Review: HP sd828 8″ Smart Wi-Fi Display

Written on Dec 8, 2009 by Thomas S. and filed under HP, Reviews

When digital photo frames first came out they were basically designed to view pictures. These days to set picture frames apart, manufacturers are starting to add web integration features like streaming Internet radio. Instead of just showing off pictures on your desk at work, it can effectively replace your small radio too. For a bit less than 150 bucks HP has the 8” Smart Wi-Fi Display (sd828) that can play movies, listen to online radio, play music, and of course view digital images.

HP 8” Smart Wi-Fi Display Specifications:

• Standard Aspect Ratio (4:3) 8” LED-Backlit Display
• Resolution: 800:600
• Supported File Formats: MPEG1, MPEG4, Motion JPEG, JPEG, BMP, TIFF, MP3, WMA, WAV
• Connectivity: Wi-Fi B/G, USB 2.0, PC Connection
• Internal Memory: 512MB
• Supported Memory Formats: CF, SD, MS, MMC, xD
• Stereo Speakers
• Remote Control
• MSRP: $179.99

Build and Design

The 8” Smart Wi-Fi Display from HP has a rather basic design that greatly contrasts the DreamScreen. The body is matte black plastic in a slight wave form with speaker grills formed into both sides. Directly bordering the screen is a silver frame, also matte plastic, which sits slightly in front of the body. Compared to the sleek and desirable design of the DreamScreen, the 8” Smart Wi-Fi looks like something out of the 90’s. Normally I am not always a huge fan of glossy finishes for how much attention they need to stay clean, but this model really needs something to help it stand out in the crowded digital frame space. It’s pretty obvious that the DreamScreen design team is different from the team that designed the sd828.

The lightweight plastic body doesn’t help my initial build quality impression. The plastic body feels hollow when you pick it up and even echoes when you tap your fingers on it. In terms of durability the plastic feels solid in all areas except the speaker openings and has a steady footing when placed on a desk surface. The matte plastic finish resists smudging and scratches, but does seem to attach dark prints if you handle the exterior with oily fingers.

The back-side contains a built-in extending stand for viewing images in portrait or landscape positions. In the landscape position the stand stays collapsed, and when viewing in portrait mode you rotate the hinge 90-degrees and extend it by pressing the release button. While the stand does a perfect job of supporting the weight of the frame, it is very thin and flexible. 1-2lbs of pressure to the top edge of the frame will bend the stand out an inch. When fully extended one fear I had is if someone pressed down on top of the frame, the stand might snap off entirely. If the stand is collapsed when in landscape viewing mode it is much less bendy.

One handy feature on the side of the frame is a holding slot for the remote. When you are done using the control you simply slide it into the slot about half-way and it stays hidden and secure until the next time you need it. I personally think this should be a feature on every digital picture frame.

Controls

I usually don’t have much trouble understanding most remote controls but HP threw me a curveball with the picture-labeled buttons on this one. Each button is labeled with a picture of what the button controls. Some of the buttons are easy to understand off the bat (direction arrows, play/pause, clock) while others are not (cascading pictures, power icon inside a monitor). After some trial and error I figured out cascading pictures with a play buttons equals memory source and power icon inside a computer monitor means sleep, but why not label them with something simple like a word?

HP mounts the primary controls to navigate the menus, directly access a slideshow, and start/stop current slideshows. These buttons are near the top of the frame, slightly recessed on the rear. The buttons are clearly labeled with text, but their hidden position means you need to look behind the frame to use them.

Display

The 4:3 display on this frame is the default picture size from basically any camera on the market. For example if you have a 16:9 display and view images straight off a digital camera you will have bars surrounding the image. The 8” display on the HP Smart Wi-Fi is colorful and has very good contrast. The matte finish helps to reduce reflections compared to a glossy display. Colors seem to be saturated very well and the difference between light and dark colors is excellent. The 800×600 resolution is perfect for a display of this size, keeping images looking sharp and high in detail. Backlight bleed around the edges is minimal with the screen surface having very even backlighting. Viewing angles in landscape mode were good with colors staying accurate to about 20 degrees tilted forward or back and nearly 90 degrees side to side.

