Customer Reviews

Intouch IT7150 7-Inch Wireless Internet Frame

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This goes beyond the electronic photo frames that have been popular for a few years. The Intouch is a multimedia picture frame that can play music and videos as well as display pictures. It can connect to your home network and the Internet. You can also save your media to a card and plug it into the frame, which is probably the easiest way for most people to use the Intouch.

Connecting to the network takes a lot of work and it will confuse the average computer user. I spent a few hours trying to make it work and gave up. Then I tried it again and it connected. The trick is to allow sharing through Windows Media 11 on your computer.

Accessing the Internet news and radio work well once you get the frame connected to your home network. Connecting the frame to the home network is no different than connecting a computer to the home network. Once connected, you can tap your way to news, Internet radio, podcasts and Web TV (but I couldn't get this one to work).

Now tapping is another story, which is one reason this gets a lower score. It takes too much work to tap and scroll down lists. The screen isn't very sensitive and the scrolling requires tapping the up or down arrows lots of times to get to the bottom or top of a list. The tapping to get around should not be this hard. Just changing the background to a selected picture took more than 10 minutes.

This is a product with a lot of potential. If it can improve in the area of usability and speed, it can become the next digital photo frame.

Good: Access to various media including photos, news, radio, videos, music on home network. More features than a typical digital photo frame.

Bad: Usability. Ease of connectivity. Slow to get around and load.

I bought the IT7100 for myself and loved it so much that we decided to give the IT7150 to my parents. I am glad that I upgraded them to the IT7150, they seem to like the build in rechargeable battery feature a lot. They said they look forward settling in on the couch and watch the new pictures of their grandson Bill. I try to upload new pictures at least once a week, and they love it. My dad also loves the internet radio feature, he is a big jazz fan and he found some really cool stations. The unit is easy to use probably because of the touch screen. My parents are not that good with electronics but they seem to have no problem with the Intouch.

The screen on the Intouch IT7150 shows crisp photos. There are lots of options for cycling rates and transitions. Loading photos through the memory card reader and placing it on a slow cycle rate makes for an unobtrusive and aesthetically pleasing frame. There are quite a few lower-cost frames that do the exact same thing.

The special features of this frame are what are supposed to set it apart. It has internet connectivity, so it is able to show photos from facebook, flickr, and many other internet sites. The interface for setting this up is cumbersome, extremely difficult to understand, and very minimally customizable. I am well above average in my ability to understand and use electronic devices, especially if they make use of the internet, and after a few hours I was so frustrated with the internet photo features of this internet frame that I simply won't use them. I load my photos on a memory card and stick it in the back. The inconvenience of using the internet to display photos, renders this feature unusable for me.

Radio: There are a wide number of free internet radio stations at this time (recent recording industry agreements may severely limit the number of stations broadcasting free internet radio) which this frame takes advantage of. Navigation through these stations is relatively easy, especially if you are familiar with the names of the stations and know what you're looking for. The frame can also play mp3s. So it can double as a simple sound system. Plug it into your stereo and you have a simple portal for digital media. Not an extremely robust system, but it works if you have no better options.

Video: Poor playback quality, difficult to find anything you'd want to watch anyway. There are not near as many tv stations as there are radio on the internet and the tv stations that do exist, you pretty much wouldn't want to watch. So this feature for me, after playing around with it, is not going to be used.

News: The user is able to view onscreen text versions of the news with a few photos. Pretty slow navigation. I think this feature is more gimmick than useful. If you have a computer, read it on there. If not, watch tv or read a paper.

Overall: I feel that this frame does photo display from a memory card well. It does photo display from the internet well, only after long interaction with a very poor backend system. The rest of the features are more-or-less gimicks. I'd recommend, unless you will really take advantage of the radio/mp3 feature, that you just buy a frame with fewer extra features that can display photos just as well...save some money.

First I want to mention the great customer service I received from InTouch. When I received my InTouch IT7150 7-inch WiFi Digital Frame I was disappointed that I received the European AC plug adapter with my unit. I quickly called the customer service number included in the box and they sent me the correct plug and I received in within days. They even called me back to make sure I got it. So for customer service I give them 5 stars.

The frame itself is very lightweight, sleek looking and has amazing picture quality with vivid colors. The audio sounds great for being a digital frame. I would of expected the audio to be low and scratchy but it sounds crystal clear to my surprise. Portability is a great option but keep in mind the battery life is between 1.5 and 2 hours until it has to be recharged. This makes it nice to take along at family or friend get-to-gethers and share new pictures of my family.

Internet connection was quite simple to do. It found my home network automatically and all I had to do is enter my password/keyphrase. I was able to add different applications from Frame Channel after setting up a free account. I added the local weather station, Facebook, Flickr, and Woot. There are many applications to suit anybody's preferences.

