Customer Reviews

Axion AXN-9105M 10-Inch LCD Digital Multimedia Player

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(23)
3 star:		(13)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

First of all, I have had this product for 3-4 weeks, and by and large I am rather satisfied with it. It is not perfect, but I have managed to get around its flaws, and have been reasonably happy with it, despite its limitations.

Picture quality - It is about what you would expect for a 640x480 LCD flourescent backlit display. If you are satisfied with the display that you get for those portable DVD players, with about a 9 inch diagonal, then you will be satisfied with this display. A previous reviewer stated that it made his 8 megapixel images look bad. Well, being that 640x480 is about 1/3 of a megapixel, I guess I would expect his disappointment. The aspect ratio is indeed wrong, but it is not unlike looking at a standard definition broadcast picture on an HDTV. Either you get black bars on either side of the picture if you want to look at the whole picture, or if you use the frame's zoom function, you get cropping of the top and bottom. Another reviewer stated the resolution was really 800x480, and I think he is right. I do not know this for sure.

Speed - The thing loads up pictures slowly with a slow memory card. It is faster with a faster memory card. I had 2 different 512MB memory cards, and it was a LOT faster with a more recently built memory card. I think its speed is acceptable with a fast mem card.

Options - Basic. I wish it had a clock and timer function to turn it on and off at specified times of the day. Cannot be battery operated.

Documentation - Stinks. It is written on a single side of a sheet of paper.

MP3 Function - I did not test this.

Remote Control - Functions well, but the sensor is in the wrong place. It is on the top of the frame behind the front Bezel. I got it to consistently work by firing it at the ceiling, and the IR would bounce off of the ceiling and hit the sensor. Your results may vary.

How to get it to show more than 650 pictures - I was able to get it to display about 2700 pictures on a single 512Mb CF card. (yes I said CF, read on.) First of all, the unit does not have a native CF slot. I had a few old CF memory cards I was not using, and I did not feel like buying another SD card. I also had an old USB CF Card reader, so I connected the card reader to the USB port, and then I inserted the CF card, and the frame read the CF card instantly. In order to get 2700 picture on it, I resized the JPG files to 640x480, so each one took up about 50-75 Kbytes. Additionally, I formatted the card to FAT32, since regualar FAT formatting would not accept all of these files. If I dumped all of these pictures directly on the card's root directory, the unit would only read the first 6-7 hundred pictures; it would not display all of them. Therefore, I created a few subdirectories, called "01", "02", "03" and so on. I placed 500 photoes in each of the subdirectories, and the unit picked up all 2700 of my photos, and now cycles through all of them.

I've only had this a few days, so I can't comment on reliability. I'd probably return this if it wasn't so close to Christmas and didn't have time to get another gift.

Things I like:
- The picture quality is pretty good
- The screen is large
- You can put your camera's SD card in, and it finds subdirectories on the card and displays the picture (or at least it works that way with my Casio).

Things I don't like:
- The resolution is NOT 640x480 as described. It is 800x480. Wider than 640x480, but nonstandard. So if you upload a picture with standard 4:3 image ratio, there are dark gray (black but not true black) bars on the side. You really have to crop the pictures to have them look good.
- Only holds 20 pictures on internal memory (not dependent on size, it has a hard limit in the UI). Plan on buying an SD card.
- The directions are not very good.
- The UI is hard to work with, but eventually I got through it OK.
- The USB port is just to connect to a thumb drive or similar (not to your computer). This turns out to not be such a problem, because you're going to have to get an SD card anyway so the USB is not very useful.

Things I didn't try:
- Multimedia features

At first I wasn't pleased with the screen, but then I remembered that most people won't be looking at it from 8 inches away.. and for the price, you'd be hard pressed to find better. The screen has a resolution of 480x234 and is very bright and fairly clear, but when resizing pictures to 480x234 it still won't take up the entire screen. TIP: I FOUND THAT TO GET OPTIMAL RESULTS RESIZE IMAGES TO ABOUT 480x260. Now I am much happier. The only thing this lacks is a broad amount of controls. Bought this as a gift for my mother for Christmas and already have tons of pics loaded on an SD card for her to display at Christmas dinner. Overall--I give it 4 stars. It would have gotten 5 from me if the screen had been a bit sharper and it came with a few more display options. It is also very stylish with its wood look and is very simple to operate.

Like other reviewers, there are things I'd like to see changed on this product. However, the bottom line is that once you start a slide show, it works very well and has an excellent picture. For the price, this is a great digital frame.

