Review: HP df300 Portable Digital Picture Frame
Written on Nov 12, 2008 by Brian and filed under HP, Reviews
The HP df300 fills a spot in the recently popular portable digital picture frame market. The 3.5” frame comes with a leather carrying case and a battery that gives you about 2 hours of usage to show off your pictures. Even though the main feature is portability, this little frame can surely find a spot on a desk or nook about the house and is priced well for gift giving.
HP df300 Quick Specs
- 3.5” display
- 4:3 aspect ratio
- 320×240 resolution
- Single SD card slot
- Internal battery (2 hours of battery life)
- Auto-shutoff
Design and Build
It’s odd, but the design of this tiny frame is some of the best we’ve seen. What we generally see with larger frames is manufacturers try to jam so much in, the end result is a mish-mash of ports and buttons that hampers usability. There’s just something about the simplicity of the df300 that we love. Four buttons, a single card slot and a mini-USB port that’s used for charging and file transfer.
The front of the frame is sleek with a mirror-like finish around the border. Aside from the fingerprints, this design is perfect for a portable frame. It even comes with a black leather pouch, complete with two slots for memory cards.
The back of the unit is rubberized, making it each to grab a hold of. A small stand is integrated into the back and sits flush when not in use. The stand works in either portrait or landscape, but pictures do not re-orient automatically.
Since there’s no remote, the four buttons accomplish everything in terms of frame management. They manage pretty well, with a press and hold at times to activate menus. Once you spend a few minutes with the frame though, it’s pretty intuitive.
Out of the box, this is a great looking frame that’s not only built well, but conceived well. Heck, the box even has a green bow on it, so HP hopes the df300 will be a popular gift. It’s hard to argue with their assumption, the frame is so well put together, from a hardware perspective it will be hard to disappoint.
Memory/Picture Sources
HP has included a few MB of memory in the df300, enough to store 45 resized images. To augment this, they’ve also included an SD card reader, which is the best option for storing photos. The internal memory is a bit difficult to work with anyway and is best used for the tutorial images they’ve included with the frame.
The df300 includes a mini USB port which is used for two things. First is for charging the frame, which is convenient because it will charge over USB connection from a PC, or with the included AC adaptor. The second thing is does is allow access to the SD card from your PC. The frame in this case acts just like a card reader. While you cannot access the internal memory of the frame via PC, the option to access the SD card is helpful if for some reason you don’t have a card reader on your computer. The frame must be put into card reader mode manually though, each time you want to connect to a computer. So while the mini USB card access is a feature, it probably won’t get a lot of use.
Display Modes
HP has included a pretty reasonable set of slideshow and photo display features in the df300. The frame has a 4:3 aspect ratio that does not auto-rotate images. HP has included an image resizing software though, which will make sure the screen is always filled with an image. If you have a few portrait or oddly cropped images in the mix, the frame will zoom to fill the entire screen. This actually worked pretty well on our test image set.
From a slideshow perspective HP has included a base set of 6 transitions and speeds of 5, 10 or 30 seconds. The df300 also includes an auto shutoff that can be set to 5, 10 or 30 minutes. It makes a lot of sense for such a feature in a device with a battery, we’re glad to see it here.
Otherwise the frame is pretty straightforward. There aren’t a bunch of customizations or extra slideshow features like playlists, but for what it is, the df300 is sufficiently outfitted with display options.
Menu System
It doesn’t get a lot easier to work with than the menu system included with the HP df300. There are four buttons, all of which are used to navigate the menus. When t eh frame is turned on, you can select to view images from the internal memory or via SD card if one is inserted. After selecting the source the frame defaults into a slideshow.
There are two places to access frame/picture options, but both are done the same way. From the main menu pressing and holding the options button will bring up the core set of options. From a slideshow, the same button press gives you options specific to that picture, along with screen settings. It takes a few times through to get the proper use of the options and power button when navigating the menus, but it’s easy to pick up.
The menus and options are well laid out, leading to a pretty good interface. Again, the simplicity of design really helps make the df300 easy to work with.
Display
For a 3.5” 320×240 pixel display, we’re pretty happy with the quality. Horizontal viewing angles are pretty good, which is important if you’re trying to jam several faces around this little frame. But what we weren’t expecting were any display controls.
Like the df820 we recently reviewed, HP has included controls for brightness, contrast, tint and color. These four options are more than most full-featured frames offer, forget about this new class of portable frames. Out of the box contrast and colors are accurate, but you can tweak these settings as you like to get the results you like.
We expected the display to be a hindrance on the df300, but ended up pleasantly surprised. It’s common in a frame of this size for the manufacturer to skimp in an effort to keep the price down. That doesn’t appear to be the case with this HP model.
Battery
The HP df300 includes an internal batter that charges via the mini USB port. The manual claims roughly 2 hours of battery life. In our test we disabled auto shutoff, enabled photo optimization, enabled transitions and started a slideshow with 5 second transitions. Essentially we wanted to prove the minimum possible battery life, with default screen settings. We saw 2 hours and 22 minutes in our test, surprisingly better than what HP quotes. With more conservative usage, you should be able to top 3 hours.
