Customer Reviews

Aluratek 10.5-Inch Digital Photo Frame 256MB Internal Memory (Black)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

At $150.00 this picture frame is a steal. But it is missing a few features of more expensive frames.

Pros:10.5", 256MB On-Board flash, Plays Audio & Video as well as photos, Ability to copy images, video, and audio directly from USB devices, Remote Control.

Cons: Will not auto rotate images, Longest pause in slideshow is 30 seconds, Unable to access setup without remote.

Overall for the price I am extremely happy with my purchase.

This digital picture frame looks very good on paper: high resolution, support for CompactFlash, not very expensive. Looks like a perfect gift for older folks so who don't like computers very much, but still would like to be able to see digital pictures of their grandchildren, right?

Not quite. Aluratek user interface makes it pretty much useless for this purpose. It makes easy things hard, and difficult things impossible.

Just a few examples. To start a slideshow, you need to navigate through rather complex menu using the remote. The frame itself has six buttons, but I couldn't find a way to start a slideshow without the remote. Wouldn't starting a slideshow automatically on startup be a reasonable default? You can't change the order of pictures in a slideshow. Dedicated buttons on the remote control work in some modes, but not others.

The bottom line is, Aluratek designers really need to spend at least five minutes thinking about how people will be using their products. Until this happens, my recommendation is to look elsewhere.

This is my first digital picture frame, so I can't compare it to other frames, however, the picture quality is excellent. Great feature set with a bunch of options. I am rather computer savy and found the unit very easy to figure out and operate. Speakers are okay for a digital picture frame. Not any thing to write home about, however, there is an audio out so that you can hook it up to external speakers. I have a mac and it works great with it. Highly recommend it. I will probably purchase two more next year as presents.

I bought this Aluratek 10.5" frame for my parents at a better price from pricegrabber but Amazon is right there in price comparison. First of all it is one of the few frames in the market that comes with memory built in which is a huge convenience as you do not need a memory card for this frame to work. Pictures come out very bright, resolution is just about as good as any frame out in the market, it does exactly what it is supposed to.

I normally don't take the time to comment on products but the technical support of Aluratek is the worst I have ever seen. I purchased the model ADMPF110 and it was dead out of the box. I go round and round with their technical support via email and finally they give me an RMA to send it in for repair. I wanted to put this in the wall of a new house we are building so I needed it back pretty quickly. So I sent it to them over-night with all of the necessary paper work. 90 days later I get it back. By this time I had bought another brand unit to put in our new house. We were really busy getting the house completed so I didn't get around to looking at the Aluratek unit I got repaired under warranty unit about 3.5 months later. It was dead out of the box again! This time it made a faint clicking noise when turned off and on which was an improvement over last time, however, still nothing on the screen. Absolutely dead in all modes. Aluratek said that I had it over 90 days and that it was out of warranty and if I wanted to send it back in they would repair it for a fee. I explained that I never got to use it even once. The said it was out of warranty. I explained it was just barely out of warranty and they said it didn't matter, I should have checked it out when I first got it back. I told them that I am not their quality control department. Unless you want to get stuck with junk that doesn't work or unless you want to do the quality control for this company I suggest you don't buy any of their products.

I received this for Christmas and loaded it up with photos to use in my office while I work. It has a beautiful display and the slideshow function works well, but only if you use the remote control. There is no way to have it do a slideshow without using the remote control. Don't lose the remote control. After having it for only four weeks, it broke today. I turned it on and the screen was full of static and it wouldn't respond with any button or the remote control. I tried to reset it, but there was no reset button. Don't buy it. It's garbage.

After a lot of searching, and knowing that NONE of the frames in the market is really "clean", here's what happened here:
We got it, liked the display quality (bright, very good resolution, nice frame) when we plugged in a flash memory card directly from a camera.
However, when we tried to load (using its own USB interface and built in software) more photos and music, we ran into problems with "not enough space" messages, corrupted files that were uploaded, etc.
But there's a solution, albeit not from the non-responding company support line and the empty (!) knowledge base on their web site.
It turns out you need to erase and reformat your flash drive as a FAT32 directory format (not FAT16, not old FAT). You can do that if you have one of those cheap general purpose multi-style flash card USB gadgets. I have 2 or 3 of those, I know I got some of them as a free gift so they must be cheap. On a Windows system, right-click the flash drive and select Format, with a FAT32 directory. On a MAC OS X use the disk utility to erase the drive, and it will format with the desired FAT32.
Then, what we did is collect all the files we wanted in a folder, and when we had all of them we copied and pasted all the files at once to the drive. Worked beautifully on Compact flash and SD drives that we tried.
I have a feeling that to add anything more, we'll have to re-erase and copy-paste, so we are keeping the content directory on the computer for now.... It was a nice challenge, but the frame works well now.

I recently purchased an Aluratek Digital Photo Frame and could not be happier with the results and ease of operation... Also I have delt with their customer sevrice regarding loosing the remote on Christmas day... They sent another one out immediately "FREE OF CHARGE"
Would highly recommend this product and company to anyone looking for a photo frame...

Never having owned a digital frame before, I researched quite a bit before settling on the Aluratek. I like the big picture format. I download directly to the frame via a USB port and that's easy. I just have to be sure the pictures are cropped, color corrected, and in the proper orientation beforehand, since the frame will not perform these functions. And why should it? The reason for the 4 stars instead of 5...the remote. It is very touchy, often taking several tries before the frame responds. And if the remote is more than about a foot away from the frame, it won't work at all. So...is it worth it? The large display is great, the pictures look great, and it's fairly easy to use. Perhaps a little pricey, but I like it. (I never have used the mp3 function, so cannot comment on that.)

I researched a very long time trying to find a digital frame that would do all the things I wanted without costing me an arm and leg. This frame looks really nice and classy. It can be mounted to the wall or put up on its stand. I cannot remark about the video or music capabilities as I am not using this frame for anything but pictures. Frame itself seems sturdy wood/plastic although stand is plastic and a bit flimsy.

Pros:

Really nice large display.
Very easy set up.
Compact and easy remote.
Can load A LOT of pictures if jpeg is saved at smallest file size.
Brightness/Contrast and Color/Tint can be adjusted.
Has on/off switch on the frame itself. Plus a power on/off button on remote.
Can play many kinds of memory cards.
Can be set up to turn off and on with timer.
Picture transitions has several settings.
Slideshow changes has 3 settings for how long a picture will be displayed.
Comes with USB cable to download pictures from PC computer.
Easy load and removal of pictures.
I called the company with a few questions and the tech was very helpful and accommodating.

Cons:

Display/picture can't be seen well at all angles. You really have to view it dead on to see the picture at its best.
Picture order can't be changed. Whatever the file name is is how the frame will play it.
Has 256k internal memory on board. Media storage/playback is one or the other, not combined, so pictures will not play from internal memory AND a flash drive or memory card at the same time.
The instruction manual is a little vague.

Overall I am happy with the frame. I wish the display/pictures could be viewed from more angles and that the pictures could be organized and played in a different sequence. I would recommend this product though.