Customer Reviews:
 Great Internet Picture Frame October 31, 2008
Paul Hildebrandt (Chino, CA United States)
I just purchased the Samsung SPF-83V 8-Inch Wireless Digital Photo Frame for my parents.
Pros:
* Samsung makes a good looking LCD. The 800 600 looks good on an 8inch LCD.
* Auto on/off times
* Has a bunch of features like sound which I don't care about now but might later.
* No monthly fee for service.
* Worked easily with a WAP protected router.
Cons:
* The frame border is a little glossy for my taste.
* The right/left navigation buttons are backwards but they are only used in setup.
* Don't expect your parents to be able to set it up. It wasn't intuitive and I actually know computers.
I decided to go with a third party RSS feed provider, Frame Channel.
They specialize in providing feeds to internet picture frames.
Pros:
* Easy to work with web interface
* Auto resizes picture you upload
* Has a email address attached to the account so you can send email with a picture attached and it will show it.
* The email have to come from approve sources. (I was worried about porn spam, that would have been awkward.)
* The have lots of channels like weather, sports, bible quotes, trivia and so on.
Cons:
* Their channels have a small ad strip on them. It's not hideous but well close.
They've only had it for a few weeks but they are VERY happy with it. We were out on the lake on their boat and I snapped a shot of my boys with the iPhone and mailed it to the picture frames address. When we got back to their house an hour later we saw the picture on the frame. It actually look pretty good for a camera phone photo.
 Photo Frame for Parents House September 14, 2008
A. Hustvedt
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
This photo frame isn't perfect, but if you are looking for something to display photos from your Flickr feed, or any other RSS photo stream, even at a less than technically capable relative's house, then this is a very viable option.
It definitely takes some technical know-how to set up, but once it is set up it doesn't need any more interaction. The setup screens on the frame are slightly confusing even for me, and I could write the software on the frame. Specifically, after setting up the wireless network, it searches for a Windows computer to grab photos from, and if that fails the error reads like a Windows computer on the network sharing photos is required. However, just pressing "continue" allows the web server to be started.
The web interface to the frame is kind of useful. It is where you add in RSS feeds, and along with seeing what is currently on the frame is about all you can do from the web interface. That means that you can't do much to the frame remotely.
The screen has a very good angle of view, and is decently bright. The case is a bit tight on the screen, so that pushing on the buttons causes the surface of the LCD to distort, which could be an issue if the buttons are frequently pressed.
The slideshow configuration is a bit limited, with the possible intervals being 5,10 and 20 seconds, which is way too fast for my taste. I would like to see 5 minutes. The transition between pictures is configurable, but I have left that on random.
I am using this (only) to display pictures from my Flickr feed for my parents, so the rest of the review is in that light. I don't plan to use the frame with a memory card or reading pictures from a Windows computer, so those features are irrelevant to me.
It only shows 20 pictures from a RSS feed, and while it does cache the images on 32MB of the internal flash, it doesn't save them, so it only ever shows the most recent 20 pictures.
When doing a slideshow from the RSS feed it only shows the pictures, there are no "loading...", ads, or any other text on the display, which I consider to be a good thing. It does show the title for the picture if you are browsing through the list, but it doesn't show that in the slideshow, nor can you configure that.
Great Digital Photo Frame August 24, 2008
Ali G. Chaudhary (Jeddah Saudi Arabia)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Love the looks. This photo frame matches Samsung's quality in LCDs. I thought the WiFi setup with my desktop will be cumbersome. But it turned out that setting up sharing was a breeze!
The resolution is fine, I won't say its the greatest though. But out of fairness, this is the highest resolution you can get in this size photo frames.
Support for video file types is limited. I'm still trying to play MPEG movies but have failed so far.
64MB of internal memory is peanuts. However, you can expand the memory by adding CF card, etc.
Overall, a great buy that comes with quality.
 non-technical users beware! July 5, 2008
Geoffrey Garcia (Califon, NJ)
5 out of 14 found this review helpful
1)
Is there a wireless connection at the location you intend to use this device?
--if the answer is no, then this isn't the right device for you.
2)
Do you know what an RSS feed?
Do you use any of: MS Live Space, MySpace, Facebook, Webshots, Flickr?
Do you know the difference between a USB memory stick, a CF card and a SD/MMC/MS card?
Can you easily program a Tivo, DVR Device, DVD/VCR player?
-- if you answered no to more than one of the above then this probably isn't the device for you.
This unit requires far more technical competency than most possess.
Simple to use, good pictures, short on memory June 20, 2008
NDH (California)
13 out of 13 found this review helpful
A fairly clean-looking 8"-diagonal screen in a white 11.5" diagonal frame. The photos look good, and setup is easy. The WiFi option is nicely done, with an internal web browser in the frame to simply setup and management.
Pros:
- 4:3 aspect ratio fits most photographs much better than most 16:9 aspect ratio frames (I suppose those a numerous because portable DVD players have made the display components cheap).
- 800x600 pixels (most frames are 640x400)
- Adequate contrast for viewing in bright light.
- Setup for WiFi is easy with the 7 buttons on the back and the on-screen keyboard for entering WEP keys.
- Once WiFi is setup, access the frame via a web-browser (a screen shows IP-based URL, login name and password). From there, you can cut and paste RSS feed URLs from which photos are downloaded. (Note that appropriate other magic will be required for web access outside the local network, since it's an IP-based URL.)
- Flash card slots for large capacity
- Time-based on-off and alarm settings.
Cons:
- Short on memory - 64M is ridiculously small - although since it pulls pictures across the WiFi, that isn't a huge issue.
- White frame is a bit bright - would prefer black or something less shiny.
- No wall hanging, although it's quite thin, so it should be possible to fashion something easy.
- Portrait images auto-rotated by the camera aren't upright on the display, although once processed by Lightroom or Picasa and exported the right thing happens
- A little costly.
A good solution for the parent's house - can point it to a specific Flickr collection and update that from round the world.
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