Review: Impact eStarling7

Written on Jan 17, 2009 by Thomas S. and filed under Reviews, eStarling

The eStarling Impact7 is a 7” digital picture frame that is Wi-Fi enabled to view pictures from online sources, including email, RSS feeds, and social networking sites. For old-timers it still includes internal memory and a card slot for viewing pictures of your own. eStarling is a relatively new company, launching their first product in 2006, but they are here to stay with many new innovative products coming to the market.

eStarling Impact7 Specifications

• LCD Display: 7″ LCD screen (480 X 234 pixels) with built-in high speed JPEG decoder/rendering engine
• Communications: Internal 802.11b/g (WEP64, WEP128, WPA1, WPA2)
• Interface: MMC/SD/MS card slot; USB 2.0 client port
• On-board FLASH memory 256MB
• Remote Control for PC-less easy setup
• Touch Border design for easy navigation
• RTC-powered automatic shutdown feature for increasing reliability and saving energy
• Retail Price: $99.99

Design and Build

The eStarling Impact7 has a modern picture frame design with a glossy black front with a seamless layer of plastic covering the trim and display. It doesn’t exactly fit in with traditional picture frames, but on its own it looks very sleek on an office desk. The body is no frills with no exposed ports and memory slots, giving it a great clean look. The SD-card slot and mini-USB port located on the top edge underneath a rubber cover. The first time I had the frame out of the box, it actually took a few spins before I located them. The stand pulls double-duty as a holder for the remote, which is a great feature few frames offer. It has a notched out section that firmly holds the remote, so you don’t lose it when it isn’t in use.

The frame feels solid in your hand but the display could have been covered with a more durable layer of plastic or glass. Most of the frames on the market use a small sheet of glass over the display to get them a clean look, which protects the screen and resists scratching. The layer of plastic over the display on the Impact 7 started to show fine scratches the first night when I went to carefully wipe off fingerprints. The built in stand gives the frame a solid footing on the desk surface, making it hard to tip over if the table gets knocked into. The downside to the stand design is it offers no tilt adjustment.

Display

The widescreen display on the Impact7 leaves a bit to be desired in regards to the lower 480×234 resolution. Most frames offer 640×480 or 800×600 resolution displays depending on the aspect ratio, which gives image a cleaner and sharper appearance. Depending on the complexity of the image being displayed, lines and other intricate detail were sometimes blurred in the scaling process. Screen resolution is the biggest compromise to get the low price on the Impact7.

Colors were saturated and contrast was deep enough to give good separation between black and white. Viewing angles were adequate, with little color degradation at steep horizontal angles, and only minor color inversion at steeper vertical angles.

Touch sensitive controls are located on the right side of the display which light up when you glide a finger them. They don’t fully replace the remote, but can assist with quick navigation changes if you don’t have the remote handy.

Memory/Picture Sources

The eStarling Impact7 has three sources for images, including Wi-Fi, internal memory, and the SD-card slot. Using a wireless connection you can setup the frame to pull in images from RSS feeds and social networking sites. These sources automatically update on a regular basis.

The Impact7 is also setup with its own unique email address through the Seeframe website. Users setup their own login name, which is then used for the email address. This way it is much easier to remember what the address is to send emails to, instead of hunting through the menus to find it anytime someone wants to send a picture to the frame. Images received over the Internet are stored in internal memory with a first in, first out storage system so you never run out of available memory. You can also setup the frame to backup images to Photobucket.com, so they are mirrored instead of being deleted.

One problem I see with the default way emails are handled is it is setup without any filtering or confirmation. This could lead to some humorous spam or unsightly pictures being sent to your frame without your permission. On the Seeframe site you are given the option to allow email from only specific email addresses, but I feel this should be the default way out of the box to prevent any “mishaps.”

I never realized what I was missing until I setup RSS image feeds to a digital picture frame. After roughly 5 clicks on the Seeframe website I was pulling in the top 20 New York City pictures, top 20 dog pictures, top 20 skyline pictures, and top 20 moon pictures. If you just want a picture frame for nothing else than displaying cool pictures this is really the route to go.

Another great benefit is you can set one of these up at a parent’s house or even a friend’s house, and remotely update pictures for them to enjoy. All of the online services are free to use, so there are no subscription fees of any kind after the purchase of the frame.

The Impact 7 includes 256MB of onboard flash memory that can be used to store images from your computer using the supplied mini-USB cable as well as storage for online media. Considering how cheap flash memory is these days, it was a letdown to not find 512MB or 1GB of storage in this frame, especially since it pulls in online media on a regular basis, but again, we have to remember that this is a Wi-Fi enabled frame under the $100 barrier.

The standby SD-card slot is great if you want to view images you have just taken on a digital camera or if you have a large collection of images you want to display on the frame. Given the price of high capacity SDHC cards these days, I tend keep most of my photo collection on a regularly updated card for viewing in picture frames.

Display Modes

The Impact 7 has online and local viewing modes depending if you are connected to a wireless network. Local mode is for viewing images stored on internal memory or external card, and online mode enables viewing of pictures sent through email or RSS feeds.

Both display modes are controlled through the same slideshow setting. You are given 3 delay options, including Normal (10 seconds), Slow (30 seconds), and Fast (3 seconds). The transitions can be set to random, just one style, or none. While viewing images you can pause to rotate, zoom, or even delete a selected image from the internal memory.

Menu System

The menu system is very basic and easy to follow without needing to pull out the instruction manual. From the picture frame itself your settings are fairly limited, with most of the hard work handled on the Seeframe website. Using the username and password you setup originally to handle email, you log into your account to manage online storage, RSS feeds, and images sent through social networking sites.

Although you lose some control without a computer, the hard work of typing in addresses or other complicated tasks are handled with ease with a computer. From the frame with the small remote it would be quite a hassle to accomplish the same thing.

Pros

• Sleek design
• Stand acts as remote holder
• Pulls in email and RSS feeds without subscription fees
• Simple setup out of the box
• Touch sensitive controls on front
• Affordable

Cons

• Low resolution screen
• Glossy front scratches easily

Bottom Line

The eStarling Impact7 packs quite a punch for a digital photo frame that only costs $99. It offers Wi-Fi integration to pull in images from email, RSS feeds, and social networking sites, while still including an SD-slot for local viewing. Setup was painless, with the bulk of the work happening in front of your computer screen. The display resolution is limited at 480×234 which shows when viewing pictures if you look closely, but cost cutting measures were expected given the price and features. Overall decent frame if you want something with Wi-Fi built in on a budget, but if you don’t care about the wireless connection you can find better displays for the same price.

3.5 out of 5 stars

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