Compared to other frames on the market the HP 8” Smart Wi-Fi doesn’t detect which mode it is displaying in. If you flip the stand into portrait mode you need to manually rotate each image as they load. There is no menu setting to switch the frame from landscape into portrait mode permanently. I am not even sure why HP included a pivoting rear stand if they don’t include a simple software modification to flip the orientation of the screen. It is even stranger when HP clearly labels the hinge on the back “Portrait” and “Landscape” so perhaps it was a software feature they overlooked and might include down the road.

Memory Sources

The HP Smart Wi-Fi Display can pull images in from multiple sources. Memory card support includes Compact Flash, SDHC, Memory Stick, MMC, and xD. The frame also includes two USB ports; one to attach USB memory sticks and another to connect the frame to a computer. To save images from outside sources HP included 512MB of internal storage, which can be accessed directly when the frame is connected to a computer.

Utilizing Wi-Fi this frame can pull in pictures from a linked Flickr account. To use this you setup an account on HPFrame.com and link it to your personal Flickr account. Images in your personal account can be added into sets which can be viewed on the frame. Unlike many of the other Internet-enabled picture frames that support Flickr, this HP frame doesn’t support channels. Channel support I feel is one of the best features for digital picture frames that can connect to the Internet. You gain access to an almost unlimited supply of pictures which can be used for slideshows. I really hope HP brings channel support to this frame in the future.

The 8” Smart Wi-Fi frame supports streaming radio which is linked through the HPFrame.com website. You can search by country, city, genre, and language. I found a mix of AM and FM broadcast channels that streamed online in the cities I was interested in. Each city I looked at brought up 10-20 results, so changes are you should be able to find some that interest you. In all but one case the stations I added worked without a problem and played with reasonable quality.

Users can also add a number of other online-content features to the picture frame through the HPFrame.com website. These features include weather information for up to three zipcodes, shared YouTube videos linked through your account, email photos, Facebook, MySpace, Photobucket, Picasa, Snapfish, Twitter, and MMS. In the case of streaming video from YouTube the processing capabilities of the frame were tested and the results were highly compressed and pixelated video samples.

Display Modes

The 8” HP Smart Wi-Fi display offers two display modes, single image and quadrant. Single image displays one image at a time while quadrant displays two images with the clock and calendar on the screen as well. If you just leave the frame to display pictures at the interval that you set it seems to work without any problem. If you intend to skip forward through images you definitely notice a delay as the system tries to process the request.

Menu System

The menu system is very basic, giving you access to local settings, system information, the initial setup wizard, networking settings, and the ability to reset to factory defaults. The menu layout lacked some of the polish I have seen in other picture frames, but it wasn’t the worst either. As mentioned in the display section I feel some needed features such as an orientation setting were missing, so it could use some improvement.

Conclusion

The HP 8” Smart Wi-Fi Display looks great on paper but once you start to use it, it falls flat and comes to market six months late. The extra time didn’t help, in fact it probably hurt given the release of HP’s much better DreamScreen product. The interface is lacking basic features like the ability to change the screen’s orientation. This requires you to manually rotate each image as they appear during a slideshow. The online Flickr integration lacks channel support, so instead of adding a few popular channels to supply your images, you need to manually add your own pictures them to sets on your account. Compared to the DreamScreen which only costs a little more, the design seems dated, especially for a frame with an MSRP of $179. Overall it is hard to recommend this picture over other HP models currently on the market.

Pros

• Supports Flickr and streaming radio
• Nice 8” standard aspect display

Cons

• Lacks basic features
• Limited Flickr support
• Overpriced compared to DreamScreen

Rating – 2.5 out of 5 Stars

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