Digital Photo Frame Review

I recently picked up a Digital Picture frame at Futureshop. They have a couple of models, but we wanted one that would support CF cards as well as a ton of other formats.

The one we chose was the 10.4 inch Fidelity Electronics model DPF-1040F, that supports CF, MD, MS, SD, MMC, SM, and XD format media. The frame will display JPG images, and will also play back MP3 audio files. The box says that it plays MPEG1, MPEG2 and MPEG4 video – but we couldn’t make that work at all. It certainly wouldn’t play the video files recorded by my Canon point and shoot cameras – not straight from the camera, or after they had been saved as MPEG4 by Quicktime.

There’s a remote control included with the unit. It allows you to select files via an on-screen menu, select music, select videos, and choose playback options. It worked well.

The unit doesn’t come with any built-in storage – so remember to buy a CF card or whatever when you purchase it. Once the photos are saved on the card, the unit simply starts playing them when it’s powered on. For a nice touch, you can use the included remote to select “slideshow with music” and it automatically uses any MP3 files on the CF card for background music.

I ran into some issues trying to save a ton of images into the root of the CF card – so I ended up using a directory structure on the card. The picture frame handled this easily – it found the images and started playing them back immediately – and the on-screen file browser understands directories, and lets you browser through the tree.

The picture quality is pretty good – really surprising actually, considering that the display is only 640×480. The unit will handle images up to 12 megapixels – but I saved all images as 640×480 when I exported them from Aperture. The cross fades and other transition effects are really smooth.

This is a perfect gift for grandparents, or anyone who’s into photography.