Review: Pandigital Digital Picture Frame
Yes, one of the newest technology toys out there for those of us who take hundreds of pictures, and really don’t feel the need to print them up. It took me several weeks to find an 8 inch frame that wasn’t a widescreen, since the receiver of said gift hates widescreen format with a passion. Then after an email coupon from Bed, Bath, and Beyond (I take it digital picture frames are include under “Beyond”) graced my Inbox I noticed the Pandigital Picture Frame and I was shocked that it actually existed.
The picture quality is great, and the only concern I had was the placement of the frame since the brightness and quality of the picture are affected by the angle in which you are looking at the frame. If the frame is at or below eye level you should have no issues what-so-ever, but if you decide on a shelf or mounted up on a wall you might want to rethink your placement. Another minor concern is the placement of the frame which needs to have an accessible (i.e. one that’s close since the cord that comes with the frame isn’t exactly long) wall outlet or the use of a handy extension cord, so take care in where you would like to place the frame.
The system comes with a native 256MB storage capacity, which isn’t much, but for those who don’t want to purchase a separate memory card to load pictures on it might be a concern. The only real downside I see for people who don’t wish to get a memory card is the hassle of dragging your frame from its location to plug it directly to your computer via the standard supplied USB cable. As far as memory card support its compatible with SD/MMC/CF/MS/XD memory cards and the frame supports Jpeg, Mpeg1, Mpeg4, MP3 and AVI file types. It comes with a small remote with a replaceable battery (in case you’re curious). I found using the remote easier than using the controls on the back of the frame just to avoid the chance of whiplash when looking at the back, then the front, back to the back to make sure your pressing the right control, and back again to the front to see what the button pressing actually did.
It comes with two frames for those style-conscious users, so you will get to choose from the ‘flat finished black frame’ or the ‘dark cherry wood frame’. The construction of the frame is pretty solid and doesn’t have the lightweight-plastic-disposable-electronics feel to it. I did notice that the power on-off slide switch was under the frame stand so it’s not the best location to easily slide the switch on and off.
All in all I would suggest this frame to anyone interested in a 8 inch model and wanted to avoid the wide screen layout in case most of your photos are not in that format to avoid all that unnecessary black filler on the side of the pictures.
