Someone needs to invent an Eye-Fi card that works in reverse, allowing you to stick it in a picture frame and then load pictures to the card from the computer. I'd buy that.

Pretty cool. I've been eyeing these frames since their inception, and it looks like they finally got it right. I do wonder though, can it sync to a folder on your desktop and just play random images from it? I'm hoping to be able to show only the most recent pictures, say the last 100 "modified" so that the picture frame is always showing the latest pics snapped. As a bonus feature, it would be cool if there was a motion sensor on the thing that only turned the frame on for 15 min or so (configurable) if people passed by it, to save power and life on the screen.

Purdy... and way awesome email addition. That will be a nice feature, having the ability to display my phone pics instantly.

some of the picture frame manufacturer should be shot. i have a horrible one that's widescreen that will only show your pictures correctly if you save them streched first. it doesn't make any sense. it's so difficult to find a good 4x3 frame that actually fits your pictures. i'd like to give this one a try.

Guys, you are just ASKING for goatse photos on that thing. Seriously, when are you going to learn that your readers are a bunch of sadistic perverts?

GOOD FOR THEM!

I think WiFi frames are the way to go, and was considering purchasing one of eStarling's, but remembered the crappy reviews the other versions got here. Glad to see they got their act together.

$250 is still a bit too steep IMO. But I love the idea. Send one to your grandma, and update the photos via email -- she never has to touch the thing.

Oh well, I bought a nice Pandigital 8" frame at Staples to give her this year and loaded it up with a ton of pics. Maybe next year they'll be cheaper and I'll get her a WiFi one to replace this one.

DHABERER, you're right on about how difficult it is to find a good frame, it took me weeks of research and checking them out at B&M stores before I bit the bullet on the Pandigital. If someone doesn't need WiFi, I highly recommend it, it's model PAN80-2, on sale for $130 AR at Staples.

DIGITAL PICTURE FRAMES

-or-

SMALL OVERPRICED MONITORS THAT ONLY DO ONE THING

you decide.

@keronian:

I was thinking exactly the same thing. "Surprise us", they say. I'm sure they will be surprised, just not in the way they were hoping.

why can't they take this sort of thing one step further and make wifi streaming HDTVs that can take any video from your computer and put it on your TV???

sandisk makes a memory stick thingy that allows you to sort of transfer stuff, but i want youtube, on TV, without having to download FLV files. let the computer do the decoding and just stream the output. or one step further would be to be able to draw a box on your screen and everything in that box goes to the tv. you'd have to make something like the OS X dashboard, where everything is grayed out so you can select the broadcast area without actually clicking on active windows/buttons etc...

I bought an 8" Westinghouse one the other day, it's 4:3 with an 800x600 resolution and it works great. $120 at BestBuy.

@nutbastard:
I agree, they are horribly overpriced for such limited functionality.

@nutbastard:

they already have that HP and some Sony tvs can do that, and if you have Windows Media Center you can do it with any tv that its connected to music, videos, pictures...

I bought that same 8" Westy over at Bestbuy for $120 + tax this week. Awesome gift.

The poor Giz frame is going to need a replacement LCD with the burn-in of all those balls being sent in... Did I say balls? I meant boughs, of holly, of course.

$250?! For and 8" monitor!! Hmm, let's see. I can currently pick up a 20" monitor for around $200. Set up some photos as a screen saver or background. Voila. Done. Then again, maybe I have too many computer around.

It would be fun to figure out what the email address is, than spam it with gay porn. Can you say 'Your Fired'?

@gizak:
According to the eStarling website: "Auto Power Saving: The eStarling frame can be programmed to turn-off automatically at night in order to save power and protect the screen"

$250 is a bit much for this though, I'd pick it up if the price was a little lower.

That's a lot of booze money.

@ninjamurf:
[sarcasm] And all yopu have to do with your 20" monitor is add a PC to display your pictures - way less than $250! And the PC looks very nice on a desk or on the end table at Grandma's house. Of course, passing the monitor and PC around to friends in the living room is fun/easy, too! [/sarcasm]

Seriously, these are not just about displaying photos. They're about displaying them like you do printed photos in frames on tables around a house. They're also aimed a wider, less geeky audience than the folks on his site.

D.

