Customer Reviews

Ceiva Advanced Digital Photo Receiver with Silver Frame

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

You ought to check out the cost of subscription to the service - it is higher now than the other reviews show. This is taken from www.ceiva.com:

Local PicturePlan™ Service Options:
* Month-to-Month: $9.95/mo.
* 1 Year Plan: $99.95
* 3 Year Plan: $249.95

If local service is not available in your region, CEIVA™ also offers Toll-Free plans.
Toll-Free PicturePlan™ Service Options:
* Month-to-Month: $15.95/mo.
* 1 Year Plan: $159.95
* 3 Year Plan: $399.95

I have been a Ceiva subscriber for several years. For some reason, Ceiva decided this year that one month before my annual renewal date they would delete one of my photos and replace it with an advertisement indicating that my subscription is up for renewal. The message indicates that I can remove it by either manually deleting it or renewing. Though I delete this message every day, it comes back the next. It seems as though Ceiva has taken the position that it is acceptable to co-opt some of the limited space on your frame in order to force you into renewing early. If you don't mind this intrusion, Ceiva is for you. I, however, will be looking for a frame that does not require a subscription service.

Pros:
* the single most important "pro": there's something truly magical about an ever-changing, never-ending picture frame, especially if the recipient isn't technologically saavy (and even if they are) -- it's a wonderful "big" gift and will be almost certainly be appreciated, rather than cast aside or forgotten
* both the black and silver included frames are attractive, and don't look out of place, weird, or "techy"
* virtually every setting of the device can be controlled from the website, so the recipient doesn't need to touch anything, and you can control everything from afar -- very nice design

Cons:
* it's expensive -- and with the required subscription, the cost is like the picture rotation itself: never-ending
* the image quality is decent, but not fabulous -- good enough not be a distraction, but not so good that you say, "wow!"
* the manual brightness control works well, but can require different settings at different times of day to look its best, which is impractical, so you end up leaving it somewhere in the middle, where it looks okay most of the time, but not as good as it could
* the viewing angle is limited -- approx. 45 degrees to either side at most, with some visible washout as soon as you move beyond a "dead on" angle
* the website is a pain to use, in my opinion -- rather than a single, easy drop-box for photos, you must first places photos into albums, and *then* "send" them to the frame; it's not the end of the world, but I find it annoying

We've bought a total of seven Ceiva units for relatives and ourselves since they were first introduced. Before buying a Ceiva III you might want to consider some of the things we've learned.

1. These things do break, so you'd be well advised to buy extended warranty coverage - add $20.

2. The subscriptions are relatively expensive ($100/year) and have tended to get more expensive over time - in an era during which everything network-related has gotten cheaper.

3. Ceiva insists on downloading renewal notices to receivers nearing the expiration date of a subscription. As other reviewers have noted, that's very annoying both to the people using these things and to those of us who pay for the products and services. I don't see where Ceiva mentions this practice either on their web site or in the Terms and Conditions, but there's nothing you can do other than complain (I have many times, to no avail).

4. Ceiva's sales reps will tell you that existing, unexpired subscription plans can be transferred to new units (I verified this on three separate occasions), but in fact Ceiva will make you buy new subscriptions first.

5. Ceiva has never offered upgrade plans for older units. As an existing customer you'll actually pay more to upgrade an older receiver in mid-subscription than will a new customer.

The bottom line is that it's difficult to recommend this product to new customers on either a value basis or for customer care. Good idea, bad execution. Pity.

After 3 years of using Ceiva, we're letting 10+ family-wide Ceiva subscriptions lapse for the following reasons:

1) After the initial enthusiasm, it's hard to regularly send out photos and it's REALLY boring to see the same photos for weeks on end. Even if you just send out 20 photos a week 50 weeks a year, that's 1000 pictures a year. How many people take 1000 interesting pictures a year? (For the record, out of all of us only my brother was able to do it with any regularity)

2) The Web site, while manageable, is not easy to use or conducive to extensive use. In short, it's cumbersome. The grandparents had frustrations (that they called us to rectify) every single time they tried to use it. Even our great-grandmother, who spends most of her days writing to Congress and using the Web for research, was frustrated by Ceiva's website.

3) There's virtually no network effect. People aren't adopting it. And while you can invite people without frames to send you pictures, the hassle-factor of the site has meant that not a single person has done it more than once for us.

4) The annual subscription is FREAKIN' expensive. At the time of this writing, an annual subscription is pushing $100 US per year. Multiply that by 10 and we're spending $1000 a year to share pictures. That's insane. And there's no discount for building a network.

5) While you can buy pictures that are sent to you, you can't download them.

For the record, we're all moving to a web site called smugmug. Not only can you do online slideshows, but you can download original source pictures! My photo-bug brother uses it all the time, and I love it because I can watch the pictures and download just the ones I want. (I'm a big digital photo crafter.)

Since all but 2 of our "network" have computers, this web site works really well. For the two that don't (grandparents both), we're waiting until the prices of the new digital photo frames come down and sending DVDs of pictures to them in the meantime. They've been happy so far. And since some of the new digital photo frames can play DVDs, they'll have them for the future. Furthermore, you can put 100s of photos on a memory card or DVD, so the rotation is better than the 20 on the Ceiva.

In a nutshell, this Ceiva 3 picture frame and service is saved from getting 1 star, because conceptually, the service it provides is great. I am shocked that the company has been around so long and still has the feel of a start up, with product quality issues, customer service issues, and web interface issues.

My first Ceiva 3 receiver came with a screen defect. This was a gift, so it was a good thing I checked to make sure it worked, otherwise my gift recipient would have to deal with all the issues that I had to deal with to get a new one shipped and working again. The only saving grace was that customer service hold times were typically short.

