Customer Reviews

NIX TS08C - Designer Cordless 8 inch Digital Picture Frame, Internal Rechargeable Battery & 'Blue Lite' Touch Sensitive Controls

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

This is my first digital frame and I must have read a million reviews. I had a question about this frame before I bought it. I emailed Nix and had an answer the next day. I bought this, received it quickly and it was amazingly easy to use. The picture quality is great, I love the fact that you can carry it with you without having to plug it in. I just downloaded some avi videos to it and they play great. I had a question after I got the frame (they have a black and white effect in the random effects mode and I thought it was a problem, it's not). Again, I emailed Nix and they got back to me right away. In this day and age of begging anyone with a company to help, that was just wonderful. I am very pleased with this purchase, would highly recommend it to anyone.

My daughter got me this recently as a birthday gift. After my son-in-law explained to me what it did, I was soon looking at pictures of my trip to Europe last year that were on the camera card, as I'd never gotten round to looking at them. There were so many of them, it was like watching a 2 hour movie - and the display seemed to show the pictures in a nice random order. Now, me and my wife are hooked. I even have a couple of home movie excerpts stored on the frame that I saved from my laptop . Apparently this thing plays music as well, so I'm wondering if I need to sell my stereo and VCR!

The design is beautiful. It sits nicely on our coffee table for all to see and admire. I can even pull it away from the power supply for and pass it around as it has an in-built rechargeable battery.

It's been a real hoot with this frame!

I really wanted to keep this frame, but a couple of issues (outlined below) were a deal-breaker so I ended up returning it. Of course since it's Amazon, returns couldn't be easier. I will probably try my luck with another one, especially since I see that the price has dropped $50 since I bought mine.

PRO:
Sleek design. No cheesy-looking mat that makes frame look big but pictures look small. I was concerned that the little blue lights on the right side of frame would be annoying but they turn off after a few seconds.

Huge internal memory, 8X more than some frames.

Ease of use: drag-n-drop your jpegs, couldn't be easier.

Bright screen. In fact I thought it was TOO bright, and had to adjust brightness down a little.

CON:
Had a dead pixel (it was near the bottom-left part of screen, I could have lived with it.)

Slideshow display speed was screwy. I had it adjusted to 5 seconds, but some pictures would display for 10 seconds, and others for 30. Then every so often it would just lock up. If you rebooted it, things returned to normal for a while. But who wants to do keep doing that?

While most pictures looked great, others were very pixelated. Tried reloading them, but no change. The sames files look great on a Dell ultrasharp 22" monitor and on another brand of frame, so nothing wrong there.

I bought this model through the UK amazon when living in London, great to see them here now in the US. The difference with the nix and other big branded frames is that this is the most easy to use (I threw my Kodak in the bin after 4 months...)I can watch my cherised episodes of 24 then listen to my new Kings of Leon album without having to move an inch coz the nix has a pretty slick remote too, perfect for this lazy moments... I also got my mom one for her birthday and even she can use it... and thats sayin something :)

first off: the 1 star review is because my unit died (displayed a white screen, no matter my attempts to reset it) within 6 weeks.

so, as far as the usability problems (which are reasonably minor): there's no light sensor, so you have to program it to turn on and off at certain times. the problem with that: when it turns itself back on, the 'light up' blue buttons down the right hand side of the device stay lit until someone remembers to touch them.

second, I really wasn't filled with confidence by the manual saying things like: "don't press the buttons too fast, you may make it hang", or "if you ever plug or unplug a memory card while it's turned on, you will ruin the device". yeah, that just makes me *sure* it's a well designed product...

and of course, after 6 weeks (of not pressing buttons too fast, and definitely not plugging or removing SD cards, just sitting on a shelf displaying pictures and turning itself on and off), the display turned white.. and no amount of turning it on/off or looking for a non-existent reset button would fix it.

