HP DreamScreen 100 10.2-Inch Wireless Connected Screen

by HP

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 15 x 2.8 inches ; 4 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 5 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B002GJTZBI
• Item model number: KY616AA#ABA
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (45 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
  • #54 in Camera & Photo > Accessories > Photo Studio > Storage & Presentation Materials > Digital Picture Frames
• Date first available at Amazon.com: September 16, 2009

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

Want a digital frame that does more than show photos? Buy an HP DreamScreen. Access content on your PC and the Web—wirelessly—from any room in your home.

IDEAL FOR:

Photos Play slideshows of photos uploaded to Snapfish, plus your favorite music at the same time. Music Change the music. Stream playlists from any PC in your home, so you can mix up the tunes. Video Enjoy the show. Access your digital video library quickly using the HP DreamScreen. Facebook Stay in the know. View friends’ updates, photos and events without using a PC or cell phone. Pandora & HP SmartRadio Tune in. Listen to your Pandora.com stations or stream live radio from around the world without using a PC. Alarm Clock Forget the snooze button. Wake up to your favorite music. Weather & Calendar Rain or shine? Get your 5-day forecast on the spot, plus view a monthly calendar.

Photos Music Video Facebook Pandora & HP SmartRadio Weather

SPECIFICATIONS:

Display 10.2" Widescreen (800 x 480) Input/Output 2 USB Ports, 6-in-2 Card Reader, 1 Headphone Speakers Built-in Stereo Speakers Networking Ethernet, Wireless 802.11b/g Media Files Supported Video File Formats: MPEG 1, 2, 4, H.264 Photo File Formats: JPEG, PNG, BMP Audio File Formats: MP3, WMA, AAC, WAV

Display

FEATURES:

Remote Control Stand Touch-sensitive Controls Wall Mountable INCLUDED

Remote Control

Product Description

The HP 10-inch DreamScreen makes it easy to enjoy photos, music, video, as well as weather, clocks,calendars, Facebook, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

80 of 90 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Solution Looking For A Problem, October 5, 2009

By 

Kevin Nicholls "jaded, aging hipster" (Milford, MI) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: HP DreamScreen 100 10.2-Inch Wireless Connected Screen (Electronics)

(What's this?)

The HP DreamScreen is at its heart, a digital photo frame that's begging to be much more.

As with so many of 2009's consumer electronics, the DreamScreen is yet another example of a company trying to bolt on extended connectivity to popular sites. This time around, we have access to Facebook, Pandora, and Snapfish via built-in wired and wireless networking.

Setting up the DreamScreen is fairly painless. It quickly found and connected to my WPA2 network without any problems, and the built-in applications all ran as I had expected them to, albeit, very slowly. I thought that the slowness may be due to the product being so new, and immediately checked for a firmware update. Sure enough, there was one. However, it didn't seem to improve the response time.

The DreamScreen is quite large. Probably larger than what I'd want on my desk, and a bit too large for a normal end table. And while the back has slots to accept every type of flash media under the sun, it also makes the unit itself quite deep, making wall mounting an unattractive option.

As I had said previously, the included applications all work pretty much as I had expected them to. Facebook is a passive stream of status updates or photos. Snapfish can be pointed to someone's account, and Pandora seems to do the right thing if you already have a Pandora account with stations set up. The weather application updates quickly and often, and is visually appealing. The inherent problem with all of these, is that they aren't integrated or well executed.

So, mixing photos between any of the applications is just not possible without navigating between the different applications. On one hand, I can understand that the DreamScreen doesn't claim to do it, but if you're going to bundle multiple photo options, being able to see them all in a rotation seems like a natural function to me. And while Pandora works, the controls are not well thought out (e.g. making the music stop) and as you'd probably expect from a device like this, the audio quality is not very good.

Ultimately, you end up with a product that you'd normally "set and forget", but that really needs a lot of interaction to make any of the features work. I could see having this mounted somewhere that I could enjoy glancing at the pictures, and notice every once in a while that it's telling me what the weather's like, or that one of my friends has posted new pictures on Facebook. But in execution, I'd need to go find the remote, and navigate to each function. If I'm going to take the time to do that, why wouldn't I just grab my computer? (Or if I didn't have one, why wouldn't I spend about as much money on a netbook?)

