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

GiiNii Slope Specifications

• LCD Display: 8″ LCD screen (800 X 600 pixels)
• MMC/SD/MS card slot, CF slot; mini USB port for computer connection, full-size USB port for flash memory sticks
• Built-in speaker for music during slideshows
• Video playback (AVI, Motion JPEG)
• On-board FLASH memory 128MB
• Remote Control 
• Ener-GiiNii power-save modes to conserve energy when the lights go out

Build and Design

The design of the GiiNii 8” Slope is very basic with a black plastic border that has a matte finish. Contrasting the matte finish is a thin glossy edge directly surrounding the display to help break up the blending finishes between the matte border and matte texture display. To keep a clean look, all of the controls are hidden on the back side of the frame. The memory card slots are all located on the rear, mounted vertically through the lower half of the frame. This method keeps the cards hidden when inserted, but requires that you pick up the frame each time you want to put in a new card.

Build quality is average with a sturdy plastic body, but the finish leaves something to be desired. The matte texture easily scuffs from something as simple as a fingernail rubbing against it. After setting up the stand I found many little marks from my fingers that needed some elbow grease to wipe off. Although glossy finishes might scratch easier, they are not as prone to blemishes from something as simple as fingernails swiping it.

The plastic stand has three adjustment points, two for 90-degree mounting it vertical or horizontal, and one to have the frame lean back slightly. All three positions lock securely in place, giving the frame a solid footing on most surfaces. The rear also has two wall mounting points to hang the frame in either horizontal or vertical positions.

Display

The 8” 800×600 display is very good even though this model is considered part of the budget or value line. The matte texture helped to reduce glare in bright rooms, something that glossy displays have a problem with. It is bright enough to be viewable in bright conditions like a living room with sun shining over it through a window. Colors were bright and vibrant, and contrast was great for viewing darker detail.

Viewing angles were average, with great horizontal viewing spans, no matter where in the room you are located. Vertical viewing angles could have been better, with colors inverting and getting darker the lower you went. If you were sitting in a chair with the frame sitting somewhere higher than your eyes, most detail in the image would be lost as the screen distorted. Overall though, the screen quality is well above what we expected in this price range.

Picture and Memory Sources

The GiiNii Slope has four methods of bringing photos in for viewing, which include memory card slots on the back, a USB port for memory sticks and camera connections, and internal storage accessible through a mini-USB port. As soon as you insert image source the frame looks through it for any viewable content and automatically starts a slide show.

While playing content you have the option to copy the image between memory sources, such as pulling a picture off the card from your camera and saving a copy of it to the internal memory for later viewing. As soon as you give the frame power and turn it on, you can plug in any memory source and it will start playing it with no other user input.

Display Modes

The GiiNii Slope offers two main viewing modes; slideshow (in order or random with transitions) and collage mode using preinstalled templates. I used the slideshow mode almost entirely while I was reviewing the frame, since it shows the entire image without any cheesy backgrounds. The slideshow mode has random or in-order playing modes with customizable transition effects and interval times. Some of the transitions include horizontal blind, fade, wipe, split, and melt. You can chose one transition if you want, but I think random mode looks best. Interval times include fast, medium, slow, half hour, and hourly. Medium or slow were fine, but half hour or hourly were way too long for normal photos.

The collage mode worked by rendering two or three images inside another graphic, but the included collage modes were very cheesy. GiiNii included templates for Mother’s Day, Baseball, Golf, and Fishing, with each looking pretty weird. Collage mode also seemed to lag, as it took time to render each image inside the template.

The Slope is also capable of playing back audio with a slideshow and can handle video as well (AVI, Motion JPEG). The quality of the playback is about what we expected, a bit middling as most frames are, but still to have these features at all in a value-oriented frame is a nice touch.

Menu System

The menu system is easy to navigate using the supplied remote control or the controls mounted on the back of the frame. The menu is clearly laid out and when you press one of the navigation buttons a screen overlay pops up so you can use the buttons of the back of the frame without needing to look at them.