Most digital frames don't have internal memory so that is not an issue. SD cards are so cheap, who cares? Many digital frames don't accept a USB device so that is a real plus for this unit. While it is true that grandma may have a little trouble figuring this out, I didn't buy it for grandma and anyone from the digital age could get this up and running w/o ever looking at the instructions.

My only complaints are:

1 - The remote sensor is on the top behind the edge so remote functions must be done from above.

2 - I wish there were a few more choices for sideshow duration (I'd like to have a picture up for 5 or 10 minutes).

All in all, I highly recommend this unit.

Overall, I liked this product. It has a nice clear display. As other reviewers have said, there is no remote control or USB port - USB port would have been nice to upload pix to the SD card through the picture frame. After editing all my pictures in Adobe Photoshop and they filled the entire screen. I cropped the picture down then changed the canvas size (under Image dropdown) to 6" x 3.5". This completely filled the screen (no black bars on the sides). Nice screen resolution for the price. If I had paid more for this frame, I would have expected a better resolution, but I am very happy with the quality of the picture for the price. The 'instructions' are non-existant, but after pushing the buttons for a while you should be able to figure out the functions. I would recommend this frame, it would be difficult to find a better basic digital picture frame for $89.

I do not own this device. I am not reviewing it so much as clarifying several reviews. A lot of the reviews are of the 9900 (9") model. The 9700 (7") model has a lower resolution (480x234 instead of 600x480). It also has no USB port. These comments are available in the discussion/comments sections after some reviews, but a lot of people have bought this frame without reading those sections and I thought it was worth stating. I am buying this as a gift. If I wanted to spend $100, I would buy the 9". Since I want to spend less, I will not buy this device because the 7" model is not good enough for a present.

I have to say I agree with everything Bob P. described. I actually purchased a 2 Gb SD card for this frame to load it with photos from all of 2006 as a gift for my kids grandparents. It does pretty much what grandparent needs it to do. Put the card in, turn the power on, and starts a slideshow of the photos present. If you want more than that, you may want to try another manufacturer.

Here are a few other anoyances that I found: Despite having over 900 photos on the SD card, the frame only indicates 648 photos, as in 1/648 when the first photo is selected in browse, or thumbnail, mode. The Browse feature shows about 12 thumbnails at a time, in a 4x3 setup. Each thumbnail takes about 3-4 seconds to load, and you can't jump to the next thumbnail until the one that is selected has loaded. So you do the math, even trying to browse to thumbnail 100/648 is going to be painful. Anyway, I havent had the time or patience to try and browse through to the end of my photo list to see if it stops at the indicated 648 photos, or if all 900+ are present.

As far as Digital Frames go you usually find they are much more expensive, I was looking for one around $200. Then I found this Frame for 89.99 I thought it was too good to be true, and it was. The LCD itself is fine, with good resolution and fairly simple slideshow viewing. For the price you really can't beat the simplicity and ease of this frame. That's about it on the positive side, here are the negatives. The description when I ordered the product said it came with a Card Style Remote Control as well as a USB 2.0 input jack (which at this time it still says it comes with). The product DOES NOT come with either. The lack of a remote control is not that important because the controls are all on the top of the back section of the frame, though my technologically impaired mother would have preferred a remote I'm sure. The slideshow features and browsing settings are fine, although load times are pretty slow by comparison. The USB input jack not being there is a huge deal. For some this wont pose a problem, simply hook up your SD/Memory Stick/Etc to your computer via a method like a card dock, place pictures on the card, and put into the frame. For others that didn't plan on buying more accessories for this product to make it hold the "20 picture internal memory", this sucks. Also, for $20-40 more you can get a model that plays Mp3's or get a larger screen. The larger Axion Frames I'm told do include the remote and USB jack. Good product regardless. Had I not seen it with an incorrect description I still would have bought the model.

I am pleased with the purchase. Very good value. Picture quality is good and it is easy to operate. Only negative is that it was advertised as wood frame when in fact it is plastic. However, it looks good. This is my second purchase of this product: one for myself and one as a gift.

I received the frame today and I already loaded it up with pictures. I resized my home pictures to 640 x 480 which is the highest resolution you can do on this product. The pictures look awesome on the screen. Love the fact that on Slide Show mode you can determine how long you want the picture to display for. ( 5 seconds or longer.) The frame is beautiful. The online pictures do not do it justice. It also feels nice and sturdy. I have not tried out the sound yet as I was too excited to take the time to do that. I am hoping they are as good as the rest of the product. If you are in the market for a digital picture frame and do not wish to spend $200 and up, this is the frame for you! In my opinion it is a VERY good item for the money.