Review: Toshiba DMF82XKU 8″ Digital Media Frame

Written on Dec 17, 2009 by Malcolm Reynolds and filed under Reviews, Toshiba

Editor’s Note – This is a review of the Toshiba DMF82XKU 8″ digital media frame. There are two other products in this family, the 10″ DMF102XKU which comes in black and the 8″DMF82XWU which comes in white. They all share the same specs outside of size and frame color.

Digital photo frames aren’t just for viewing photos anymore. Today many of the digital frames we see are “digital media frames” designed to view photos, video, play music, or even access content over the Internet. This is exactly what the new 8-inch Toshiba DMF82XKU tries to do for about $180. Does this Wi-Fi enabled multimedia frame deliver a genuinely unique experience, or is it just another photo frame? We took a closer look to find out.

Toshiba DMF82XKU 8″ Digital Media Frame Specifications

• Widescreen Aspect Ratio (16:9) 8.0” LED-Backlit Display
• Resolution: 800 x 480
• Supported File Formats:
  • Image: JPEG, BMP, TIFF, EXIF 2.2
  • Video: MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4
  • Audio: MP3, WMA
• Connectivity: Wi-Fi 108.11b/g, USB 2.0, PC port (mini USB)
• Internal Memory: 1GB
• Supported Memory Formats: SD/SDHC/MMC, xD, MS/MS Duo
• Stereo Speakers
• Remote Control
• MSRP: $179.99

Build and Design

The Toshiba DMF82XKU features a rather attractive glossy design that combines black and clear plastics to give the frame a modern look that fits in nicely in a typical family room. The back of the frame body is glossy black plastic just like the front, so fingerprints and dust are an issue if you’re a neat freak. Do yourself a favor and buy a microfiber cleaning cloth so you can keep this frame looking as new as the day you bought it. Heck even the speaker grills on the back are glossy.

In terms of durability the plastic feels solid in all areas except the very center of the back of the frame … which will flex under firm pressure. Compared to other modern multimedia screens such as HP’s DreamScreen, the 8-inch Toshiba DMF82XKU looks and feels equally cutting edge.

The back of the Toshiba DMF82XKU (Doesn’t that name just roll off the tongue?) features a place to screw in the included stand which supports the frame in either portrait or landscape positions. While the stiff, antennae-like stand does a great job of supporting the weight of the frame, it looks pretty basic and almost looks out of place on the back of the frame. Since the stand is rigid and has to be screwed into place it isn’t collapsible for easy transport or storage. Toshiba also includes two mounting holes on the back of the frame in case you want to hang the frame on the wall.

Toshiba includes a nice little remote control with the DMF82XKU, but the frame lacks a holding slot for the remote … something many frames have nowadays. When you are done using the remote control you’ll have to keep it somewhere memorable or risk losing the tiny remote somewhere in your home.

The remote itself works exactly as advertised and you shouldn’t have much difficulty understanding the picture-based icons and text for each button. Navigating some of the menus isn’t completely intuitive, but after some trial and error I figured out how to jump from one feature to the next and how to setup the Wi-Fi connection and FrameChannel account.

The left side of the frame primarily contains the power button and memory card slots. The right side of the frame features the USB and PC ports, power jack, and the location for connecting the stand. All of the controls and ports are easy to reach, but the USB port in located close enough to the side of the frame that large USB flash drives might stick out and be visible from the front of the frame.

Display

The widescreen display on this frame features a standard 16:9 ratio with 800×480 resolution. Although there are some digital cameras on the market that record images in 16:9 format most cameras shoot in either 4:3 or 3:2 ratio. This means you’ll have to either crop your images or there will be some unused area on the screen.

The 8” display on the Toshiba DMF82XKU looks gorgeous despite the 16:9 screen ratio. The display is colorful and has very good contrast. The glossy finish will cause some reflections under bright indoor lighting, but the glossy screen does help boost color saturation and contrast. Backlight bleed around the edges is minimal with the screen surface having very even backlighting. Viewing angles in landscape and portrait mode were good with colors staying accurate to about 20 degrees tilted forward or back and nearly 90 degrees side to side.