The menu layout felt clunky at times if you wanted to change certain settings during a play mode, having the exit back to the first screen, then entering the setup area. Almost all of the settings are self-explanatory so you don’t need to worry about digging out the manual to figure something out. Overall it wasn’t the best looking interface, but since most people won’t need to adjust something on a daily basis, it didn’t need as much effort put into it.

Extra Features

The Slope has a power saving “Ener-GiiNii” mode that can be set to automatically turn the frame on and off at set times in the day or using a light sensor to turn off when the lights go out. This helps cut down on power usage in the long run and if nothing else means you don’t have a screen shining in the middle of the night in your living room. Every frame should have an auto shutoff feature and we love that GiiNii included it with the Slope.

Pros

• Nice high-resolution screen
• 4:3 format won’t crop your pictures
• Power saving modes are helpful if you won’t want to manually turn the frame on and off each day
• Sturdy stand with secure locking positions
• Built-in speaker great to play a little music along with your photos

Cons

• Matte plastic trim scuffs easily
• Collage modes look cheesy

Bottom Line

The 8” GiiNii Slope doesn’t bring all of the fancy Internet features some of the newer Wi-Fi enabled picture frames do, but it does have a high resolution screen and simplistic interface. Most online retailers currently sell this frame for around $80, which works well in most budgets. The build quality was pretty good, having some faults like the scuff prone plastic trim, but overall it was a solid device. If you are in the market for a frame that’s easy to get along with and doesn’t skimp on the display, the GiiNii Slope would be a good option to consider.

4 out of 5 stars

The outer frame offers a clean black matte finish that will blend with most interiors. On the bottom of the frame you’ll notice a sensor in the middle, this measures light and tells the frame to go into power save mode when the room is dark, something we wish every frame offered.

The Slope will ship with various memory configurations, but all will have at least 128 MB of internal storage and  all include a multi-card reader that supports SD, MS, MMC, xD and CF. There’s also a USB drive port and a mini-USB connection for loading photos straight from a computer. 

From the software side GiiNii is including SmartCopy, which promises quick and easy image transfers. The frame will also auto rotate and supports slideshows, collage presentation of photos and will play back WMA and MP3 files for music and AVI and MOV for video. For good measure there’s also a remote control and brightness and contrast adjustments for the display. 

We’re not entirely sure that the GiiNii Slope belongs in their Value Line, since it offers more features than most other frames of this size, but we won’t complain. The Slope is finding its way into retail now at a price of $99.

The 7” GiiNii Wedge is basic digital photo frame with movie and music playing capabilities. With a sleek aluminum-clad body and small footprint it can fit anywhere.  It also offers an innovative power saving system to scale back power consumption in off hours. GiiNii isn’t exactly as well known as Sony, Kodak, or HP in the digital photo frame market, but they are starting to gain speed now that retailers s like Wal-Mart and Walgreens starting to carry their products.

GiiNii 7” Wedge Specs

• 7” LCD 4:3 aspect ratio, 800×600 resolution
• 512MB internal memory
• Supports SD, MMC, MS, xD
• Mini USB for file transfer
• Touch sensitive control buttons
• Integrated Speaker
• Video playback (AVI, Motion JPEG)
• Smart sleep mode

Design and build

The 7” GiiNii Wedge has an attractive modern design with a brushed aluminum finish and relatively thin freestanding body. It blends in well in both an office setting or at home, although it would look best near other gadgets.

The foot of the frame is a little over 1 inch deep, and narrows to about ¼ inch at the top. Unlike some frames that need a rear support to stay upright, the wedge design doesn’t need as much free space behind it for a stand.

The one complaint I have with the design of the Wedge is the location of the AC connection and the huge ferrite magnet located two inches from the plug. It is hard to hide the cord, and looks out of place with its clean look. It would have been better to locate the plug on the back, making it easier to hide.

The Wedge feels quite sturdy with the aluminum shell, enough that it could take a tumble more than once and not be any worse for wear. The metal exterior is a thick gauge of metal, which holds its own against dents or flexing. If you have children that run amuck in your home and like to tip over furniture in their wake, the GiiNii Wedge would be a perfect choice.

