Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)Summary: If you are looking for a large and inexpensive picture frame with good picture quality, this is it!
If you want ergonomics (Gift for the grand parents?), gadgety stuff (Wifi? Internet? Facebook??? Come on...), beautiful sleek design (colored frame? Blue lights everywhere?), or simply a battery... look somewhere else!
And now: the review!
I was kind of surprised to find a $99 Digital Picture Frame having a 800x600 resolution for a 10 inches diagonal. (4:3 format = classic picture format)
I was ready to spend twice that on an 8 inches Samsung one when I saw the VFM1042-52 from Viewsonic which seemed to have pretty much everything I wanted.
I am usually a data hungry consumer: I look everywhere, read every reviews I can find and process as much raw data as I can before buying anything on Amazon or elsewhere. But I was unable to get any reviews or customer feedbacks on this item, and the descriptions on every site looked like the official press release of the company, so I kinda took a chance buying it.
I received the item yesterday and well... I am not displeased so far... Not even close to that actually!
I will try to be as exhaustive as I can for my fellow photo enthusiasts:
- Packaging: Frame arrived in good state with remote, electric plug, usb cable, and a small manual. Nothing more, nothing less.
- Image Quality (My main concern)
Quite good! I mainly use the frame to show the picture I took with my Nikon D80 (which I love) and I am rather pleased with the results.
The 800x600 resolution seems to be here (haven't really counted of course) but if your eye is more than 4 inches away from the screen, you won't see any individual pixel.
Colors are lovely and nicely saturated, contrast is rated 1:500 and it seems to deliver on that too.
Contrast and brightness are adjustable. Color temp is adjustable too but I haven't played with it yet.
I find the pure black is a little grayish next to the black plastic of the frame, but I think the problem is widely spread on those kind of digital frame/screen. I stepped down the brightness to suit my personal preferences.
The screen itself is mat and does not reflect external light much.
- Storage and Connectivity
You can connect the frame though "mini-USB to USB" cable (included) to your computer. Transfer speed is average.
2Go of storage is awesome, the number of 800x600 pictures it can hold is just staggering! (7,000 at least!)
There is a slot for a USB key (haven't tried it), and a card reader for SD/MMC/MS (haven't tried it either)...
Apparently, the frame can directly read the picture from the external storage device without copying them into its internal memory.
I am not too happy about the power cord... too short (2 meters?) and with the AC/DC adapter on the plug, it is gonna be difficult to use in Europe where I am from...). The big draw back is that there is absolutely no battery, so the frame must be connected at all time. The cable with almost certainly be visible if the frame is wall-mounted. On the other hand, the adapter seemed pretty standard so a DIY work around might be possible.
- Build Quality:
The frame itself is glossy black plastic, it does look a little cheap, but I like the fact that there is no marking/branding of any sort on the front of the frame, which I think can be distracting on some other models. Here nothing comes between you and the pictures and the frame makes itself very discrete. If you want to pay twice the price to see a Samsung logo, be my guest!
The foldable stand is plastic too and is not adjustable so no way to orient the frame vertically. It seems pretty weak too so I'll be careful with it.
- Software and Ergonomics
Not that good overall.
On the plus side: The frame is responsive and the slide show launches automatically which is good. You can delete pictures directly from the frame.
The picture are automatically rotated, and the frame also knows if is in portrait or landscape mode. (This I like a lot!)
On the minus side: The manual is not giving any help on any of the menus, parameters and features so you pretty much have to guess or try everything.
There is only 12 different transitions (and sadly, no fading, which is usually my favorite)
Does not run divx that well, I still have to try smaller video formats. I have not tried the MP3 function yet but I am not expecting to much out of it. I did not buy the frame for that anyway.
I was not able to select a specific folder of pictures to play as a slide-show. The frame will show every picture it stores when playing automatically.
The pictures will be changed automatically every 5 to 15 min depending of the chosen parameters.
Going backward will not show the previous picture when in random mode.
Alarm and clocks are present if you want them too but I don't see the point personally.
Some other frame from Viewsonic received a firmware update so maybe this one will too. We'll have to see!
- Remote control:
It was not really advertised but I am glad it is here because the controls on the frame are all in the back, so you can't see what you are doing.
The buttons on the remote are strangely placed but I guess it is ok. It is small and light and ugly but don't loose it!
Conclusions: I know that the negative points are very present in my review but don't let that make you miss the point of this digital frame:
The pictures look gorgeous, it has ample memory, and it is cheap! It is the "back to the basic" of digital frames and that was all I asked: 4 stars!
Click Here to see more reviews about: Viewsonic'S VFM1042-52 10.4-Inch Digital Media Frame (Black)
The VFM1042-12 digital media frame not only delivers perfect picture quality with stylish frame but also offers multifunctional capacity for excellent video and audio play back. The high resolution of 800x600 screen provides brilliant picture quality along with rich features including auto rotation and auto on/off. Ultra high 2GB internal memory allows consumers to store thousands of photos. The beautiful layout & design for the calendar, clock and alarm feature brings everyday usage with style.
Click here for more information about Viewsonic'S VFM1042-52 10.4-Inch Digital Media Frame (Black)