Bottom Line
The HP df300 does what it intends to do. It offers a portable photo viewing experience with design and build that is very good. We can into the review with low expectations, so to say HP surpassed them isn’t entirely fair. They really vastly exceeded everything we thought we’d get with the df300. While it’s hard to gush over a 3.5” frame that doesn’t jam in dozens of high-tech features, HP did what you’re supposed to do – execute well on the basics. Sometimes we get so wrapped up in the latest and greatest we forget that clean and simple has its place.
Pros:
- Excellent design and build
- Reasonable feature set
- Good display
- Better than advertised battery life
Cons:
- Limited internal memory
4.5 out of 5 stars – Editor’s Choice
I am terribly disappointed with my df300. The great picture quality only makes it more disappointing that it’s almost impossible to use to view pictures other than one at a time sequentially.
I put a dozen folders with a dozen photos in each onto my SD card and installed it.
I was horrified to discover that there is no way to view a particular photo other than scrolling through all the photos starting at the beginning photo. The only way to view photos in another folder is to scroll through all the photos in the first folder.
It’s as if I had an old fashioned photo album and had to start on page one and turn the pages one at a time EVERY TIME I opened it.
I wanted to be able to jump to a particular photo or folder when I wanted to.
I’m returning my df300.
Unfortunately most frames do a terrible job of handling folders, some don’t recognize them at all. I don’t blame your frustration, but it’s unlikely that you’ll find a portable frame that handles the issue any better.
I keep reading about “up to 45 photos” but what does this mean in terms of memory?? 45 photos of what quality? my nikon d90 can produce a 2 meg photo on the card. how much is the actuall internal memory? I can’t find that anywyere in any manual,
ok hold on…I can’t transfer photos from my computer to the frame??so the only way to fit the images in the memory of this thing is to take low quality images on camera and transfer them directly from card to frame?that is silly.if I take highest quality images on my cards which are too large to fit in this frame then I shoudld be able to resize them on my computer first and have the ability to transfer to the frame from my pc!!
45 photos at the frame’s resolution is what that means. The actual memory is probably 8MB. You actually store photos on the SD card. You don’t take low quality shots, take normal ones and resize them if you want to fit hundreds onto an SD card.
Just got one. It’s a wonderful little picture frame. Had to buy an SD card because my Sony camera’s card does not fit. You just put the SD card in the frame, plug it in the computer and transfer onto the SD card and voilà. In your purse or pocket it goes. The quality is very good.
I just found out: the memory is only 4MB. and it is very-very slow to read from the sd card but that may be because the images were large. I bought this because, you are right, the look of it is very nice and the beautiful wallet it comes with is what actually was the final decision for me to buy it.The screen quality is also pretty decent.But 4MB of memory is too low and the actual item has a very flimsy feel to it.I tried navigating once or twice and I didn’t get what I want as easily as I should have but perhaps it needs a few more tries before the buttons make sense.You say the battery life is good, now I wonder if I put it in my purse fully charged and don’t use it for a week or more how long before the battery is emptied? I have a small 1.5″ keychain photoframe which is absolutely useless beause when once in a while I take it out to show the pictures to someone I find it not charged even though it was fully charged when I put it in my purse.I wonder if this frame battery will empty just as easily while sitting in my purse unused.
I am disappointed the battery is not replaceable and, according to the manual, will last only 2 years, making this a throwaway item after that time. Too much waste and so this is being returned, regardless of the other pluses.
Just purchased this for my mother-in-law and though it looks great, seems like they didn’t plan the user manual very well. I plugged it into my computer and after finding the “connect to pc” option it says “key is temporarily inoperative!” There’s not a single thing about trouble shooting in the manual.
HP made a pretty looking piece of junk.
The frame shows up like any mass storage device. I have no idea what’s bringing up a key message, I’ve not heard of anything like that before.
Manual says battery will last 2 year and cannot be replaced.
So, is this item worthless at that point? Does it come with an AC adapter to power the unit?
Can it be run on the USB cable after the internal battery is worn out (after 2 years)?
2 years is probably just an estimate, I’d expect that you get more use than you want out of the battery. But they have to put a conservative estimate in the documentation.
I bought this item for my mother for x-mas and Im trying to load pics on it but every time I try to use it as a mass storage device it gives me the “insert disc” message. Any one got any ideas??
My frame connected to the PC great when I first bought it last month. However now I get the same message as Jacqui “Key is temporarily inoperative”
I’m getting the same massage as well; “key is temporarily inoperative!” Is it doing this because I’m using a mac?
The ‘key is inoperative’ just means you cannot press any keys on the device.
my problem is I don’t seem to be able to actually upload directly to the onboard memory, only through a memory card. I find that to be rather a pain.
