Digital Spectrum Memory Frame Ultra MF-1201 12.1-Inch Digital Picture Frame

by Digital Spectrum

Product Details

• Item Weight: 2.6 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 6 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B001QVNPPY
• Item model number: MF1201
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: January 28, 2009

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

The MF-1201 comes with a glossy piano black faceplate, an ultra slim modern body and a chrome metal stand, making for a sophisticated look right out of the box. A unique feature of the MemoryFRAME ULTRA series is that these products are designed to match any décor. The units features interchangeable faceplates and are compatible with ready-made frames, available at any frame or home décor store. The 12.1-inch model comes with an additional Ivory art quality paper matte and a Black wood frame, allowing the user a wide variety of looks and style with one product.

Feature rich and easy to use, the MemoryFrame Ultra plays slideshows, movies and music, in addition to presenting your favorite family and vacation pictures in style. Savvy enough for the office and customizable for the home, the MF-1201 has a clock & calendar function simultaneously displaying your favorite pictures while playing music in the background.

Product Description

The MF-1201 comes with a glossy piano black faceplate, an ultra slim modern body and a chrome metal stand, making for a sophisticated look right out of the box. A unique feature of the MemoryFRAME ULTRA series is that these products are designed to match any décor. The unit features interchangeable magnetic faceplates and is compatible with ready-made frames, available at any frame or home décor store. There is an additional ivory art quality paper matte and an Espresso wood frame, allowing the user a wide variety of looks and style with one product. Display on your desk, book shelves or hand from a wall in either portrait or landscape view. Feature rich and easy to use, the MemoryFrame Ultra plays slideshows, movies and music, in addition to presenting your favorite family and vacation pictures in style. The user interface is very easy to use and features a unique film-strip preview. In addition to the remote control, the MF-1201 features an intuitive joystick controller built into the back of the frame. Savvy enough for the office and customizable for the home, the MF-1201 has a clock and calendar function simultaneously displaying your favorite pictures while playing music in the background using the built-in stereo speakers. With internal memory of 512 MB, you can store 1000's of images on board, and an endless number using memory cards in the built-in 4-in-1 card reader. The 12.1-inch digital 800 X 600 TFT LCD panel provides brilliant images. The 4:3 aspect ratio will ensure the images are displayed properly.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Bummer, November 3, 2009

By 

Terry Crandall (Bend, OR) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Digital Spectrum Memory Frame Ultra MF-1201 12.1-Inch Digital Picture Frame (Electronics)

I set out to buy a digital photo frame that would display an 8"x10" picture, which ends up being a nominal 12.1 inch size. This is apparently a size no "recognizable" electronics company has chosen to bother with. In the end, I chose this model by Digital Spectrum after a lot of research among the various obscure manufacturers offering a comparable sized unit. It seemed to have the fewest negative reviews.

I was generally happy with the quality of the displayed pictures. I also found the limited display options not a problem, but then I wasn't looking for anything fancy here. If you're looking for a Random Display feature for example, look elsewhere. Likewise for anything more sophisiticated than fast, medium, & slow choices for slide show intervals.

My main gripe is with the advertised capability to handle folders. The best way to do this is with the remote control. Unfortunately, this is a tiny little piece of junk that balks at almost every turn for anything more than the on/off function, and sometimes even with that. When trying to use the arrow keys to navigate between folders, it simply refuses to go to some of the displayed folder choices (sometimes this can be rectified by double clicking the appropriate arrow key, but not always). At other times, the remote freezes completely, such that no key works. The keys themselves are of the "bubble" type and have the look and feel of early failure.

There is a set of controls on the back of the display unit that can be used instead of the remote, but it doesn't have all the functions that the remote offers. For example, you can't start a slide show from a selected folder there.

There is also a concern with this model's ability to read files on external media. When I tried to display pictures contained on a thumb drive, the unit failed to recognize some of the pictures in a given folder.

Finally, my one attempt to contact the company's technical support via email (the only option provided) resulted in no response after waiting more than 2 weeks. I only wanted to ask if the SD Memory slot had the capability of reading SDHC cards - not exactly a tough technical question.

I gave serious consideration to returning this unit to Amazon for a refund. In the end, I chose not to because I couldn't identify an alternative product from the various "no-name" offerings that promised to be any better based on available reviews.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Nice frame some quirks, June 1, 2009

By 

J. Clark - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Digital Spectrum Memory Frame Ultra MF-1201 12.1-Inch Digital Picture Frame (Electronics)

The frame is nice quality and has good picture quality. It is very easy to transfer pictures between the computer and frame but is a pain to transfer photos in other manners such as USB or memory card. The directions are not very user friendly so it was also a little difficult to understand how to work the frame.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great present (pre-loaded) for the older crowd, November 5, 2009

By 

Jane Kaufman - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Digital Spectrum Memory Frame Ultra MF-1201 12.1-Inch Digital Picture Frame (Electronics)

Bought this for my parents' 50th wedding anniversary. Pre-loaded family pictures and about 10 of their favorite songs. I barely used any of the internal memory--I loaded close to 200 pictures--and the slideshow played seamlessly.

I did a lot of research and found this product to be the best bang for the buck with screen size, memory capacity, and featured functionality (mp3 and video capable). I'd recommend this to anyone. Easy to hook up to a computer via USB and drag and drop pictures. Took me less than 1 min to load the 10 music files and 200 pictures once I had selected them by dragging and dropping them from my computer file into the frame's USB connection folder.

You can make different slideshows by adding different folders onto the internal memory.

DOWNFALL: Cannot imbed video into a picture slide show. Have to play all videos separate. Cannot move (or I couldn't figure out how to move) songs loaded to the internal memory into a certain order of your preference. Also cannot select only certain songs to play with certain slide shows--have to play all the songs or none at all (I think; did not find any instructions that told me I could).