Does anyone use one? Do you copy directly from your computer, or from a Flash drive or Card? Also, I've been reading reviews of different products and can't find information as to whether or not the Frame has software that permits you to re-arrange the order of the photographs, or delete some, once they are loaded. And, I understand from a friend that some Frames don't load the photographs in the order that they appear on your Card or USB stick. But I've not seen this described in the specifications I've read on various products. A bit frustrating... -rich
I don't have one but work with someone that does. She loaded them in from a flash drive. It didn't appear to be capable of being connected to a PC, but I am not totally sure. The order seemed to be random, and there also seemed to be some image formats she loaded that it did not recognize as it just displayed a question mark for some of them. Overall there did not seem to be a lot of options, but that may vary by brand and price range.
We have 2, one is a gifted-to-us Brookstone AH121B that has an 8-in diagonal screen with a very wide black frame around it. The other is a Sony S-Frame DPF-X1000 which has a 10.2 screen. Both approx 1.5 yrs old. The Brookstone has about 8 push buttons at the top, behind and down from the edge, making it extremely awkward to do any programming or adjustments by 1 person. While it can make various adjustments to the picture display, it's so difficult to do that we just don't bother. The Sony is heads and tails better as far as features, design, and functionality goes. It has a remote control. And timers, so that it's not drawing juice 24x7. The Sony does allow pictures to be rearranged with the frame interface or else on the computer. It has random view or it will follow the order of the images on the card. edit: pictures can be easily reordered or deleted via the frame interface. Many other features to fine tune the images as well. edit: the box says it has HDMI, Bravia Sync, PhotoTV HD. We've never tried connecting it to a computer, I can check on that if you'd like, although current models would probably have more updated connectivity. In all the research I did before purchase, the Sony came out trumps every time. Excellent quality display. Many other usable features and capabilities that other frames didn't come close to having. I found the customer reviews at Amazon to be very helpful in getting a handle on the nuances of the various features, as the various mfg descriptions often didn't reflect "real world" usage. If I were to be buying a frame for someone else, whether a techie or absolutely non-techie, I would not hesitate to get a Sony.
Thanks, axial, I read a few reviews on the Sony and it looks like a nice Frame. I notice your model has an aspect ratio of 16:9. I assume Sony has models with other ratios, such as 4:3. If you crop an image, does the Frame software display the image as cropped, or does it attempt to make the cropped size fit the native aspect ratio? thanks, -rich
It's been quite a while since I've tried the various options, I'll dig out the clicker and test it with a 4x3 image. I don't think it would mangle images tho, that probably wouldn't been up to "Sony Style". If you's like, locate a test image online, post a link here or PM it and I'll display it on the frame and post an image of the result.
OK. You can download this full resolution 4:3 image: http://www.urs2.net/rsj/imgs/johnsondale.jpg I would probably get a 4:3 frame since that's my camera's aspect ratio. I would like to see what a cropped image would look like on that frame. -rich
I don't think there are likely to be any 4x3 sized frames, everything that I recall seeing was pretty much 16x9. I'll attach a couple of shots -- unfortunately the color in your original just doesn't come through on these as nice as the frame is in reality. Plus there is quite a bit of moire that is not on the "live frame" but comes through on these because of the "image-of-image". The frame can auto-scale so one here is 1.5x to fill the screen, so you'll see that there is quite a bit of top/bottom cropping, but even so the resolution does not get clobbered as one might expect. Johnsondale_cropedge shows how the black border appears when the picture is not 16.9. Tried to emphasize the right side of the image to show the black border as much as possible, so the shot is tilted to the left. In normal viewing the black border is not at all intrusive. Johnsondale_1-5 shows the image automatically scaled. Johnsondale_horizontal is pretty accurate as far as the frame's intensity, this was in south light, rainy day, taken with flash. One other comment is that the frame has a very wide viewing angle; that's been an issue with the other Brookstone frame, and with other Sony LCD TVs, but there is very little washout on this frame. dang, images still too big to upload, will post them in the next message.
Hi axial, Thanks for the information and testing. I'll try out a few frames to see how it turns out! regards, -rich
Thanks much! You've shown that the Frame will display the entire image uncropped, just not filling out the entire area. That's great! How much internal memory does the Frame have? EDIT: I found that it has 2GB Amazon lists the DPF-XR100 --I wonder if this is a newer version of yours. Thanks again! -rich
There are so many features with the Sony frame that I've forgotten about 80% of them. The Sony logo can be blanked, and the frame will automatically change to portrait/landscape when it's turned -- those with smartphones and tablets are probably going yawn but at purchase time there weren't any other frames that did that afaik. Especially useful for gifting when one might not know the recipient's preferred display location (wall or shelf, etc). Auto timer for daily on-off settings. connect to computer via USB. Connect via HDMI to high def TV, transfer from phone or other devices via Bluetooth, brightness sensor, tons of display choices for slideshow transitions, multiple images per screen, priority order for individual images, kitschy border selections (possibly could be personalized, dunno), auto-touch-up for red eye and other exposure issues, adding captions to images. whew, this thing is quite amazing. I'll have to go see what they could possibly have added to the newer versions. oh, I tested with an old-ish slow-ish Sandisk compact flash card and wasn't particularly impressed with the menu response time, so it could be that faster speed cards will make a big difference.
Noob, the Nix look pretty cool, very interesting. And it does say 4:3. (arrgh, too much script junk on their website for my taste, though). Mine says 15:9, "1024x3(RGB)x600 dots" whatever that means, I haven't seen that spec before. Given the changes in LCD technology over the past 2 years I'd guess that current Sony frame specs are probably quite different. rich, now you've given me the bug, I'll have to try connecting the frame to our Sony TV, I'm sure it will be quite spectacular with your test image.
I'm planning to get a Nix 15" inch or something at least 10" inch or bigger. (10" still seems to be a bit small)
