Review: GiiNii Artforme 7 inch Digital Picture Frame
Written on Jan 18, 2010 by Malcolm Reynolds and filed under GiiNii, Reviews
One of the side effects to reviewing many different digital picture frames is that I start to expect more and more from a typical picture frame. The latest digital media frames handle photos, video, music, and stream content via Wi-Fi. That’s why I was amazed to see the affordable GiiNii ArtForme Digital Picture Frame (model GN-705W) keeps things surprisingly simple. This picture frame is just a picture frame … nothing more and nothing less.
GiiNii ArtForme 7 inch Digital Picture Frame (model GN-705W) Specifications:
• 7″ LCD with 16:9 viewing ration and 480×234 resolution
• 128MB installed memory
• 5-in-1 card reader (SD, MS, MS Pro, MMC and xD)
• USB port
• Auto Rotate: photos automatically adjust to the orientation of the frame
• Programmable transitional effects
• Built-in clock and calendar
• Supports up to 20 megapixel photo size
• Adjustable backstand
• MSRP: $59.99
Build and Design
The GiiNii GN-705W is perhaps the very definition of a basic digital picture frame. This is a frame displays your photos with little fuss and features just enough bells and whistles to make you feel like you’re getting your money’s worth. The design is extremely simple. The wood frame and plastic matte insert surround the 7-inch display and provide a touch of simplistic style that will fit in with just about any home décor.
Built around a 7-inch, 480×234 display, the GN-705W certainly doesn’t give you that space-age, “high tech” look common to many digital media frames. In fact, the matte-textured screen isn’t even protected by an additional piece of glass, the LCD is simply surrounded by the plastic matte and frame and is ready to be plugged in and used. While the this frame certainly isn’t the best looking device we’ve reviewed, I have to give GiiNii credit for keeping it simple with a frame that will work in almost every home.
Unfortunately, the GN-705W suffers from extremely lightweight construction. Not only does this frame feel fragile, but it’s so light weight that I imagine it would easily fall off a shelf or table with the slightest accidental tug of the power cord. The extendable support/backstand features a nice swivel mechanism that makes it easy to rotate the frame for landscape or portrait orientation. The automatic orientation sensor also works perfectly and keeps the photos displayed in the correct direction.
The GN-705W utilizes an impressively simple array of eight menu navigation buttons on the back panel. In fact, the controls for the GiiNii frame are so simple that changes are you will never need to push a single button other than the power button. That said, if you want to manually scroll through images, change the display setting, view the clock or calendar, or keep the frame set to a single image then it’s very easy to do so using the buttons on the top back edge of the frame.
Memory/Picture Sources
In keeping with its minimalist overall design philosophy, the keeps the back of the frame extremely simple in terms of memory media support. Connections include single USB port (for connecting a USB flash drive or external hard drive), a power jack and memory card reader slots for SD/SDHC/MMC and Memory Stick/Memory Stick Pro and xD cards from your digital camera.
Per its specs, the GN-705W lacks any slave USB connectivity options, so you cannot connect this frame directly to your computer via a cable or Wi-Fi. You have to insert a USB storage drive in the USB port on the frame or insert a memory card from your digital camera. The opposite side of the frame lacks any ports, but I would have liked to see a single mini USB port here to allow the frame to function as a slave device … just in case someone wants to connect the frame to a PC and transfer photos that way.
The GN-705W sports 128MB of internal memory, providing only enough space to store a handful of high-resolution images or a ton of extremely low-resolution images. Granted, the GN-705W is really designed to read your photos off of a USB drive or memory card, so the built-in memory isn’t a major deal breaker.
Display Modes
The GN-705W is primarily a slideshow device. Power on the frame and it will immediately begin displaying images loaded into the memory if no card or flash drive is inserted. Plug in one of these external memory sources and after a few seconds of buffering (depending on the file sizes of your shots) the frame will jump to a slideshow of these images instead. By default, shots are shown in the sort order they appear on the card or USB drive.
Viewers can opt to manual pause, advance, or reverse the slideshow by pressing the appropriate navigational button on the back of the frame. However, it would have been nice if GiiNii included a basic wireless remote control so that users can control the image playback from across the room.
Menu System
The menu system on the GN-705W follows the same philosophy as the rest of the frame: Keep it simple, stupid. In fact, the GN-705W is designed to function without you ever needing to see the menu system. The only time the menu system appears is if you insert a USB drive or memory card that is oddly formatted and the frame needs assistance locating the images. If your memory card or USB drive use a standard format then the frame will automatically locate the images and begin displaying them on the screen. There are also options for a simple clock and calendar, though these are extremely basic (no integration of your photos) and aren’t likely to be used by most of the people who purchase this frame.
Display
A 7-inch, 480×234 display is a rather unfortunate choice for this GiiNii frame. Before I go into detail about the display I should point out that the typical resolution of a 7-inch widescreen LCD is 800×480 pixels. In short, the GN-705W has basically half the resolution of a typical digital photo frame … and it shows. Images shown on the display appear blurry and lack any real edge definition. Horizontal lines in your photos will suffer from “jaggies” (jigsaw-like edge lines) due to the limited screen resolution. While the color saturation and contrast are both perfectly fine, I just couldn’t overlook the fact that none of my images looked crisp or detailed. This is all part of the cost trade-off though; a higher resolution panel is more expensive.
A series of menu options also allow you to fine-tune the display’s saturation, hue, and contrast, and while the interface is fairly intuitive (it’s easy to adjust the display settings), there’s really nothing you can do to overcome the limited resolution of this LCD. Even when I stood six feet away from the picture frame I could still see the individual pixels that make up the display. You simply can’t expect to see the fine details in your images with this frame.
Conclusion
Although there’s something good to be said for a digital photo frame that keeps things simple and just works, simplicity should never replace quality. The GiiNii GN-705W Artforme 7-inch Digital Picture Frame is remarkably easy to use and features a design that feels right at home in any home, but the poor resolution of the LCD ruins what would otherwise be a fantastic value among digital picture frames. For $50-60 you get a frame that’s very easy to use, but you also get a frame that displays blurry, low-resolution photos. Bottom line, if GiiNii used a higher resolution LCD I would have given this frame a 4 out of 5 rating despite the lack of advanced Wi-Fi and multimedia features. Unfortunately, the poor resolution of the screen ruins what is otherwise a perfectly functional frame.
Pros:
• Easy to use
• Nice imitation wood frame
• Low price
Cons:
• Extremely low resolution display
• Few extra features and no remote
• Only 128MB of built-in memory
Rating – 2.5 out of 5 stars
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