Customer Reviews

Coby DP-559 5.6-Inch Digital Photo Frame with MP3 Player

5 star:		(127)
4 star:		(108)
3 star:		(72)
2 star:		(57)
1 star:		(104)

 

 

I read lots of reviews on products before I purchase them. Don't we all? So as I am looking for a digital photo frame for my mom's gift for Christmas, I begin to get swept away by the MANY reviews regarding these frames. "The ratio is incorrect" "The qualiy is subpar" "I cannot program the [insert technical phrase] wih this product". Now I am thinking that my $60 gift is going to turn into a $200 gift, just so I can insure I am not giving my mom a blurry, difficult to work piece of junk!

Well, I take a breather, step back from the computer and reassess. Neither my mom nor myself do photography as a hobby. I have a nice 7MP camera whose setting is mostly on "General Use". I have NEVER used the Manual Focus feature. I consider the picure a success if I can either A)Print it out as a 3 1/2 x 4 to show to others or B) I can view it on my computer without squinting my eyes in an effort to figure out what I am looking at.

To make a long review endless: This frame is perfect. It supports most memory cards so you can load as many pictures as you would like. There are less than 8 buttons, all of which are clearly labelled, which makes my mom happy. She got it working in less than 5 minutes. The pictures looked just like they did on my computer monitor - my kids' cuteness projected well.:)

If you are a camera geek (a fond term, nothing mean intended here), you may want more than this frame can offer. But for those of us who are casual picture takers and simply want to pass on the memories, this item was just right.

Easy to get up and running, the unit goes into slideshow mode after power on automatically. Picture quality was excellent. Easy to put pictures on a memory card and have them show up. Recommend re-cropping your pictures to 16x9 aspect ratio so you get a full picture. Unit can accomodate std. 4x6 format as well, but will not fill the screen. Small Quirks are:
- When in slideshow mode, you can't hit the pause button to ZOOM in.
- Very poorly designed stand that WILL collapse after a couple of weeks.
- Documentation is lacking (typical COBY style)
- No support for QuickTime video popular in some digital cameras
- Unit has a faint lingering glow on screen after power down which doesn't go away unless you unplug the unit.

This product has served the purpose my wife wanted it to. One thing I wish I knew before I bought this item is it will not play mp3s and show pics at the same time. It does have one glitch that is not a serious problem. When the unit gets warm from use, it will put lines through a picture every now and then. The only other thing I would make sure of is that you have some sort of extra external memory card. This unit does not have internal memory of any sort. Jump drives are cheap and easy to use though!

Diappointing picture quality. The online product overview states 'crisp picture', but I found it very grainy or pixelated (& I used high res digital photos from a new camera). It also had trouble reading 2 different SD cards, but I got it to work with the 3rd one. Manual is vague. Please note there are buttons on the top of frame to deal with the onscreen menu, although it looks like it should be touch screen. The frame is nice looking & has a nice finish. It doesn't look like wood, but it has a nice molded shape. Also has a small power brick. I'm returning the two I bought for gifts (drat).

I guess a middle aged person like myself should know you almost always get what you pay for and that is certainly the case with the Coby DP-758 7-Inch Widescreen photo frame. Sure it's attractive enough with a well finished removable frame, but as soon as the power switch goes on it is apparent this is no bargain. Very grainy display, apparent even in the menu. Pixel quality is VERY poor, regardless of the original photo quality. No amount of photo editing resulted in a better quality image. Incidentally, this is a 3x5 aspect ratio frame, and even though the description touts the 16:9 ratio its a little shocking to see it on a frame this small. The stock photo married to the description is NOT what this looks like, not nearly as tall. I'm not normally a buy and return guy but I bought 2 and returned them both, opting instead for 2 Philips 6.5 inch in the clear and black frame. Received them today and the difference is unbelievable.The Philips have a very sharp display and are easy to use. Amazon handled everything A+ as usaual

I wanted to get a photo frame for my sister. She doesn't have a computer (and she doesn't want one) and I wanted to get her something easy to use and something that looked really great. I didn't think I was going to buy one of these Cobys. I thought I would buy either a Phillips or Kodak. But after doing a little research on the specs of each, the Coby DP887 was the natural choice.