The image quality is decent, but not nearly as good as what you'd see on the similarly sized Sony DPF-V900 9-Inch Digital Photo Frame (and a popular choice, now that I see it on another review). Again, it does what HP says it does, but it doesn't do it as well as it could, and seems almost an afterthought.

The DreamScreen really begs the question: "What need does this fulfill?"
If you're looking for a photo frame, you have better options from Sony, Kodak, and others.
If you're looking for an easy link to Facebook, the interface and one-way nature of the device puts a wet towel on that.
If you're looking for a portable media center, the audio quality is a serious barrier.
If you're looking for a "keep Grandma updated with something easy to use" device, you're hitting limitations with the interface (and wireless availability).

I just can't think of a single reason to buy this over another product, other than to say "Hey, check out this frame. Look at everything it can do."

29 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars HP Dreamscreen 100 was $149 at Best Buy and I am listening to it now, November 30, 2009

By 

Vance Jochim "vjochim" (Mount Dora, FL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: HP DreamScreen 100 10.2-Inch Wireless Connected Screen (Electronics)

Review of the HP Dreamscreen 100 (10" wide screen)
by Vance Jochim
Nov. 30, 2009

I was in Best Buy looking for a picture frame and encountered the HP Dreamscreen 100 - the plus for me was that it played Pandora, and looked very nice. It was the Saturday after Black Friday and they must have had some left from the Black Friday sale and the price was $149, not the retail $249. I had to get the clerk find one under a counter. (You can also get a more costly Dreamscreen 300, which apparently is no different from the model 100 except the screen is 13" (diagonal), rather than 10". That reminds me of my first TV which had a 13" screen.

I have been using a five year old HP TC1100 tablet for a Pandora player, but it has horrendous delays when turning on, and this Dreamscreen is much, much faster...hardly any bootup time. Amazingly, the TC1100 has become a cult machine and many people are upgrading the internals with ram etc. because they like the 10" and form factor. Since the tablet is touchscreen, and also has a 10" screen, I was used to the form factor. You can get a used TC1100 on ebay for under $500 if you want one, or a netbook to do more expanded computer functions. But, this HP Dreamscreen seems to do much of what I was using the TC1100 for WITHOUT the loading delays of the tablet, and seems to have some of the upper scale industrial design familiar to TC1100 users.

The packaging was upper scale, and very presentable in the provided heavy duty black box for a gift. It reminds me of the "packaging experience" that Apple would do.

Other reviews have talked about the tiny remote, which is limited, and the delay after clicking is frustrating. Here are some comments:

- The limited instructions focus on setting up a wifi connection, but I had a hard cable connection, and had to experiment with the menus, which did provide a method to set it up.

- Video Tutorials: You can reach them through the main "Video" icon, or on the provided CD-Rom. There are seven of them plus a Dreamscreen tutorial.

- Pandora: I am listening to my Pandora channel of Christmas music right now on the Dreamscreen.As others have mentioned, you have to setup Pandora on a full computer, creating music channels, but they you can access it with the Dreamscreen. My only Pandora gripe is that the remote or onscreen soft buttons don't have the normal Pandora PAUSE function, thus you can mute sound, but not halt playing, which Pandora doesn't like because they pay fees to artists to play the music, and only want it running when you are actually listening. Normal Pandora users will pause the playing if they leave so as not to use up minutes for "free" accounts, but there is no such option here. The Pandora feature also shows the album cover, but not details about artists and other info available on the regular computer client. The only way to halt (not mute) Pandora is to go to the main menu and choose another function which shuts off Pandora. It is almost like they have only three window or memory partitions - one for the current application function, one for graphics like pictures (i.e. screensaver or slideshow), and one for the main menu. But if you want to switch applications, it shuts off the current one.

- Reviewers have complained about entering data. The Dreamscreen doesn't have a keyboard (but there is a USB port - I wonder if a USB keyboard would work?), so they use an onscreen keyboard and you click each key by using the remote to move the cursor. That is very similar to the onscreen keyboard on the TC1100 tablet, so it was not new to me. Hp should provide ability to use a USB or wireless keyboard, if it doesn't exist now.