I got this as a present for my someone else, and opened it up first to preload it with images and charge the battery so that it would be ready to go out of the box. Installing the images was trivial, both the internal memory and using the SD cart slot (I am using a Mac Book Pro).

The default play program came up and showed the images without problems.

The buttons on the frame are a bit fiddly and cryptic, but with a few minutes trial and error I was able to get things going without needing to dig into the manual. I found changing some of the default transitions made for a more pleasing display.

Image quality is pretty good. It could stand to be a bit brighter than the default, but I did not try experimenting with the brightness settings for the display.

All in all, it seems a pretty nice unit. The internal battery that allows you to run it and pass it around is a very nice feature.

Overall I like this frame, but there are many annoying flaws (see below). The hope is that firmware updates can address these.
As it stands (firmware update "TS08C_D Upgrade Version 3 091216.img"), the overall feeling the user is left with is that he or she is not fully in control when operating the device.
That said, if all you care about is inserting a memory card and having the photos displayed in sequence in good quality, you may be satisfied.

Pros:
- 4:3 aspect ratio (resolution 800x600), so that most photos display without cropping.
- Remote control
- Built-in rechargeable battery (e.g. for passing frame around)
- Plays videos in a variety of formats, even with sound (sound reproduction is expectedly only fair, but there's also a headphone jack)
- Auto-rotation of images when the frame is physically rotated; commendably, photos are also displayed in correct orientation based on their EXIF orientation flags.
- Reasonably sized internal memory (1 GB).

Cons (hardware-design issues that can't be corrected with firmware updates; see below for more annoyances):
- Dark, glossy frame attracts fingerprints, reflects ambient light; buttons can only be made visible (they light up) by actually pressing one of them.
- (For lack of comparison I cannot comment on viewing angle.)
- Remote control has poor tactile feedback; no visual feedback on whether signals were sent or received.

Manual and website:
- The manual that came with the device is poorly written and incomplete. For instance, no reference is made to supported video formats or even firmware upgrades.
- The manufacturer's website seems amateurish: content is poorly organized, and firmware upgrades must be requested by email(!), and there is no version information.

Features that are OUTRIGHT BROKEN on my device as of firmware version "TS08C_D Upgrade Version 3 091216.img":
- The clock and calendar are broken: they operate on their own time, which has nothing to with actual time; the clock advances by a 'second' every 1 to, say, 10 seconds, rendering the entire calendar & time feature useless.
- Random-sequence slideshow broken: with around 2000 photos in internal memory (all of which display fine in sequential mode) I experience the following:
* Per-photo display time varies wildly, with no rhyme or reason; it should, of course, be constant, as configured in the Setup menu; it seems that the unit frequently freezes for 10 seconds or more at a time (buttons are unresponsive during that time).
* (This may be by - unfortunate - design): You cannot skip back and forth (go back to the previous or skip to the next photo) during random-sequence slideshows.

And now for the annoyances:

- Inability to return to last photo viewed:
When in sequential slide-show mode, turning the frame back on, or even just entering a menu does not resume at the last photo viewed. Picture this scenario: you're about halfway through a long slideshow in sequential mode when you decide to increase the display interval per image; once you do that, the slideshow starts from the beginning instead of returning to the photo you last viewed. Note that, unlike the other items in this list, this issue can - and hopefully will - be addressed in a future firmware update.

- Auto-rotating does not work while slideshow is paused:
This is annoying if you're interested in rotating the device to view a *specific* photo: while the slideshow is paused, rotating the display has no effect. The only, cumbersome workaround is to keep the slideshow going, rotate the device, and then navigate back to the desired photo. In random-sequence slideshow mode even that is not an option, since navigating back to previous photos does not work.

- Menu system and terminology:
* Structure:
§ The menu structure is confusing; for instance, there is no way to toggle menus, e.g. to invoke the setup menu and then return to wherever you were before. (In fact, as discussed above, you *lose* your previous place in whatever activity you return to.)
§ In the Setup menu, not all slideshow options are grouped together. The menu items do not fill up the available space, and the scrollbar's position display is relative to each page of menu items rather than reflecting the position of the current item across ALL pages.

