OK, so I picked one of these up. The resolution reported in the tech specs is 480x232. The display is widescreen (if you can't tell from the pixel resolution). It has a usb port which they say supports USB host, but I couldn't get it to recognize my 512MB flash drive (the only one I have). It also is supposed to act as a memory card reader via another usb connection (a mini USB port - but no cable included). No video out. No audio out. Otherwise pretty full functioned. The power adapter will work on 100 - 240v, so you can take it to another country and use it with the proper plug adapter.
Interface is OK, but not exceptional. Lots of slide show transitions possible, including a very nice crossfade. Interval 3sec, 10sec, etc. Repeat on off.
Screen is nice and bright. The resolution seems to be OK for the screen dimensions. At normal viewing distances (say >13" away), you don't notice any individual pixels.
It says that only motion jpeg avi movies will work. I haven't tested this, as my CF card is pretty tiny.
BUT it stretched images a bit on the horizontal dimension. This can be counteracted via an image editing program (prepping the photos for viewing on the screen). Technical details follow - you may want to skip unless you know digital photo cropping/resizing procedures.
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The screen scaling does not seem to maintain the correct aspect ratio. Please note: while there is a 16:9 / 4:3 aspect ratio switching button, it doesn't make the problem go away on either setting. I resized a bunch of pix to 480 pixels wide (by 360 tall), retaining the correct aspect ratio (whichfor my digicam is 4:3). The frame should have recognized their 4:3 aspect ratio, scaled them down to 312x234, and displayed them with black bars on the sides (letterbox). Instead, it mildly distored them by stretching them out on the horizontal axis (but not filling the entire space). I took a picture of a circle, resized it to 480x360 and sure enough, it was distorted. So then I fed it what is allegedly a native resolution image (480x234). It still distored the image by stretching on the horizontal dimension.
Through trial and error, I found that reducing the horizontal dimensions to 85.4% of their original value (in my case from 480x360 to 410x360), created a normal looking image. The numbers might be a bit off, as I was eyeballing, not calculating mathematically. By the same token, 266x234 also looks normal. If you're handy in photoshop, you can make it batch process a directory full of images to the correct settings, so it doesn't have to be really painful.
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In summary:
1) if you're sensitive to image geometry stuff, and want something to work right out of the box, skip this
2) if you're unlikely to notice a little image stretching, this is a great price for a 7" frame. They usually are $140+. From reading a review on another frame at Amazon, the aspect ratio problem is not limited to this one
3)if you are comfortable resizing pictures (including the process of unchecking the box for maintain correct aspect ratio), then you may want to give this one some thought. It's a good price for a somewhat flawed frame.
If someone can find the true native resolution (no scaling whatsoever), please post it here. |