Memory/Picture Sources

The GiiNii Wedge has 512MB of internal memory for image storage and a SD/MMC/XD/MS slot on the side to read images straight off a camera. The internal storage is good for about 150 10MP images, and many more if you compress the images to the resolution of the display. The internal memory is accessible through an onboard mini-USB connection located on the side and it will also act as a card reader for memory cards plugged in. The card slot on the side is spring loaded and lets the card sit flush when fully inserted. This is a nice as the card doesn’t stick out like a sore thumb when on display.

Display Modes

The default display mode when turning on the Wedge is a combo photo/clock slideshow. In-between each image transition a clock will display on the screen. You can switch away from this to an all clock mode or a standard photo slideshow. The slideshow settings allow you to change the delay between each image and the style of transition. I kept it set to a fading transition between images and picked a 30 second delay. Some of the shorter delays such as 3 or 10 seconds were too sudden to enjoy an image before it switched to the next.

When viewing large images from a newer digital camera, the GiiNii Wedge lagged when trying to adjust menu options or change viewing modes. Since lag is not noticed when viewing image transitions, it was not that big of a problem. One easy way around the delay was just ejecting the memory card and then adjusting the settings that you wanted to change.

The internal speaker also lets you play music in the background during a slideshow. The speaker is loud enough to fill up a small room and sounds pretty nice. It’s not a boom box, but for playing music in the background while displaying vacation images it does the job quite well. The internal music player supports MP3, WMA, and WAV music file formats which covers most music sources outside of iTunes.

Movie playback is also supported, but rather limited besides a very low resolution movie off of a digital camera. The limited power of the GiiNii frame makes some movies stutter, but this is not a primary feature that will be used by most people. Movies will play better on the internal memory though, rather than the external memory card.

Menu Controls

The menu controls are located on the right side of the frame, and are all touch sensitive. Each button has its own divot so you can find the correct button, although none of them are labeled. Depending on the menu or mode you are in, the function of each button is displayed on the right side of the screen. I found this somewhat confusing at first, being quite easy to hit the wrong button on accident.

To enter the menu system you press any of the buttons on the right side of the frame. Depending on the images being displayed or the mode that the frame is in, it may take a second or 2 for the controls to show up on the screen.

Display

The quality of the screen is very nice and easily stands out in a bright living space. Colors are bright and vibrant making most images “pop”. Black levels are good enough to view darker detail cues even at bright backlight levels. Viewing angles are very good, showing proper image color from almost any angle around your room. The screen is textured to prevent glare, instead of being glossy which can be difficult to view if it is near a window or in a room with bright overhead lighting. You have 3 brightness settings inside the menu and more adjustment depending on the level of EnerGiiNii energy savings. Considering the max wattage draw of this display is around 10 watts, I would have no problem having it set to max brightness every day since it would have little impact on my energy bill. Overall I think the screen on the Wedge holds its own against other models I have seen.

Extra Features

This GiiNii model also includes a clock/alarm and calendar. The clock feature is handy if you don’t have any way to tell time in your room, but since I have no less than 5 clocks within arm reach I didn’t need it. There are multiple clock designs to choose from, to pick the best design for your needs. Both analog and digital clock options are available. The calendar overlay I found to be rather useless, unless you were trying to match up an upcoming date with the day of the week.

Pros

• Bright and colorful screen
• Solid aluminum shell
• Built-in power saving feature is nice if you forget to turn electronics off at night

Cons

• Sluggish menu system
• Limited movie playback

Bottom Line

The 7” GiiNii Wedge sells for a $99, which is a decent price for the cool design and high quality display. The menu system is sluggish, but it is rarely used beyond initial setup. Movie playing capabilities are great on paper, but the limited support for file formats rules it out as a main use. Overall if you enjoy the design and the price works, it’s not a bad digital picture frame to consider.

