probably 50 pictures loaded on it. It's great!

[Mark]

My wife recently bought me a digital picture frame 9inch. My immediate concern was that I had about 16 gig of movie and digital photos going back to 2000 and the digital frame came with one gig of on board memory. I bought a 16 gig USB stick and uploaded everything. It’s amazing we are now watching the last eight years of our holiday photos and movies from Cyprus, Marbella, Salou, Tenerife, South Africa, Caribbean cruise, Southern Ireland and various other boating holidays.

It has brought a corner of our lounge to life and it is a talking point. If it had not been for the digital picture frame our great holiday photos would have remained hidden in my computer. This is a money saving appliance as you get to watch all your pictures over and over again when ever you want and there is no ongoing costs like printing them and putting them in an album. I went to a friend’s party and he had all their photos of their family running through their Flat screen TV and it was a great talking point.

[Thankful]

I've been wishing someone would give me one as a present (no room in our budget for it)--but I want it for the kitchen, possibly even a wireless version that Mark mentioned above. I would love to have it mounted on one of our kitchen cabinets so I can display recipes as I cook, freeing up a bit more counter space.

[Craig]

Do some research before buying. Frys.com is a good site to save some money on one. i personally don't like digital frames and have yet to buy one or plan on buying one.

Craig

[Dangger]

i cheaped out and got a low res one.... i regret it now... pay for the high res if you get one

[Paula]

We bought a decent one at Costco last year for my in-laws. It was not a small one, but for the quality of the frame and pictures we thought it was a great value. It also had a lot of memory to store pictures and even movies. We got my husband's siblings to chip in and then got family members to donate pictures. I was even able to get pictures from their childhood.

It was a BIG hit. They have it as a nice piece of furniture in the living room and it is a big hit when family and friends come over.

[Robb]

I want to see more pic frames with WIFI support so I can give these as gifts to far away grandparents and can upload new family pictures at any time.

[Christy]

Colin - wonderful idea; thanks for sharing!

[Brent]

My parents got a gift which was an iPod pre-loaded with pictures and a small, LCD television. They just plug the iPod into the TV, turn on the slideshow, and off we go. It's a very upgradeable solution where we just recently got a media center extender that will wirelessly fetch music/pictures/video from the home computer and play them (try that on a digital picture frame). If you really want to, I'm sure you could go to a frame store and get something cheap to put around the television to give it that "picture frame" look.

Depending on where you can find a good deal (like not buying an iPod, but something cheaper that can display pictures and can connect to a TV) you actually don't spend too much more money than some of those digital picture frames.

[Glymmar]

My wife bought me a Westinghouse DPF-0802 for Christmas in 2007. I added extra memory using a memory card. The onboard memory was rediculously small. The pictures old and new look great.
We love it!

Brian ~aka Glymmar

[Lauren]

We got one as a wedding gift in June. It's sitting on the desk next to me... we've never used it.

[Bruce Lewis]

FMF, that's great that you're successfully doing a collage every year. If you can keep that up, don't replace it with a digital frame. Maybe you want a digital frame anyway, but the physical collages are of real lasting value to your family.

I bought a Samsung SPF-83V (800x600 with wifi) early this year, and it's been great. Other people have reported issues with this model and WPA, but my home network is open so that wasn't an issue. It set me back $230, but you can find them for under $200 these days if you shop around (bountii.com).

MelMoitzen brings up a great point about cropping. The SPF-83V has an orientation sensor such that you can turn it on its side and it rotates the pictures accordingly. Then your horizontal pictures suffer instead of your vertical pictures.

I fixed the cropping problem by adding features to my photo-sharing site, which you're all welcome to try, by the way. You can create a feed for the wireless frame that includes only your horizontal photos, only your vertical photos, or all of them. Usually when we get new photos I set it to "all", but after a while I just want the frame to look nice and I'll restrict it to one orientation or the other.

Here's my photo-sharing site:

http://ourdoings.com/

[Michael]

Like Colin, I have been regularly converting old laptops to digital picture frames. You'd be amazed what a garage sale laptop ($20) and a little time and effort can do. Even older laptops that aren't really good for anything else can be used as the software is usually Linux-based and runs speedily on almost any older machine.

As Colin says, there are MANY DIY instructions for these available via any search engine.

My best advice:
Look for laptops that have wireless built-in. If you have a wireless network, you can make the updates and changes via a network shared drive and rotate galleries and pictures easily.

Most of the the "cost" of electricity for running a laptop comes from the LCD and the hard drives. Many of the software programs that do this can boot from a cd or floppy and can be removed. This means you can remove the hard drive entirely and use the software settings to "sleep" the digital frame at times when it is not in use (ie. while you sleep, or while you are at work)

Have an old laptop (or even a PC) with USB or Game Ports for controllers? Almost any of these can be loaded with emulators to run older console game systems software like NES, SNES, Sega, Xbox, etc. This does take a little more tech-savviness but is a fun project.

There are so many ways to repurpose older laptops, it's insane. Even the less tech-savvy can download a program and boot a CD for a Kitchen-cabinet mounted MEDIA or Music station. My personal favorite is a variation of the digital picture frame. A DIY instructable is out there to convert a common (read: "cheap") webcam along with a modified laptop into a digital "Peephole" camera which you can mount to your front door or nearby. Some software even allows you to see the image from other computers in your network.