- I too find the lack of multiple windows or operations to be a weakness. You can run your photos as a screensaver or by clicking the photos icon AND Pandora still plays. While listening to Pandora, I held down the back button and got the main menu of feature icons. Once I clicked on Clock, the Pandora stream quit. That is obnoxious, and needs to be fixed. You should be able to keep one audio stream going while working with any of the other non-audio features.

- When I setup the Dreamscreen, I found the software update button, and it replaced the Sept., 2009 software with a downloaded new version, so some problems reported in early reviews might have been fixed.

- Some people complained about the speakers - I find them better than any laptop speaker (and definitely better than the HP tablet), and there is a headphone port to use for headphones or external speakers.

- There is an alarm feature, and it can turn on and off at specific times you mention. I have not used it yet to see if it starts playing Pandora, but I imagine it would.

- Some people complained about the thickness - it is about 1.5" thick, with two holes in the back for hanging on nails, and the thick part is in the center of the unit, now out to the edges, so i think it is not a problem.

- The unit stands up by screwing in a 4" metal rod in the back that acts as a leg to keep the unit upright. Thus it is easy to remove and carry the unit if you wanted - so if you have wifi and electricity in the back yard or boat dock, you could easily move this out there.

- Facebook - as soon as you click the Facebook icon, the audio from Pandora stops. After using the onscreen keyboard and cursor to enter your login info, you get a menu bar for "Status Updates, Photos & Events". The Status update is default and shows updates from friends. For the first time, it only showed the most recent four status updates. Photos - it only showed Photos of friends, but maybe because I have never uploaded any photos. Events: It got a message no events found - probably because I have not created any on the account. I don't use it much. It doesn't provide any ability, even with the graphic keyboard to enter or modify Facebook data, so probably enabling the password isn't bad.

- Radio - The feature of "HP Radio" says you can connect to radio stations around the world. The station picker is very limited. You can only select stations by "location" country, or "genre":. For "location", you can only pick a country (not city or zip) from a drop down list, so I chose USA. Then if you pick to select by station name, you get a horrendous, alpha list of stations and you can't just enter the call letters. You have to scroll through sublists 50 at a time. Another reviewer said you couldn't go to the next group of 50 selections until you clicked DOWN on the last entry of the current group. There is no "end of group" jump button. Additionally, the STUPID sort algorithm sorts based upon the first character, then the second. Thus for numeric stations, you get all the 120 stations mixed in with the 1200 stations. This is NOT an intuitive feature and needs vast improvement. You would have to SLOWLY scroll through many groups of 50 to reach station XYZ. There are a lot of generic internet stations like "181.fm Christmas Swing" and you can click on stations to "add" them to your favorites. So, it isn't too hard to find generic stations, but if I want to hear the Orlando talk radio station WDBO 580am with Neal Boortz, it would be a REAL pain to find it. Nothing tells you what the limit of "favorites" is, nor does it show a count of how many you add to favorites. It contains the AOL stations for jazz, and "ATC" airport tower audio channel, etc. I finally stopped at the end of the numeric stations and "A's" which were the first 400 I scrolled through. There really needs to be a full search function for this, or a way to set favorites via the computer and internet. I look forward to finding a forum where someone figures out how to set the radio stations much faster. Once you have selected some "favorite" radio stations, that is the list you get when you click the main "HP Radio" graphic on the main menu.

- USB keyboard - I moved a USB keyboard from my HP TC1100 tablet to the Dreamscreen and plugged it in while the Dreamscreen was on. No indicator or message came up. I then entered Facebook to setup my account, which normally would pull up the onscreen cursor controlled graphic keyboard. I tried the USB keyboard both in the email login field, and also after clicking that field to see the onscreen keyboard, but the USB keyboard did not work in either instance, and did not generate any types of errors. I turned the unit off, then back on, and repeated the above tests, and the USB keyboard still did not work. So, HP seems to have turned of any keyboard capability, and I think they should provide it to use with USB keyboards and mice like a wireless unit.

