Review: HP df1000

Written on Dec 3, 2008 by Thomas S. and filed under HP, Reviews

The 10.4” df1000 digital picture frame comes from HP, a company we think of making stylish desktops and laptops. HP strives to make some of the best looking and innovative computers on the market, so when they started producing photo frames, we took notice. With a beautiful 800×600 display and mahogany frame, HP really wants this frame to be a hit with consumers who want something extra over the bland picture frames saturating the market.

HP df1000 Specs

• 10.4” LCD (4:3 aspect ratio, 800×600 resolution)
• 512MB internal memory
• Supports SD, MMC, MS, xD, CF external memory
• USB connections for PictBridge, thumbdrives, and internal memory access
• Supports printing direct through PictBridge
• Audio/video playback (MP3, AVI, MPEG-1, MP4, MOV)
• Built-in stereo speakers

Design and Build

The HP df1000 has a very simple design with a mahogany wood border and interchangeable mats to customize the look to best fit the pictures displayed. A protective layer of plastic covers the mat and LCD to help keep wandering fingertips from the screen as well as giving the front a cleaner look. From the side the profile is pretty slim, only extending about an inch beyond the wood trim (not including the stand). The electronic section of the frame is made up entirely of black plastic which helps it blend in with the background. The view from the side or rear isn’t as refined as other models, but it doesn’t really hurt the look too much.

From the rear the frame has thumb screws exposed which are used to secure the inner workings to the wood frame. By unfastening the screws you are able to swap out the interchangeable mats to give the frame a customized look.

Thumb Screws are also used to secure the stand in place, which when removed lets you hang the frame on a wall. The stand is secured to the back of the frame, which has notches to adjust the height. By adjusting how far up or down the stand is, you can change the tilt of the frame.

The build is average, with a solid feel to the wood surround and plastic body. The controls on the back of the frame feel kind of cheap and require a strong grip on the frame to activate a function. Softer buttons would have been a nice touch, perhaps not requiring so much effort to advance a picture or access the menu system.

Display

The 800×600 resolution 10.4” display is bright enough for a well lit room and even holds its own against glare from open windows. The protective layer on top of the screen doesn’t help well with reflections, but with the display on you don’t notice them as much. Colors are vivid and with the help of the picture adjustment controls you can even adjust the look to tone some images down or ramp up the saturation. One problem I have with the adjustments is the lack of backlight control, to dim the frame in a dark room, so it blends in without being a “beacon of light”.

The screen can be easily viewed from all angles around the room with a broad horizontal viewing range. Vertical viewing angles are more limited, tending to make images look distorted at steeper angles, but few people will be towering above the frame or standing under it.

Memory/Picture Sources

The df1000 has a wide assortment of possible image locations, including an outside computer to transfer images from, onboard memory, a USB memory stick, and 2 onboard memory card readers that handle all popular formats. All of the connections are located on the left side of the frame, tightly grouped into one section.

Card slots included SD, MMC, MS, and XD and another for Compact Flash. To easily handle the bulk of my images without hauling the frame over to my computer I used a USB memory stick to hold most of my images.

The df1000 is loaded with 512MB of internal storage, which is about the average for frames of this nature. For most people this could store a upwards of a thousand images if you resize and recompress the images, but if you are like me and keep the images in the original size the internal memory fills up quickly. While most functions of the df1000 could use external memory sources, you are limited to internal memory only when viewing pictures in the clock mode. This was a pretty big limitation, as you go from an almost unlimited source of images from external cards, to only a “handful” that you need loaded ahead of time.

Display modes

Users have two main display modes for viewing images; one is the main slideshow feature and the other is the clock mode which displays a calendar, clock, and two images.

The slideshow starts playing images as soon as it is opened and you can change the style of transition used between each image. Transition speed can be set to be as little as 5 seconds or as much as 24 hours. I found 30 seconds to be a good compromise.

You can pause the slideshow at any time using the remote and access a listing to quickly skip ahead to a particular image. While paused you can manipulate the displayed image, rotating or zooming in on a certain part. You can also copy the selected image to internal memory or delete it. Printing is another option available, if you happen to have a printer located in the same area as your frame and it also supports PictBridge.

In the slideshow mode you can set a digital border, with up to 6 different options. I didn’t find any to be appealing to use, and without descriptions in the menu indicating what each style was, I ended up guessing which was which. None of the options had a good look and felt as if they were a feature worked in at the last minute.

The clock mode displays a mix of images and screens in a 4 screen layout, pulling two images at a time off of the internal memory. On this screen you have a very basic calendar which displays the current date, a clock, and alarm indicator. Since I never seen to have enough clocks around the house, I kept the picture frame on this mode most of the time. With such a large screen the images were very easy to see and not squished.

If you are in a power-conscious environment, HP offers a hibernation mode which can be set to automatically shutdown the frame and fire it back up at a time of your choosing. I would have also liked to see automatic dimming or at least the ability to adjust overall back-light levels.

The df1000 supports some limited video playback as well as music playing behind slideshows. Heavy bitrate movies would stutter during playback, limiting you to low resolution and very basic movies. For the occasional clip from a newer digital camcorder it works fine, but don’t plan on watching feature length movies on it.

Menu System

The menu system has two layers of access, one which lets you switch viewing modes, and another that allows you to adjust settings. The top layer has a nice polished look, with pictures clearly showing what each selection was for.

The settings layer has no finishing touches and was confusing to understand. Many of the settings have the value “Mode 1, 2, etc” which doesn’t give the user a good idea of what it is supposed to represent. You had to pick a setting, go back to the main area to view it, and then decide if that was what you wanted.

Extra Features

The PictBridge printing feature is a handy option if you happen to have a photo printer within cable range to the picture frame. With any image that is currently on display, you can hit the print button on the remote to send it off to the printer. This is nice if you don’t want to have a computer in the area to print off images but you end up losing the ability to modify your image before printing.

Pros

• Great screen
• Nice traditional look
• Can pull images off of a ton of memory sources
• PictBridge enabled to print directly from the frame

Cons

• Poorly labeled menu settings
• Preset screen borders look cheesy and clash with most pictures

Bottom Line

The HP df1000 is an attractive 10.4” digital picture frame with good looking hardware but it has some quirks that make it difficult to use at times. The primary functions are easy to navigate for normal use but it is the detailed settings like screen borders or clock settings which offer no help in understanding which item does what. Quirks aside, if you really want a frame of this size, we think the df1000 is a good option.

3.5 out of 5 stars

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