Review of Sony 15 Inches Digital Picture Frame
Posted on : 08-11-2009 | By : discount_digital_frames | In : 15 Inches Digital Frames, Digital Frames Reviews, Digital Photo Frames, Sony Digital Frames
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The Opteka is an ok 15″ Digital Picture frame. It is attractive and has a bright, crisp wide angle display (1024×768). But it has some major bugs as of the model available in Oct 2009.
As of the model I got in Oct 2009 from Amazon (price around $180 at the time), there are some details in the description and some reviews which are no longer accurate — the frame is being updated/changed over time. Apparently this is the 3rd or 4th revision (according to the tech support guy with whom I had some long conversations).
Relevant items that are correct:
- the manual is horribly written
- 4:3, 1024×768, wood frame
- has a remote
- auto displays from card inserted into frame
Changes:
Description said: “Wall mountable in landscape mode” – the unit I got could be wall mounted in either portrait or landscape mode although landscape is more natural so it puts the on/off switch on the side. Based on the frame orientation (on desk or on wall) the frame auto rotates images so that pictures appear with the correct side up depending on whether the frame is oriented in landscape or portrait mode.
Reviews on June 5, 2008 and Dec 11, 2008 said that it had a panel at the back to contain the AC adapter. This was not true of the model I got — there was no AC adapter compartment at all. Although there was a large “notch” where the AC adapter could be taped/velcroed into place behind the frame. I did this so I could hang it on a wall where I have a plug in the middle of the wall and not have any cords showing (a separately purchased flat right angle plug adapter helped tremendously).
Review on Dec 11, 2008 said “Ability to handle LOTS of pictures: Presented with a flash drive that had over 4,000 pictures in a single folder” — well I put an SD card in with 1519 pictures and it would not display them. I used a PC to transfer all of them to internal memory, it still would not display any of them — just left me in menu mode. It would not display pictures individually either — would not even show file names. When I organized the pictures into separate folders of 400 or so each, then it finally would display them.
Another review said it was hard to remove SD cards, this is no longer correct. SD cards pop in and out easily using the push in to pop out release mechanism common in cameras.
Other notes:
I could not find a way to have the frame display pictures in a random order from an SD Card — they always seem to start from the beginning and proceed forward in order.
The pictures start automatically when the frame turned on (some frames I’ve had require user intervention).
***IMPORTANT #1*** It is extremely hard to transfer pictures from inserted memory card into built in memory — you must manually select each picture to move and then move it using remote — very tedious. Other frames I’ve had would auto load all images from a card — this is much more convenient. The only way to mass move pictures onto the frame’s built in memory is using a Windows PC (according to the manual) and the supplied USB cable — in which case the frame pretends it is a 1GB USB drive and you do all the loading from the PC side. Strangely when you put the frame into this PC USB mode by hooking it up, the frame displays a picture of a current day Apple iMac — weird. This transfer mechanism means that Grandpa would have a hard time loading up new pictures. But you could send new SD cards to him periodically to pop in the side of the frame.
***IMPORTANT #2*** The frame has some odd bugs. If you have more than 500 or 600 pictures in any given directory, it will refuse to show any pictures. I copied 1519 pictures on the the frame as well as onto an SD card and the frame would only display the menu, would never display any pictures. When I separated pictures into folders of 400-500 each, it would then display pictures. But after a while we noticed that it would rotate through only the same set of 400-500 or so. It would never display the others. I could not figure out any rhyme or reason behind the order of display or why it chose only those.
The remote is hard to use — must be directly in front of frame and fairly close. Buttons are hard to push accurately — sometimes you cannot seem to press a button and other times it gets double clicked when you meant to only push it once.
I wish more digital picture frames had auto IR sensors to pause and turn off when no one was in the room and then turn on again when someone enters the room but it doesn’t. It does allow you to set it to turn on and off once a day automatically based on it’s internal clock. I did not find any other automatic ways to turn it off and on.
Overall I’m ok with the frame as it looks good on our dining room wall, for the jpegs it displays it displays them well, has no cords hang down from it, and is easy to turn off and on using the switch on its side. I really wish it had an IR sensor, would load pictures from memory cards more easily, would pick up showing photos wherever it left off and/or show photos randomly, and would actually display all pictures loaded into it or on memory cards inserted on it.
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