@ninjamurf:
Can you tell me where I can buy a computer small enough to fit on an end table or doesn't look out of place under it? Can you also tell me how to set it up so I can email the photos and have them automatically display in a screen saver or background without needing the person on the other end to do anything?
I got this for my mother for Christmas as a no-hassle way of her seeing pictures of her grandchildren. She generally stays away from the computer and doesn't even have an email account.

Jeez ... I don't know. The first two were such abortions, do I dare try a third ? Maybe if I see it at Costco. Below $175.

If it gets to that price, I buy it for my dad and mother in law and amuse myself by emailing pictures of my ass to them at random intervals.

Does anyone know the model number of this unit?

I bought one of these in December 2007 because I had been wanting a high-end wireless digital pic frame. This one had all the features I was looking for.

However, as of Jan 1, 2008 I am planning on returning it.

REASONS
1. The user interface is kludgy at best
2. The frame doesn't sync up with sites such as Flickr. Rather you have to manually tell the frame to grab the pictures from the Flickr RSS feed.
3. MOST IMPORTANTLY, the frame locks up every 4 or 5 hours. Not always the same picturem but it locks up every time.
4. And finally, customer service SUCKS!

Great idea, but poor execution. I want my money back.

I'm pretty much ready to return mine, as well. The first setup attempt (on a MacBook Pro) failed; I can only assume that their setup software doesn't work on an Intel Mac. The second setup attempt (on a Thinkpad) failed; their app thought my home network was running on WEP security (nope, WPA2), and wouldn't let me override its assumption. The third setup attempt (on a G5 Mac) worked fine, but then the frame rebooted with the message "None Registered Frame", and the (barely in English) support web page, in the barest of terms, tells me that I'll have to send them the MAC address of the frame to solve this -- I'm assuming that they have to put it into some sort of master database, and only then will my frame allow me to activate it.

Are you kidding me?!? All this to get a f*!~ing frame set up? I have a computer science background; 95% of other people would have given up after the first failed attempt, but I stuck through it and STILL don't have a working frame.

That is correct. You will need a Master degree in Computer Science to set this sucker up. LOL.

Store bought units are great but expensive and small.
Why not make your own?
All it takes is an old laptop and the willingness to break it!
Follow my progress soon on my blog:
[homecncfun.blogspot.com]

These things seem ridiculous to me. Here's why I steer clear of digital picture frames: [lowtechtimes.com]

got the latest 8" version yesterday... 5 minute set-up (Vista PC), 10min after which I started receiving images from friends around the globe... Even RSS feeds work fins for me, from Flickr and other sources...

Very happy customer here.

SPGASS, yes they are rediculous, mine actually sits next to a "real" picture frame :-) (although the picture in that one was taken with a digital camera, which is the greener choice really considering all the chemicals that go into producing, developing & disposing of film)

Just bought one. $210. The plan was to get some for my relatives. WiFi setup wasn't too difficult, but I am a network engineer, even so not very hard to do. The software on the other hand needs a bunch of improvements. Customer service is not good. Online support is nonexistent.

I was told I could put pics on the frame directly via USB. I tried but it does not seem to work. I was able to put pics on memory cards and they would work, but with a memory card in it I don't see any of the Internet photos. If I pull out the memory card I get Internet Photos.

The group frame function is a kludge. No real documentation on how to make it work.

Fortunately email blocking is available, but is off by default.

I set up RSS feeds and they seem to function.

The frame just runs through all the pictures in order received, it seems. I would be nice if there was a randomization function so that some would be from each source. I would love to intersperse pictures of the moon with my family album.

It would be nice to set frame to portrait or landscape. It seems to be optimized for landscape.

I keep looking for an on/off button!!!

Before you buy this thing I would recommend getting their Virtual Frame software and see if the actual frame will do what you want.

If I were estarling I would consider a wired/wireless frame with POE and injector. Bigger screen. New Tech Support department. The should quit advertising the RSS feeds as built in. Add support for LAN files.

The frame costs 2 or 3 times what other frames cost, but potentially could be great

I still am on the fence as to whether I will be getting my kin this thing. Will keep testing for a few more days.

Oh yeah MAX memory card size is 2GB, I don't know if that is total for all cards or each possibility which might mean a totaly of 6.25GB total picture storage.

Just a little update. When tech support got around to answering. We resolved most of my issues. The one annoying thing is that the web site support shows beta doc so it doesn't match what the production web site shows.