* Poor wording an terminology:
§ Descriptiveness of the menu items is poor. For instance, 'Slideshow Mode' refers to the photo *transition* effects, and 'Slideshow Option' refers to the display *sequence*. While other menu languages are supported, at least the German version is poorly translated.
§ The built-in memory is unhelpfully referred to as 'NAND' (a technical term for the type of flash memory used); the USB port for accepting USB thumb drives is unhelpfully labeled 'USB Host'.
§ (small thing, but ....) 'Contrast' is misspelled in the Setup menu

* Non-intuitive selection mechanism:
§ To confirm changing of an option (such as the per-image display time), you must press ENTER; if you don't, the previous setting will remain in effect- which only becomes obvious when you navigate away from the item at hand); there is no on-screen feedback that guides the user through this process. To add to the confusion, some settings, such as brightness, do NOT require ENTER to confirm.

- Turning the frame off/standby mode:
The frame has a mechanical on/off switch at the back, but, alternatively, so as to enable the on/off timers and use of the remote control, the frame can also be put in standby mode. However, there are a few associated annoyances:
§ You can only use the remote control to enter and exit standby mode. The on-device buttons neither allow you to put the device in standby mode, *nor do they allow you to wake the device from standby*: when you attempt that, the buttons light up, but nothing happens; if you don't have the remote control handy, your only option is to use power-cycle with the mechanical on/off switch at the back.

- Lack of status/progress feedback:
' Sometimes, actions take seconds to take effect, e.g. when pressing the remote's SLIDE SHOW button; the lack of visual feedback (such as an hourglass) in these cases leaves the user wondering every time whether the command was accepted or not.
' There is no feedback when an illegal operation is attempted: for instance, skipping back and forth during a random-sequence slideshow is apparently not supported (which is in itself a questionable design choice); attempts to do so are simply ignored, even though the on-screen display behaves just as if the action *were* supported (showing the skip back/forward indicator).

- On-screen status displays:
' During a slideshow, when you press PAUSE, the on-screen indicator that comes on *stays on*, which gets in the way of enjoying the picture. The only way to get it to disappear is to skip to another photo, and then return to the desired on; sadly, as noted before, this is not even an option during random-sequence slideshows.

- On-device, touch-sensitive buttons (right edge of frame):
* Visibility: The buttons are by default not visible, and only light up when you touch them (and stay lit for around 3 seconds). While this helps the design of the frame - no distracting buttons, appearance of a traditional, non-digital picture frame - there is an inherent problem: you cannot tell what button you press unless you press one. In other words: you cannot light the buttons to see what they are unless you first press one of the buttons, invariably invoking that button's function. To work around this, the safest button to use is the top button, which toggles between playing and pausing.
* Sometimes - and I have found no pattern behind this - the buttons stay lit indefinitely.

- Photo sorting:
' There is no sorting feature, and, against what one might expect, sequential display of photos is not based on implicit sorting by filename or date, but invariably based on the *order in which the files were copied onto the device*. This is not an issue when using memory cards from a digital camera (where ordering by filename is identical to the order in which the files were created), but when you fill up the internal memory manually, you can end up with photos out of order: as another reviewer has pointed out, tools such as Windows Explorer do not necessarily copy files in the order they're being displayed at the source; essentially, you have no control over that order, leaving you with seemingly random ordering of photos; the only solution is to ensure sequential copying, one by one, in the desired order, e.g. by copying from the command prompt.

I've wanted a digital picture frame for a long time, but never felt like their features were worth their price. The inexpensive ones were really awful to use and had low-quality screens. And the high-priced ones were just too expensive to be worth it. Until this frame, which is easy to use, has a great screen, and won't break the bank. And NIX's customer service is top-notch (more below).