4 out of 5 stars

Buy direct from GiiNii

GiiNii 8” Ultra-Thin Quick Specs

• 8” LCD
• 4:3 aspect ratio, 800×600 resolution
• 128MB internal memory
• Supports SD, Memory Stick, MMC, CF, xD and USB
• Mini USB for file transfer
• Removable faceplate
• Remote control
• Light sensor that adjusts brightness based on room conditions
• Integrated Speakers
• Video playback
• Smart sleep mode

Design and Build

I was actually pretty surprised by the GiiNii frame upon unboxing. Sure, the box says it’s ultra-thin, but then again, most digital picture frames aren’t noticeably thick. At .78 inches deep, this frame is about half as thick as other models. And it’s not just thin; the back is actually surprisingly well-designed. I know, it’s a little weird to be excited about the back of the frame, but really, a nice back may give you more flexibility in finding a location for the frame.

Attractive looking frame

The back also houses a full set of menu buttons, which is nice. The remote isn’t always handy, so being able to still work with the frame sans remote, is good. The back also houses the speaker and wall hanging slots. The biggest problem we have with the back of the frame is the stand. It actually screws into the frame. If you don’t over tighten, which is easy, you can still rotate the stand to re-orient, but it doesn’t sound good. It’s plenty sturdy, but hopefully GiiNii can find a more elegant stand solution the next time around.

Giinii 8″ Ultra Thin Back

Moving around to the front, the 8” display has a thin white border around it, then a brushed aluminum finish followed by a laminate wood frame. The presentation is traditional, with a bit of trendiness thanks to the metal accent. If you want a more contemporary look, the spring loaded wooden outer frame comes off with little effort. The frame is less stable without the exterior frame though and angles down more to make straight-on viewing more difficult.

GiiNii 8″ Without Wooden Frame

Overall the GiiNii 8” Ultra Thin is well designed and with the removable outer-frame, it has a lot of flexibility to fit with different decorating styles.

Memory/Picture Sources

GiiNii has included two card readers with this frame. One is for CF, the other is a multi-reader for the smaller cards, including SD, MMC, MS and even xD. Additionally, there’s a USB port on the right side that can be used to show pictures. The USB port is pretty close to the edge though, so even the smallest USB drives will hang out past the frame’s edge some.

USB drive protruding from the frame

The frame also includes 128MB of internal memory. That means you can get roughly 140 properly sized images on the frame, which in this price class ($120 MSRP), is a little below average. We would have liked to see at least 256MB if not more for a full-featured frame like this. GiiNii does offer versions with more RAM with certain retailers, but the price will also be higher.

Memory card slots/mini-USB port

Even though it’s lacking RAM, at least GiiNii includes the mini-USB port so you can connect the frame to a PC to transfer images over in bulk. That’s a feature we had taken for granted, until we reviewed the new wireless D-Link model that omitted this port.

Display Modes

The frame will immediately start into a slideshow, either from internal memory or external source, once it’s turned on. By default the frame plays your photos in order, though you may switch it to random, or set it on single view to just show a single image. The fun thing with single view though is that it still plays the transitions as if it’s moving from slide to slide, so the presentation is pretty disjointed. If you want to view a single picture, it’s best to just pause the slideshow on the image you want while it’s playing. Speaking of transitions, you can set to random, or select one of seven options, or turn them off entirely.

GiiNii offers several other options for the slideshows as well. Users may set the intervals; 5 seconds, 10 seconds, 20 seconds, half hour or hourly. Slideshows may also be set to music, the main benefit of having a speaker on the frame. Of course the music may be muted as well. The frame can also be put in collage mode, which offers four different scenes, where pictures are inserted. The frame does a fair job of picking out the subject of each picture to insert it into one of four vignettes (Mother’s day, golf, fishing and baseball), but the end result is a little goofy and the four options are pretty limited. The collage mode is a nice effort, but not entirely useful as it is.

As mentioned, the frame has a speaker and thus can be used as an MP3 player, or it can store music to be used as background for your slideshows. The frame supports MP3 and WMA file formats which leaves out the obvious, downloads from iTunes which are MPEG files. I moved over a few MP3’s though to use as background music for my slideshow. The speaker actually does a surprisingly good job playing music. Of course it’s not going to blow out table-thumping bass, but the songs I loaded up played quite enjoyably, which is as good as it gets with integrated speakers like this. The only thing that bothers me with the music playback on is it shows a timer at the bottom left of the screen that can’t be disabled as far as I can tell. The audio playback is a net positive though, a nice option that you won’t use every day, but great for showing off memories to friends and family.