Listening to music and watching video feeds from all over the world is pretty neat. The videos are somewhat choppy but it is still a neat to watch how music videos are done across the world.

Another great feature is being able to program the frame to turn on and off at a specific time. Since I ended up taking the frame to my office, I programmed the frame to turn on when I arrived and turn off when my day is done. The frame continuously plays all the pictures on I have on an SD card. The InTouch frame offers a variety of data input options. From SD, SDHC, MMC, MS, XD and CF cards to usb drive devices such as flash drives or to connect to a PC. It also offers an internal memory as well.

When I first starting tapping the screen I was getting frustrated that it was not responding quickly to my touch. Once I adjusted the screen calibration it started working much better. I still have to double hit some options but it does respond. The one touch home mode button on the back of the unit makes it easier to navigate back home instead of tapping the back button repeatedly.

The only reason I give it 4 instead of 5 stars is I wished the handle/rest bar was made of a more solid heavy duty material instead of plastic. I worry that it might break or crack easily.

FrameChannel has gone out of business.
The Web TV/i.Radio functionality does not work.
I worked with the manufacturer on the Web Tv/I.Radio thing and they said it's just a problem with my device. I sent them mine, and they returned a brand new one.
That one still doesn't work. So I called their Support line again. This person told me that this is just a fact that some work and some don't. If they send me another one, it probably won't work either.
So now I've paid $200 for a simple digital picture frame. And I can't return it because my return period has expired.
DO NOT BUY THIS PRODUCT!! IT CAN'T BE TRUSTED!!!
Oh, and the battery doesn't last longer than 30 minutes either!

While the IT7150 comes as a nice looking picture frame with a well designed hardware, the firmware is just horrible, resulting in the worst usability I've experienced for a long time.

Pro's:
- nice design, stylish
- acceptable battery life time

Con's:
- touch screen UI is sluggish
- mediocre built-in speakers
- WiFi difficult to set up
- access to "home network" in principle allows access to DLNA media servers. But picture frame can't handle media servers with many files on it (isn't that what you would expect on a media server??) - and crashes :-(
- no auto-run, other than accessing pics from a local memory (built-in or memory card)
- video play-back is a kind of joke (sound continues while "video" equals a few pic frames a second)
- FrameChannel implementation is buggy / partial only: while the idea of FrameChannel is to mix several channels (pics, news, etc.), the IT7150 can only display one channel at a time
and so on...

All in all: this device by far is not worth the money. For sure one of the worst purchases I made.
If you look for a wireless photo frame, there are better (and cheaper) one's. If you look for extended functionality, a small tablet might be a way better choice...

This frame has a lot of cool features, but they are so flaky and error-prone that I eventually just said to not touch the frame once it was streaming photos. It works okay for just straight streaming photos from the web, but cannot even reliably handle paging back and forth. If you're really just looking to stream photos from FrameChannel, http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-DMF102XKU-10-Inch-Wireless-Digital/dp/B002IVVD9Q, is far superior.

This is one of a number of "picture frame" media devices - that's getting to be a pretty busy space. Like most picture frame devices, it's basically a low-end Windows CE-powered tablet. That means the interface is a little slow and not very flashy. The provided software is Windows-only. That said, Mac and Linux users are not left out in the cold as with many devices. More on that in a bit.

The screen is far better than most picture frame devices. It's 800x480 pixels, and side-to-side the viewing angle is a full 180 degrees. Too often, these devices look lousy from side angles.

The device takes many different media card formats, as well as USB flash drives. With all of them, format to FAT32 with MBR and you're all set. The flash formats are documented in the Amazon description. A nice, undocumented surprise is that it works just fine with a USB hard drive as well. I used a 320g USB drive without any issues.

Something else that you would expect with a Windows CE-powered device is that it plays music. Yup! That's here, but now it starts to get fun.

First, the speakers are like high end notebook speakers. You could use this is a bedside music player and be completely happy. It even plays back at an impressive volume, and voice sounds great, even from the next room. If you've got to have higher quality sound though, there is a headphone jack. A set of PC speakers with a sub work out great.

Second, it's surprisingly promiscuous. I was able to play very high bitrate AAC files (deprotected iTunes music files) without a problem. Amazon MP3 files played as well, as did 320kbps and non-standard 360kbps. Sound production is very true, and even with the AC adapter, there's no hum. Apart from an occasional stutter when using menu functions, this device is just fine for audiophiles.

Something that's unusual for Windows CE devices is that this isn't very "modal." After starting a music file playing, you can go on to look at pictures or use the other features without interrupting playback. Normally, these devices halt the music if you go to do anything else at all.