Once you get your receiver working, it's pretty straightforward to pull photos from your collection, and upload them. Yay.

Regretfully, once you start accumulating photos on their site, their web interface for managing your photos and receivers is pretty marginal. It is not very intuitive to navigate, and there isn't something as simple as a "back" button, so you have to constantly cycle around in circles when you want to do things (i.e. always having to click back on "My Photos" and start over in the root directory). There is also no way that I have seen where you can control the ORDER of the slideshow that gets uploaded! That seems like pretty fundamental functionality for what this is, a digital slideshow viewer!

As far as picture quality goes, again, marginal. If you are expecting the quality you see on your computer monitor, you will be gravely disappointed. Even at the highest allowable picture size and quality settings, I was disappointed. I don't know if this is a function of the photos they are uploading, or if it is a fundamental flaw in the LCD quality they use. I know my photos aren't the issue because they were taken with a Canon 10D and typically look great.

Lastly, I was also very disappointed in the off-axis viewing of the Ceiva LCD. You pretty much have to be staring right at the photo frame to get good contrast in your pictures. If you go just a bit to the left, to the right, or up or down, you lose contrast and brightness drastically. This is TERRIBLE for a picture frame that is constantly being viewed from multiple angles!

It's a shame that Ceiva pretty much has a monopoly on the digital photo receiver service industry. I think they could benefit from a little competition to keep them honest in providing better value to their customers. Perhaps that's why their year subscriptions are so expensive ($100), their business model must assume that the customer doesn't see the value and leaves after a year.

I gave a Cevia picture frame for the holidays and was appalled to find that the ONLY way to make it work was to pay Cevia an additional $60 EVERY year for the online privilege of transferring "MY" pictures to "MY" picture frame. I was very embarrassed to have given a Christmas present with such a duplicitous sales/service policy, and needless to say, it is already on its way back to Amazon.com accompanied with my scathing review. (The additional $60 Cevia tried to extort from this consumer has been reinvested into another bigger and better picture frame).

I cannot express enough my disappointment with companies like Cevia's method of doing business, and I can only take some comfort in the knowledge that such greedy organizations will soon be put out of business by conscientious manufacturers that actually care about their customer's satisfaction.

We've used the Ceiva picture frame for about four years. We started off with one frame for Grandpa and now we have one for both sets of Grandparents, Great-Grandma & even our dear Aunt who lives alone and has no children of her own.

It's unanimous, they all LOVE it!! Most keep it in the kitchen so they can have their coffee with the kids! They love to show off the frame to their friends. If you keep up with it, you can send pictures of every event you shoot. We try to update pictures every week. Even if it's one or two frames. (Remember to use your cropping tools on your computer and eliminate unnecessary background stuff in your photos.)

We take advantage of some of the Ceiva features like adding an actual webpage view. (We chose the local weather page for each frame.) That way our parents know the 3-day forcast as well as the date. We also have a folder called "classic" photos that adds a new picture from a collection of photos that we stored on Ceiva's site. (These are classic B&W's, old school pics, or just those awesome pictures that they'd love to see again- holidays, B-days, etc. Very fun, because these pics are a few years old & the G-parents get to see how much the kids have grown by comparison.) We also use the future date feature where you can send a message on the frame, like Happy B-day, anniversary, etc. Set it up ahead of time & you'll never get that call from your mother that you forgot her b-day again! haha My point is there are lots of features, you just need to spend a little time learning how to use them.

If you have other family members, give them a password to access the Ceiva account & make it a family affair. My sister-in-law just started accessing the frame & now my husband's parents can see their other Grand kids. (And the other beauty is that just because we have four frames, you can choose if all the frames get the same pics or just specific frames. Therefore, my aunt doesn't see my husband's neices.)

I suggest when you purchase the frame, send it to your home, load up the pictures and then send the frame off. This way, when the recipient plugs it in, they'll see pictures right away. Before you disconnect the frame at your house, you change the dial up number to your parents area code & then it's set.

The technology, marketing, cost, and ease of use have all improved since we purchased our first frame. It is by far the best gift that we have ever given!! It's a gift that is renewed each day!

Hope this helps in your decision!

Tracy
ps-this is my only product review, because I am passionate about this product & how it has added so much joy to my family!

Our family purchased the Ceiva Advanced Digital Photo Receiver for our 99-year-old father for Christmas, and he is absolutely delighted with it. His children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, who are scattered far and wide, can now finally send him photos quickly and easily, even though he doesn't have Internet access.
The cost of a year's service is rather high now (which is why I gave a rating of four stars rather than five), but we feel it is worth it to provide up-to-date photos of family events which Grandfather can now see every day, rotating through on the viewer. We have also sent him scanned old photos of past events, so he can even enjoy memories of long ago on a daily basis.
Those who are comfortable with the technology of the digital age may find other viewers more cost effective in the long run, but for older generations, or people who prefer a very simple solution to getting photos from family and friends, the Ceiva receiver seems an excellent option.

We originally had a good experience with a Ceiva we bought for one grandparent, so we bought two more for two other grandparents, and it has been a nightmare! The short story is that neither receiver worked, and after many months of my mother having to take her receiver to friends' houses to test if it worked there, they then refused to let me return the receivers for refunds. When we called, we spent up to an hour on hold, listening to "...due to heavy holiday call volume..." messages in February. Emails were ignored. The only refund they gave me was for the service, but not for the expensive receiver. It's a nice idea, but it would be better to get a digital receiver that doesn't depend on service--just load up the pictures, plug it in, and skip the customer non-service.