I put this frame on my Amazon wishlist, and received it for my birthday. When I opened the box, I turned on the frame and everything was working, but I noticed a little stray piece of plastic behind the glass, in front of the LCD panel. It was tiny, but it was obvious in front of the pictures. So I contacted NIX, explained the problem, and they immediately got back to me with instructions for how to ship it back and get a replacement. My replacement was back to me in about a week, total. They also gave me an Amazon voucher for my shipping costs.

On top of that - I accidentally packed an unused iTunes gift card into the box I shipped back to them, and they actually found it and shipped it back to me. (Thanks!) Just goes to show that their customer service is top-notch.

The frame itself is also great. It looks very sleek, and I really like the way the buttons are invisible until you touch the frame. The user interface is easy to use, and the remote works well. (I've found I sometimes have a wait a second for the frame to respond to an input, but it does always catch up.) The user manual is simple, and written in easy-to-understand language. The screen has a great resolution for its size, and the color and contrast are very good. (They are also adjustable, but I haven't tried.) It was easy just to drag-and-drop pictures off my computer, and they all just started showing up in the slideshow.

Net effect: there's no need to shop around for other frames - this one is just simply right in the sweet spot for ease of use, quality, customer service, and price. Don't hesitate to buy.

Got this as a gift for my parents who are not technologically inclined. They don't have a digital camera, they don't use computers. But they love the photos of their granddaughter more than anything else I send them. So, rather than constantly printing out tons of photos which cover every nightstand in their home, we decided to get them a digital picture frame for the holidays. The picture quality of this item is amazing! I've compared it to some of the frames I've seen in friends' homes and it's photo quality is comparable to the best, without costing as much as the bigger brands. The frame itself is sleek and integrates with most decors. The controls are located on the right side of the screen and when you touch them, they illuminate. When dormant, they fade to the black of the screen. The size of the screen is perfect -- just large enough to show the fine details of group photos, but not too large to take over your dresser or mantel.

We loaded up all the photos and videos onto the frame before giving it as a gift. Using the frame is as simple as plugging it in, turning the on switch, and it automatically goes through a random slideshow of all the photos on the frame--this is exactly what I needed for my parents. Getting into the videos or music functions of the frame is a little tricker, but is not too complicated. And loading the photos onto the frame was as easy as plugging in the USB cable, and then dragging photos from My Photos folder over to copy in the Photo Frame folder.

My only wish is that the random slideshow is more random. It sometimes repeats the same photo every 10-15 frames or so.

Gosh, I never write reviews, but I was so impressed by the NIX photo frame and its many features I just needed to share my experience. First of all, I am a very detailed shopper, so after much research, I knew I wanted specific features in my first digital photo frame. I read many photo frame specifications and reviews which were very helpful in my decision making process.

So here's my review. In summary I love the frame! It was shipped promptly, in a very nice box, and the quality was excellent. The frame was easy to set up, and had more features than expected. The clean and sturdy design of the frame and support base is just great. You can adjust just about everything to customize the frame to your needs.

What I looked for was a 4:3 ratio screen (since that is the standard size of my camera), high resolution, portability, simple and elegant design, yet sturdy too. The best part is that this frame is portable. Guests come over, notice a picture in the slide-show, I simply unplug it and pass the photo frame around the room for viewing. Guests can easily scroll through the photos as they like.

Since this was my first frame, I was worried that any odd sized photos would get cropped somehow. But the NIX photo frame adjusted automatically to any size photo by adding black border where needed, so every photo looked perfect! Actually, I did email NIX customer service to figure out how to turn off the "blue" lights on the photo frame. They responded very quickly..."simply touch any one of the blue control lights gently and they will disappear after 5 seconds". They added some people like the lights on, but again this frame has many adjustable features to suit everyone's preferences!

In the end, I liked the frame so much I ordered more for gifts. This is a great digital photo frame with excellent quality, many features, and great support.