Customer Reviews

Aluratek 15-inch Hi-Res Digital Photo Frame with 256MB Internal Memory

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

 

 

Although I am pleased with the quality of the product, I do not appreciate products that do not clarify limitations in their manual or in their advertising.

1) this product has a undocumented limitation of 1000 digitalpictures. If there are more than 1000 pictures in a folder on the memory card inserted in the frame, the product does not work and there is nothing that identifies the problem. I had to file a ticket with the manufacturer and it took two responses before they admitted their defect. This limitation is about 1/2 of the internal memory and about 1/8 my 2 GB memory card and is a waste.

2) if you put more than one folder on the memory disk, it will only read one folder for pictures even if both folders have less than 1000 photos. If you put a second folder with movies or music, that is not a problem-only pictures. This was also confirmed by the manufacturers help desk. The underutilized capacity is unbelievable.

3) the frame does not actualy do a random slide show. it also does not actually pick a specific folder in a second frame to show. Given a 1000 picture limitation and a 10 second viewing per picture, there is about a 2-3 hour recyle. without a random slideshow, the repetiion becomes boring.

all these product limitations, did not exist in my previous, smaller digital picture frame. Despite the very good picture quality, if the advertising or product manual hightighted these product limitations, I probably would not have ordered this product or would have returned it on receipt.

While the look of this frame is nice and the concept is good, it has some crippling limits. When I called tech support and said I had put about 1400 pictures in a sub-folder but they weren't showing, the gentleman said "oh, no, that is too many." Then he also said "it will only read one directory". When I asked if that meant it only reads the top level, the gentleman said "yes." I am not confident he understood the question though, see below.

1. While Tech Support says the frame does not read subdirectories, I believe that it may. Why would this a problem? See 2.
2. CF and SD (and others?) cards only allow about 120-130 items at the top level directory so you are effectively limited to 119-130 pictures at the top level.
3. I have gotten it to read an SD card with 550 files in a subdirectory, but it wouldn't work with 1409 files.

It wouldn't be so bad if the description (even the MANUAL!) disclosed these limits, however it doesn't.

Without the limits, I'd give this a much higher review for its look and workmanship, but the it is easy to have hundreds and thousands of files and easy to fit them on a 4GB or 8GB or 16GB card, so why not support it?

This could be an excellent product with just a little more work.

1024 x 768 resolution is just absolutely bright and colors are sharp. This is a big frame I use for signage for our small dine in restaurant, works great to post our daily specials for the day. Definitely money well spent.

I purchased the 15 inch frame and although it was very clear it was awkward to find a place in the house where it could be displayed. Keep in mind that if put on a wall it needs an electrical outlet behind the frame or a way to disguise the electrical chord. Another significant issue was the memory card inserts from the bottom of the frame. Thus when you want to change the memory chard you have to pick up the entire frame, turn it over and balance it while you change out the card. I felt this was inconvenient for a large (15 inch) frame. It could just as easilty been put on the side thus it could be changed out merely by rotating the frame.

At first we planned to use ours for inspirational quotes and pictures in a slideshow on the wall in the office. But when we discovered some of the other things this frame can do, we plan to use it for looping videos on our table display in home stores.

FILE FORMATS (the formats I've tried so far)

Pictures: supports .jpg .png -- does not support .tif
Audio: supports .mp3
VIDEO: from the knowledgebase online, "supports AVI video files using the DivX codec and non-DRM-restricted DivX video files" they recommend downloading the free 'Freemake Video Converter' software to convert your videos to .AVI with the XVID codec. This converter is very easy to use and works (and hey, some converted .avi files end up being smaller than the original files, which never hurts). (Before finding this info I had found that it fully supported .AVI .mpg and .mpeg -- it didn't fully support .wmv .mp4 .mov .vob -- By fully support I mean, I used the USB cable to transfer the files from my pc to the frame's memory just fine. But when you open up the directory on the frame, some files would not appear on the list, some would appear on the list but when played would only show a few seconds of black screen. While the fully supported ones transferred, show on the list, and play normally. Also, I did have one or two .avi files that weren't fully supported, so I would stick to the DivX codec standard for determining if your videos will play.) The link for the helpdesk article and converter link--[...]

Powering On and Off

It turns out that the frame has a flip power switch on the back, which can be set to On when you use the remote to turn it off. Set up like this (plugged in to AC power of course) using the calendar/time settings, you can schedule it to turn on and off for one set of times 'Disable, Once, Everyday, Weekdays, or Weekends'. (But you only get one option, ie it won't let you set one pair of times for weekdays and a different pair for weekends.) We thought this was a great feature, since before we were using a dvd player on our table in a store that shuts the power to the building off at night, which required us to visit the store and manually turn it on again every morning.

Quality

It is true that our screen has some dark flecks of dirt (all under 2mm big) within the screen, in the middle of the viewing area. But at farther viewing distances you can't see it. As for the screen resolution, coming from someone who uses a 1280 x 1024 pc monitor, up close it's choppy looking. But it is the advertised 1024 x 768 and is fine at farther viewing distances.

I replaced my Pandigital (see reasons for moving from Pandigital below) frame with this Aluratek 15" frame and WOW what a difference. This frame is MUCH easier to use and responds immediately from commands from the remote. It also can view the photos in a multi photo option. It will view just one photo at time if you wish but in multi- mode it shows 2, 3 or 4 at time. On this size of frame the photos are still large and they look beautiful. It randomly changes from the different number of photos shown. I would highly recommend this frame to whomever wants the larger size and actually want some great features not even offered on the Pandigital.

First I have to say the main reason for returning the Pandigital frame is because of the annoying blue arrow that always show in slide show mode (isn't this the mode used most often) When I contacted the manufacture I was told that is just the way it is. I am afraid of a serious burn-in problem if used to long. The navigation/setup of this frame is horrible. I am very tech savy and yet this was not intuitive at all. It would also take several seconds to respond to any action performed from the remote which would make you wonder if it got the signal or not. You have to use the remote if you hang on the wall because they put the controls on the back of the frame (not the sides) so you HAVE to take it off the wall to touch the buttons. You also have to take the frame down and remove back cover if you want to put another SD card in. In order to use the Wi-Fi feature you have to buy THEIR dongle. The last reason is the lack of support from the company.

I've never written an Amazon review and I've never returned a product I purchased through Amazon. But, I have to say that this was the worst product I can imagine for displaying photos and images. What appears on the screen cannot even be justifiably called an "image". Don't buy it!