It’s not a real problem. I bought this to rip it apart for an art project, and the price is better than last years price.
We bought this camera for my mother - ours too , says key is temporarily inoperative, also- we try to download and we get an error message on our PC saying it is write protected. Help? No luck finding anything on HP.com
Got it for Christmas and has the same problem nate has… “Insert disc” Duh! I did! I tried several cards and all got the same result. Help.
So what do you do when you get a “Key is temporarily inoperative” and the “Insert Disc” on the computer side when you try to load it as a mass storage device?
I have the same issue as Jack and Jacqui. I got the error message “Key is temporarily inoperative” the very first time I connected the DF300 to my PC. Anyone find a solution for this problem?
i also got this message. Is there anything you can do to fix it?
How do i use the HP df300 Portable Digital Picture Frame with out the memery card .
(Im getting an pc connection established but key is temporarily inoperative!)
help!!!
Just purchased 3 units for gift-giving and 1 for myself. Have 2 questions… my own camera uses compact flash, but thought i could load pics onto frame directly from my pc… what do i do now? am upset 2 learn AFTER opening box that int battery is only good 4 approx 2 years. What then??
Please give me some direction! Thanx!
Linda
a post script 2 the above…
purchased my 4 units BECAUSE of its portability factor and small size… and am becoming even more upset with HP that they did not inform on box cover with its specs that int battery canNOT be replaced!! So i guess this means that i have given these as christmas gifts to my relatives with a 2-year lifespan??? that’s not what i thought i was purchasing!!
I got this gift from my boss and she wants to see pics! My camera card won’t fit and when I try to download from my PC I get message connected to pc, key temporarily inoperative. Help me keep my job…PLEASE!!!!!! How do I get pictures from my PC to the frame???
Can I transfer pcturess from my computer to this picture frame ro to a memory card and if so how do I do this?
After reading all the negative reports about my HP df300 - I almost hesitate to say I love it. But I DO! I put literally HUNDREDS of pics on an SD card, and here I am at work, watching my slide show.
Initially I thought I could download pics from my pc onto the df300 — but then it makes more sense to put the pics on a memory card so you can have more pics.
Personally, I am LOVING this little gadget!
Could anyone please tell me how to get the SD card out of the df300 (no instructions that I can find anywhere)?
Thanks
I am about to be a bald woman. I am frustrated and about to pull out my hair. I too am having the “Key is inoperative” error message and I also got the “insert disc” message.
And HP’s support site is a joke. There is NOTHING there about either of these issues, no troubleshooting page. Nada.
I also was surprised, and annoyed, to see the battery cannot be replaced.
I’d heard such wonderful things about HP, and read nice reviews about this frame, but now I am wondering about how wonderful this thing really is if I
A. Can’t get it to do what it is supposed to do so wonderfully.
B. Can’t get support and troubleshoot.
If I don’t get this done today, I may not have a hair on my head by tonight.
If you push in the SD card with your thumb (a little pressure) , it will pop out.
I’m wondering — if I leave this plugged into the usb port, and have it running a slide show, will that damage it in any way?
I’m sorry if this sounds curt, but did anyone bother reading the manual?
You cannot transfer photos directly from your computer to the DF300’s internal memory (this is stated in the manual) via direct USB connection.
The USB direct connection will transfer photos from your computer to an SD card in the DF300 only (making the DF300 a somewhat pseudo-SD card interface).
The df300 has the thumbnail view that allows you to see 6 images at once. Yes you still have to press the > for each thumb but it is a lot faster than scrolling through and viewing each one till you get to the image you wish to pause on. In the thumbnail view it also tells you how many pages there are and what page you are on. If the image you want is on page 6of6 and you are on page 1of6 then hit the < button and you are all set. If it had cost a lot of money i would complain too. Don’t buy a scion then complain it is not an impreza.
I’m surprised by all the negative reviews — I LOVE my little df300! I got exactly what I was looking for — a way to share photos easily with friends and family who have no, or limited, access to my web-based albums. It’s compact, highly portable, has excellent screen resolution and color, and offers several viewing options. It seems many of the negative comments result from erroneous expectations about what this device is (and isn’t).
We bought this frame for my grandmother and it has been a headache from the start. Currently we are getting, “key is temporarily inoperative!” I’m tired of fussing with this device.
Here’s a thought. HP, make a device with internal memory that connects to your pc which allows you to drag and drop photos with ease. Add the SD slot only if extra memory is needed. It’s not rocket-science.
This HP DF300 frame WILL be returned.
Grrrr!
Why can’t I transfer picturs from my computer to the picture frame? Is the USP cable only to regharge the frame? I am very disappoited in the product HP is usually know for good equipment. Glad I didn’t buy this, it was a gift.
It is my understanding that first I need to put picture from the computer to SD card and after that use SD card on my HP Frame. However, I don’t know how to transfer picture from the computer (MacBook) to SD card. Thanks in advance for your help.