The GiiNii frame also has the ability to play videos. The frame supports AVI and MOV files and recommends a 320×240 resolution at 30 frames per second. I ran a few at 320×240 and also the 640×480 that my digital camera can record at. Both actually ran pretty well, with a little stuttering during active sequences. Playback isn’t perfect, but pretty reasonable given limited computing horsepower.

Menu System

GiiNii’s menu system is pretty easy to get along with once you learn certain nuances. The first being that you have to hit the exit button during a slideshow to get at some settings, while you have to hit the menu button to get at others. The differentiation is that the exit button leads you to more general frame options, like selecting movie, music or pictures, while the menu button is really slideshow specific. GiiNii could have spent more time to get the menu system tightened up.

Back Menu Buttons

The frame also comes with a remote to manage the menus. The remote is pretty good, but requires a little education on the icons, as most of them do. The remote’s main failing is that it doesn’t include a power button, so the frame must be turned on in the back. Given the placement of the power button, this is a problem is using the wall-mount.

Remote Control

Thankfully GiiNii included navigation buttons on the back of the frame as well, so most functions can be accessed without the remote.

Light Sensor

On the front of the frame is a little light sensor that is used for auto-brightness adjustments and the smart sleep mode. At first I thought the auto brightness adjustments weren’t working. It appears they probably were, but the moves are very subtle. It’s hard to tell what impact, if any, there really is either in power savings or enjoyment of the pictures. This one goes down as a nice idea, but not very noticeable.

On the sleep mode front, the news is not so good. Auto-shutoff is a big deal with digital picture frames since they’re generally not used for large portions of the day. A frame that can turn itself off at night or during the day when everyone’s at work, is a great idea. GiiNii claims a smart sleep mode on their 8” ultra thin frame, but the execution is confusing. You can set a specific time for the frame to turn off and on, which I suppose is fine for a commercial application, but not something most buyers will use. You can also set it to use the sensor to turn off. There are two problems though. First, the sleep mode leaves a barely visible clock and date on the screen, which makes no sense. You can’t read it; just turn the display off and save the power. Second, when sleep mode is turned on, GiiNii puts a series of three Z’s on the screen the entire time. It’s just silly and makes the pictures all look as if they’ve been oddly watermarked. It’s invasive enough where I wouldn’t use the sleep feature at all, which of course defeats the purpose. It also takes the frame a few minutes to wake back up in sensor mode, where other frames, like the D-Link DSM-210, are nearly instant.

I give GiiNii decent marks for trying to do the right thing here, but the execution is pretty bad. Making the sensor bar work a little better and cleaning up the sleep mode would certainly elevate our view of this frame by at least a full star. As it is, these features that aren’t very well done, and are a significant drag on our review of this frame.

Display

The 8” LCD panel that GiiNii uses for this frame is average. Colors run true and viewing angles are reasonable, but it’s not as bright as we’d like to see. Within the frame settings you may edit brightness and contrast levels. We found that bumping the brightness to full and leaving contrast at default yielded the best results. The display is 800×600 pixels, which provides crisp images in a frame of this size. It’s also standard aspect (4:3) which means standard digital camera shots won’t have to be cropped to fit properly on the display.

Extra Features

This frame includes a clock/date setting along with an alarm option. The clock can be added as an overlay to your pictures, so you get the time and date at all times. If you want, you can also add a calendar overlay which really adds no value. An alarm can also be set up, through a too-long process that ads another icon to the screen in the top left corner. The alarm works as advertised, but with the bell icon plastered on all pictures, I’m not sure if having it on is worth the effort.

Calendar view turned on

Pros

• Appealing product design
• Deep feature set – pictures, video, MP3
• Good speaker

Cons

• Less than expected internal memory
• Poorly done sleep mode

Bottom Line

For a $120 MSRP, we’re left wanting more – more memory, better sleep mode and a more intuitive menu interface for starters. The frame is nicely designed though and will go with a lot of different rooms, but unless you really want the speaker and video playback, there are a lot of other options on the market at this price point.

3 out of 5 stars