- Real estate - one advantage of this unit is it does NOT take up much space on a desk, or you can hang it on a wall. Imagine having a wireless keyboard and mouse option.

- Memory - The model 100 comes with 2gb standard (not upgradeable) memory, but only 1.5gb is accessible to the user. Thus I would get a USB or other memory stick like CompactFlash to provide more storage for pictures or videos. I don't know if the unit can access a USB external hard drive. Additionally, if you connect the unit to a PC with supplied software over a HOME NETWORK, you can play pictures or sound (not video) by streaming them from the PC over the network to the DreamScreen. Thus if you had wifi, you could stream music from your PC to the Dreamscreen anywhere that the wifi would reach.

- Videos: THERE IS NO PAUSE FOR VIDEOS, JUST LIKE NO PAUSE FOR PANDORA. That is stupid. If you press back, it starts the video at the beginning. That is not in the simple documentation. I got a phone call and could not pause the video tutorials - I could only press mute and then restart the video after the call was over. If I... Read more ›

29 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Raises the Bar, September 28, 2009

By 

David K. Watson "DKW" (Ojai, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: HP DreamScreen 100 10.2-Inch Wireless Connected Screen (Electronics)

(What's this?)

It was just 16 months ago that I paid $250 for a Sony Sony DPF-V900 digital frame which included clock and calendar functions. I consider the Sony frame to be an excellent product and it has been on my desk ever since.

The HP DreamScreen 100 raises the bar considerably for digital frames at this price point. It adds 2GB of onboard storage, WiFi, and limited internet capabilities.

After some initial start-up problems (below), I was able to add the HP DreamScreen 100 to my WiFi network (driven by an Apple Time Capsule as router and wireless access point using WPA/WPA2 Personal security) using the basic set-up procedure. Shortly after joining the network, the frame updated its software, a process which took several minutes.

Owing to having the Sony frame, I already had a set of about 50 photos cropped to fit with the 16x9 frame ratio. I plugged the frame into my Mac Mini via USB and was able to quickly copy the set to the frame. The photos on the HP are larger, of course, but are also brighter with a noticeably cooler color temperature. I would rate the photo display as excellent, but keep in mind I was using photos already cropped to a wide screen ratio.

The clock and calendar offer several display options, including dual time zones, clock with calendar, and clock with photo. It does not, however, have a clock/calendar/photo option, which is my usual choice on the older Sony frame.

I was able to copy and play music files from my itunes music folders, including older mp3 files and more recent DRM-Free iTunes Music Store tracks. In an ideal world, you would be able to add the frame as an authorized iTunes device under Home Sharing, but that's not likely to happen, ever. Audio quality is acceptable, but just OK compared to a dedicated desktop music device like an Altec Lansing IM3 or IM6.

I have quite a few videos optimized for the PSP. I used a Memory Stick full-sized adaptor to plug in some of my MS Duo cards. The movies and TV shows on the cards played OK, although having been optimized for the PSP, they did not fill the screen and were fuzzier than they appear to be on the PSP. I expect you would get very good results if you exported video with settings optimal for the HP DreamScreen 100.

I found the interface for HP SmartRadio cumbersome and confusing at first. Here's a hint: it only displays search results 50 stations at a time; if you press the Down button again when you get to the end of the list, it will bring up the next 50. It should tell you this on the screen. The service itself worked with no problems.

I still don't have a Facebook account, but I did set up Pandora and Snapfish accounts to try those services on this device. Both ran smoothly on the HP DreamScreen 100. I do have Windows XP on my Mac Mini, but I was able to do everything I wanted with the HP DreamScreen 100 without switching to Windows and installing the software. If I do install the Windows software later, I will update this review.

All in all, this is a pretty good choice if you're looking for a frame that does more than just show photos. A point off for the following (in addition to the other minor issues mentioned above): the first four times I started it up, it crashed a few seconds into the demo video (holding down the Back button while starting finally got me to the main screen); I would prefer a slightly larger remote control with a better layout; with all this capability, there should be a news feed. If it had a clock/calendar/photo display, it would replace the Sony frame on my desk in my home office. As it is, I will look forward to finding find a place for it in the living room, theater, or bedroom.