Customer Reviews

HP DF300A 3.5-Inch Portable Digital Picture Frame

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

My son & his wife gave me this df300 as a Christmas gift a couple of years ago. I absolutely love it. It is soo easy to pop in the camera card and take along in my purse to show a tremendous amount of pictures to family and friends. I find using the card allows me to change out the pictures eliminating the old ones and adding newer ones. The size of the card determines how many you can store, of course. A 512 MB holds more than most people will take the time to watch anyway. I have over 150 photos and have more than half the storage space still available. Terrific product that I will purchase as gifts for others. the quality of the photo has room for improvement but I am sure that will happen in newer models.

The target audience for this device seems to be the person who would otherwise carry around a fan-fold wallet full of personal photos to, for example, "show off the grandkids". It's probably ok for that purpose, but the small screen size limits its practicality as a desktop photo frame. And if you already carry around a cell phone or PDA, especially one with a large screen (iPhone/iTouch, Blackberry, etc.), then this device won't give you anything that you don't already have.

As another reviewer mentions, you need to have a memory card installed in order to put your own pictures on to the device. Once you get pictures on the card, you can either view them directly and leave the card in place or transfer them to the device's internal storage. The capacity of the internal storage in terms of MB is not clear - the documentation only says it will hold "up to 45 pictures" (by my math, that translates to about 4MB - not 4GB, 4MB). That said, unless you don't want to just keep the memory card installed in the frame, you will likely not need to use the internal memory. Once you have a memory card installed, you *can* add and remove pictures on that card by connecting the device to your computer. You have to put the device into PC connection mode (see the instructions) - this will make the frame show up like any other memory card reader on your PC. Given that the screen resolution is only 320x240 pixels, you can fit an awful lot of pictures in a small amount of memory if you adjust the files' sizes accordingly. I used Picasa to export a copy of all the pictures I wanted to put on the device and had Picasa resize those to the correct resolution for me in the process.

Pros: Charges from the computer or a wall socket with included cables, easy to load new pictures by swapping memory cards in and out or using the PC connection, comes with a padded carrying case to protect the screen as you transport the device.

Cons: Really tiny screen. I mean, some digital cameras have view screens larger than this by now. The viewable area is just 2.5" wide and 2" high. That's smaller than a standard business card. Another con is the glossy frame - the screen is small enough and hard enough to view as it is without adding the distraction of the glossy bezel. A third drawback is that the internal battery is not user-replaceable so when it stops holding a charge (HP estimates battery life at 2 years) you will have to keep it plugged in if you want to use it - meaning it's no longer so portable - or replace the enitre unit. A fourth drawback or at least a "gotcha" is that, as implied above, you have to either buy a memory card to use with the frame or temporarily use one you already have to transfer images to the device's [limited] memory. Finally, on top of all of this is what seems to be a rather high price in the 40 to 50 dollar range at the time of this writing for fancy photo wallet.

Having said all of this, if you really just need to carry digital photos in your purse or briefcase to show off, then it's not such a bad solution. For applications outside of that sweet spot, however, there are many better options available.

The digital frame is an excellent way to show pictures at work to fellow employees and friends. The only drawback is that the battery life is very short. If you keep it plugged into an outlet it works fine. I do not use the internal memory since the cost of flash sticks are relatively inexpensive and it is simple to plug one in an look at the pictures that you currently want to share. The 3.5" screen is larger than the screen on the camera giving you a better perspective on what it is you want to show.

This digital picture frame was a great gift for my mother inlaw because of its ease of use. The only draw back of this product is that the processor is very slow in booting up and changing modes. All in all, its everything that it is advertised to be.

I got this for my Mother in Law so she can show off her Grandson. The size of the screen on her old one was too small. This one is the perfect size. It's very slick looking, easy to use and love the nice case it comes with. I highly recommend it. Oh and GREAT Price!

We saw this portable frame at a family members home while on vacation. This is a great portable way to view digital camera pictures. You can use the same card right out of the camera to view pictures easier. It doesn't take long to charge once you receive it. It has a small carry case along with usb plug that plugs into the computer or into wall charger. It was great to take recent pictures of vacation to friends house for them to see. Better than trying to view them from digital camera. For the price this is great buy.

This is a well-presented, classy little photo frame. The screen quality is more than adequate, (one review compared it to the quality of a cell phone screen - I think it is far superior to standard flip phones and didn't have any problems with graininess.) The case is very nice, and it is all together a very functional, handsome package. Software was intuitive and straightforward. One thing that has been pointed out is that it has almost no internal memory, and needs and SD card, which isn't included. The upside is, with an SD card, you have room for LOTS of pictures. I'm very happy with this product!

I love the sleek compact design on this product. I have not seen any portable digital picture frames in the stores so I was delighted when I found this one on Amazon. I have two beautiful babies and take tons of pictures of them so this is perfect for displaying the many pictures I have and it fits nicely into my purse. I would recommend this product for all those other picture fanatics out there. Love the product!

After online research I decided to get that frame for my Mom to keep her grandchildren pictures in her purse.
First problem is the memory card didn't 'lock' inside the picture frame, however the card worked fine in every other card reader.
Would definitely have returned had it not already been sent overseas as a (disappointing) gift.

We figured out a way to keep the card inside the frame with help of a piece of cardboard paper. After that we could view the pictures that were only on the memory card since the internal memory was empty. (IMPORTANT to note that it did not work also with the USB cable; files couldn't be copied to the frame via computer since the frame was not detected.) Picture quality was pretty good and was very easy to browse through and good for those who are not into technology much to learn to use.

If not for it being discontinued and the defaults in it, would have made a 5 star and brought much smiles to come and memories lasting. However that was not the case, thus it's a 1 star item... HP did disappoint us this time.

This frame is excelent, the quality of pictures are incredible and it can show the pictures using the original size (pictures of 10 Mp), now it's working with a SDHC car of 16 Gb and it works perfectly. It's small and portable. More than I was waiting.