It has higher resolution than most other frames (800x600).
It has higher brightness than most other frames (350 cd/m2).
It has higher contrast ratio than most other frames (500:1).
It uses LED backlight technology (the latest and best at this time)
It accepts SD, MMC, MS (including MS Duo), xD, CF cards & USB flash drives. (note that it does not have SDHC certification to accept the newest SDHC cards)
It has both a full size USB port for USB flash drives and a mini USB port to hook it up to your computer.
It has built in speakers, a headphone jack and volume control.
It plays MP3s & WMA audio files (I have not tested this yet).
It also plays AVI and MP4 video files of the type generated by video cameras (At this time, I have only tried one small camera-generated AVI file and it played it well w/sound)
It has a wireless remote control.
The DP887 has a 4:3 aspect ratio, which matches the vast majority of digital photos.

The one thing you need to know about this frame (and the rest of the Cobys) is that it doesn't have any internal memory. That may seem like a problem to you, but let me explain why it is not. It can play material directly from a memory card inserted into any of it's four different card slots or directly from an inserted USB flash drive. For example, 1 or 2 GB SD cards are cheap. You can stick a 2GB SD card in there and now you have a 2GB frame. Compare that with some of the other frames which cannot play directly from memory cards and require you to copy material to the frame itself, which usually have 512mb or maybe 256mb or less of memory. Besides, who wants to deal with the additional step of copying material directly to the frame? In fact, if you already have USB flash drive or a memory card reader, you won't have to hook this frame up to your computer at all. Just load up an SD, MMC, MS, xD, CF card, or USB flash drive with photos and plug it in to the frame. In this way, for example, you can just send your parents a cheap SD card preloaded with pics in the mail if you wanted to. All they would have to do it plug it in to the frame and go.

The frame also allows you to copy material from any inserted memory card to another, or to/from a USB Flash drive - through the frame itself, with no computer involvement. This works in any direction, meaning you can copy to/from any memory card or usb flash drive inserted into the frame.

For example, you can copy photos/files

from a USB Flash drive to an SD card
from an SD card to a USB Flash drive
from an SD card to a CF card
...etc., using only the frame (no computer).

The frame has a little menu driven "os" which accommodates this functionality, though it is very clumsy. This would be helpful if for example, you were using an SD card as your main storage for the frame and you wanted to add photos from a USB flash drive but you don't have access to a computer, or an SD card reader (ie. say you were visiting your parent's house and you wanted to add more photos to their frame).

The frame also functions as a 5-in-1 memory card reader when connected to a computer. This makes it easy if you don't already own a memory card reader for your computer or a USB flash drive. Plug the frame into your computer, and four new removable mass storage drives will be recognized and appear (one each for the SD/MMC, MS, xD, CF card slots). Since the frame itself acts as a memory card reader, you can attach the frame to your computer and use it to load up a memory card inserted into the frame.

To those people who are complaining because they are trying to attach the frame to their computer and copy photos to it, you must understand that the frame does not have it's own internal memory! You MUST have a memory card inserted into one of the frame's card slots in order to copy material directly to/from a computer. Think of the frame as a host, it is not a storage device in and of itself.

Operation is simple. Just turn it on, insert the preloaded memory card(s) of your choice (or USB flash drive), select that card graphically via the remote control or keys which are located along the sides of the frame (you have to do this because you can have one of four different types of memory cards inserted simultaneously), then select slideshow and viola!

The frame will automatically scale down any large photos, which either have to be in JPG or BMP format. It does not automatically rotate them to fit the orientation of the frame, but you can do that manually with the remote control (though you can't save that preference in the frame). It is best to orient the photos ahead of time on your computer. The slideshow function has about ten different transitions and you can set the frame to use one specific effect of your choice or randomly use all ten effects. You can change the on screen duration of the of the photos from 5 seconds all way to 1 day. You can set the photos to play randomly or in the same order each time. You can also have MP3 or WMA music play though the slideshow, though I have not tired this yet. Using the thumbnails it generates, you could also select a single photo to display with no slideshow.

The frame has adjustable volume (for music and video playback) and an easily adjustable brightness control (via a wheel knob on the frame). I find it very easy to use. It does not have light detection to automatically brighten or darken the frame based on ambient lighting conditions - that would have been nice. The remote control has a very limited range and working angle, which can be annoying. The on/off switch is located on the frame itself and you cannot use the remote control to turn the frame on or off. If you turn the frame off during a slideshow, the next time you turn it back on, it will automatically restart the slideshow unless you tell it otherwise. Because of that, you could plug it into an electrical timer to easily have it turn on and off at set times of your choice.