I mentioned that the device will suit Mac and Linux users just fine. First, the included software runs just fine inside of Parallels. You can stream music to the device and load up its internal memory with pictures and more. But the software isn't needed at all. You can drop files directly onto a memory card or USB stick, organize them in directories, and the device recognizes them without a hitch. I reverted my Parallels image, and I'll go on using this directly.

The device also recognizes standard Windows-style media servers. So if you have a device like a NetGear ReadyNAS, or if you want to install the appropriate Mac or Linux open source projects, the IT7150 recognizes those just fine.

Just as the device is promiscuous with audio formats, it handles many picture formats as well. I put a few VERY high resolution PNG, JPG, and even GIF files on the device. I tested monochrome, gray scale, and color. It quickly displayed each of these without any problems. Often these devices fall down if you're using anything other than full 24-bit JPEG. In addition, it can display pictures from a handful of different online photo management services. It would be simple to set this up for a Picasa feed, and to then pass it off to a relative or family member who may not be so net savvy. They would see your gallery as you update it remotely.

Surprisingly, the device an also play back video... sort of. Once again, it handles a variety of formats. DivX, Xvid, and even MPEG-4 with and without B-frames. This means you can play back the most common downloadable movie formats encoded for desktop, iPod, or PSP and play them on the device. The playback is fairly jittery on high bitrate or high resolution video, however. At least the audio doesn't stutter.

There aren't any guidelines given for video formats, but I found that MPEG-4 360x200 800kbit with no B-frames gave pleasant playback. I used the freely downloadable Handbrake DVD-encoding software and experimented a bit, then saved my configuration for future rips. I was tempted to knock the review down a star because of the jittery playback issue, then remembered... this is billed as a picture frame. That I suddenly have a bedside TV is a throw-in. :)

Supplementing the video and audio playback, this device includes a subscription to a service that provides a huge library of internet audio and video streams. The music choices are as diverse as what one finds on Shoutcast, and the streaming video choices are just as comprehensive.

Some other features worth mention are the built-in RSS reader and good network security. The RSS reader doesn't provide full HTML parsing - it's a plaintext display. However, it detects and properly shows attachments. You can use this to subscribe to audio and video podcasts - and speech podcasts are a pretty great feature for a bedside device. It's like going to sleep with talk radio, but without the commercials.

For network security, it supports WSA and WSA2, in addition to legacy WEP. This means that, for once, you've got a picture frame device that doesn't require you to downgrade to easily crackable network security. This worked just fine with both my Apple Airport Extreme, and my Netgear WNDR3300. Signal strength was super, even when I went outside my condo, down three floors and about 150 feet from the building. That's about as far as my iPhone or Macbook can receive a solid signal on 802.11g.

All in all, as a picture frame class device, I'm really happy. If it had been called a general media device, I would have wanted a bit more speed and polish.

PROS:
Simple and unintimidating interface
Great screen and speakers
Doesn't require extra software (though it helps)
Usable with Mac and Linux
Features like RSS media capture movie playback unexpected
Supports far, far more file formats than similar devices
Supports a wealth of card and USB storage formats
Tons of managed choices for audio and video streaming

CONS:
Interface is clear but lacks polish
Sluggish when first starting media
Network and clock setup are tedious
No web browser (most don't have this but come on guys - it's 2009!)
Battery life is a little short - claim is 1.5hrs, I get 2hrs, but wanted more

Intouch has gone up a notch with the newer IT7150. This multimedia device syncs neatly with your wireless network to enable Internet activity, and employs iPod-ish stylings and touch controls. We have no complaints about the Internet capacity and particularly enjoyed some of the streaming videos we set up on it. However, we primarily use ours as a digital picture frame, and it doesn't disappoint. USB ports permit you to uplink your portable drives and easily copy images from your digital camera. We did have a little issue with choppiness and stuttering in trying to view video from a drive, but all in all we found the 7150 to be a very nice piece of hardware. In terms of overall display it is a little bulky, but given the wide array of features and multi-tasking it is capable of that is not surprising (a more slender device might also be intolerant of the excessive poking this one receives to navigate its menus). The screen is also a little small for the overall width of the unit, but we happily forgot about that once we got our pictures streaming. All in all we have found the device to a robust and welcome addition to our living room.

This is clearly a product that could have been great, but fell short.

Nice build, good quality LCD screen, great WIFI feature.

As a photo frame that can dynamically grab photos from photo viewing websites, this product is 5 stars!

However, if you want to use this for any kind of news reading, or video, it just isn't very good.

For news reading, the formatting of the text is just appalling, with many truncated lines, and such. It makes reading news almost impossible. Also, there are silly little mini pictures that accompany each news piece, which is clearly too small to be displayed.

Video playback is very choppy. Clearly this product wasn't designed for video playback.

Overall, if you are getting this frame for picture viewing, then this is an absolutely great product. But if you are expecting much more than that, you may be disappointed.