Unfortunately, unlike most modern digital media frames in this price range, the Toshiba frame doesn’t always recognize the correct orientation of images, so you’ll frequently have to manually rotate images in order to get them to display correctly. If you flip the stand into portrait mode you need to manually rotate landscape image as they load. Likewise, if the frame is in landscape position and a portrait appears you will have to rotate the image or rotate the frame. I am not even sure why Toshiba didn’t include the software needed to read the image orientation from the image EXIF data and automatically display images correctly.

Memory Sources

As mentioned in the specs, the Toshiba DMF82XKU can read from multiple memory card sources. Memory card support includes SD/SDHC/MMC, xD, and MS/MS Duo. I would have liked to see a Compact Flash card slot as well, but only professional DSLRs and old cameras still use that memory format. The frame also includes two USB ports; one to attach USB flash drives (memory sticks) and another to connect the frame to a computer. To save images from outside sources Toshiba included 1GB of internal storage, which can be accessed directly when the frame is connected to a computer.

Menu System

The menu system is very basic, giving you access to local settings, system information, the Wireless setup wizard, 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 was still perfectly usable.

Thanks to the frame’s built-in Wi-Fi the DMF82XKU can access images, video, and other data directly from the internet via a linked image account or FrameChannel. As many consumers may already know, FrameChannel is something of a mixed blessing. On one hand FrameChannel is a free service that lets you add multiple “channels” to your digital media frame so you can pull in pictures from online galleries, see weather updates, get the latest news, or even see how your stocks are doing.

Unfortunately FrameChannel has its own problems that make the usability an issue. Whether it’s a hardware issue or a failure on the part of FrameChannel, it simply isn’t as easy as it should be to use FrameChannel to put content on your frame. For example, after linking a SmugMug gallery and multiple news channels to my FrameChannel account the frame kept displaying multiple “broken frame” icons on the screen when attempting to display the channels. I found that I usually had to limit which channels I selected on FrameChannel because the frame would present the error icon if I tried to use too many channels (more than three) or if I tried to jump back and forth between channels.

This is simply unacceptable … regardless of whether Toshiba or FrameChannel are to blame. Consumers expect to be able to use all the advertised features and if they can’t see images from their online gallery or get the latest news then that means the product doesn’t deliver.

Granted, this is Toshiba’s first digital media frame to be released in the United States, and we’ve seen other issues with FrameChannel on other frames, but I’d like to see Toshiba deliver on the features that are listed on the box. HP’s DreamScreen does a fantastic job of delivering all kinds of content to users thanks to home-grown software. I don’t know if Toshiba needs to create their own content management software or simply work more closely with FrameChannel to make it work, but Toshiba needs to make sure that the advertised features work as advertised.

Conclusion

The Toshiba DMF82XKU is another digital media frame that looks fantastic on paper but simply doesn’t deliver on the promise of all the advertised specs. To put it mildly, if I spent the full retail price of $180 to purchase this frame then I’d be preparing to return it.

I eventually gave up and settled for only getting a few FrameChannel features to work after spending hours trying to get all of my selected FrameChannel channels to show up. The SmugMug and Photobucket RSS feeds never worked properly, and I consistently found that the frame didn’t like it if I streamed more than three or four channels packed with content via the FrameChannel service. After a full day of trying to get the Toshiba frame to live up to its advertised potential I gave up and just stuck a USB flash drive loaded with photos into the USB port on the back of the frame. If that’s all you want then there are many 8-inch digital media frames on the market that cost less than $80. While the Toshiba DMF82XKU looks very nice l find it hard to recommend this picture frame over other Wi-Fi digital media frames currently available in stores.

Pros

• Beautiful 8” widescreen display
• Attractive frame enclosure

Cons

• Too difficult to setup Wi-FI features and make them work
• Limited image orientation support
• Overpriced if you can’t make the additional features work

Rating – 2.5 out of 5 Stars

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