Overall, I am very pleased with the frame so far and my sister loves it! The LCD looks fantastic, it is very bright, very sharp and it has excellent color and contrast. The photos look natural and clear (assuming they were natural and clear in the first place :) The frame is easy to use, it offers many options for loading photos and it can even serve as a 5-in-1 memory card reader. The brushed-metal outer frames (it comes with both silver and gold) are very sharp looking. I would recommend the DP887 to anyone looking for a digital photo frame.

NOTE: The Amazon description for this product is wrong in that it definitely does not have an "AV Output for use with Home Theater Systems" or a "Composite Video output." Not that I ever thought it did, (its a photo frame!) but just note that it definitely does not have any type of video out, so don't buy it thinking that it does. The rest of the specs are correct.

If you have any questions feel free to leave comments as I will check back occasionally.

I purchased 3 of these frames for Christmas gifts based on the affordable price. The idea was to pre-load the frames with photos to give to our family, since we won't be together for the holidays. When I received the frames, I was really disappointed in the picture quality, but was going to keep them until I had trouble with the interface and horribly vague manual. I am a pretty tech savvy person, and all I wanted to accomplish was have our photos start up when you plug in the thing. Everytime you turn the frame on, you have to select about 5 prompts to get the slideshow started. I called Coby to see if there were other settings, and they emailed me instructions on reinstalling a MP3 player....nothing about the frame. I returned all three and purchased the $99 Westinghouse frame instead, which works like a dream, and has lots of settings to customize viewing the images...

This little digital picture frame does it all, playing back photos, music and video (AVI only coded in Xvid). Good bargin considering other frames cost an arm and leg more; well maybe not a leg but certainly the arm. However be forewarned that this device DOES NOT, I REPEAT DOES NOT play photos and music at the same time and can only do this with video, but that is being redundant since movies are picture and sound anyway. The ad nor the box said this and in fact made it appear to be able to achieve this feat, which it cannot. That is why this product lost a star. That and the picture sometimes shows up fuzzy but that is only after like 20 minutes or so at a time.

Shopping for a photo frame has proven to be a difficult task. There are so many brands out there and prices vary by a ton. The last thing I wanted to do was get suckered in by a less expensive frame that ended up stretching my photos and making them all look grainy.

I knew I wanted a frame with a high resolution so the photos came out clear and crisp. I wanted the 4:3 aspect-ratio instead of "widescreen" because I did not want my photos to stretch, have black bars on the sides or get cropped. I didn't want clear, black or wood because it was going to be displayed in my parent's home and those styles don't match up well with their decor.

After some long nights of research and took a gamble and bought this frame. Despite this page saying "widescreen" I knew it wasn't right because of the 800x600 resolution. When I opened the box, my hunch was right. 4:3 aspect-ratio. Yeehaw!

The interchangeable frames are beautiful. The silver metal resembles stainless steel or satin nickel and looks stunning. The gold frame (which comes pre-installed) is more of a pale brass color. Each frame is backed with a velvet-like cloth. The quality is better than expected.

Setup couldn't have been easier. I copied a bunch of photos from my computer onto the blank 1GB memory card I purchased. I plugged it into the memory slot on the frame, selected memory card from the menu, and instantly got the first page of thumbnails on the screen. I selected the first photo and pressed the "Slide Show" button on the remote. That was it. Photos began to cycle every few seconds with random transitioning effects. The quality of the photos was awesome. So much better then some of the cheap 7" widescreen frames I've seen in just about every store nowadays. My parents are going to be thrilled on Christmas.

I haven't tinkered with the MP3, video or additional features and capabilities just yet. I'll be sure to once my parents open up their gift, preloaded with 100+ family photos. :)

For those looking for a frame with great resolution, modern looks and top notch construction . . . look no further, this is the frame for you.


***12/31/07 MP3 Update***

We copied a bunch of Christmas MP3s to the memory card. There is a setting in the menu under Audio/Music that allows background music to play during the slideshow. This was a nice touch. Once the slideshow started, the music followed shortly after. Volume control and mute are both easily done from the remote control. You can also view and play the files directly from the Music menu. Sound quality was as expected.

Nice product. Doesn't play music and picture at the same time and videos have no sound. ALSO site and box both have a pik of a 4:3 ratio frame. Inside the box its a different story, its 16:9. Amazon promptly corrected their mistake and said it should be fixed on the website. Be forewarned, THIS IS A 16:9 RATIO FRAME!!!