Customer Reviews

Philips 5.6-Inch Digital Photo Frame (White)

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

The Philips 5.6-Inch Digital Photo Frame (White) is a great value in a relative sense when it comes to the expensive digital frame market. The features are somewhat limited, but the relatively lower price is bound to entice a lot of buyers. I actually prefer the Philips 7-Inch LCD Digital Photo Frame (Black) because of the black frame, slightly larger screen, and USB flash drive compatibility. But if you need a basic starter frame at a low price, this is it.

Pros
+ Great advanced menu functions allow you to control your slideshow
+ Very nice variety of slide-show transitions and collage options
+ Nice memory card slot allows you to connect up a variety of memory cards
+ Memory card slots for Compact Flash I (CF), SD Card, Multi Media Cards (MMC), MiniSD, Memory Stick (MS), and XD Picture Card
+ Convenient timer option turns PhotoFrame on and off at the hours you select
+ USB connection to your computer (to manage the internal memory),
+ Play slideshows, single photo, thumbnails or show clock
+ Nice looking frame design
+ Adequate 32 MB internal memory
+ 640X480 display for nice sharpness
+ Price is right for an entry frame ($50 range)

Cons
- Pictures must be JPEG and work best when in native picture format
- Photos edited in certain software WILL NOT work, even when saved as JPEGs
- JPEG support limited to 16 megapixel and 10MBs files
- The white frame isn't as attractive as the black one on the 7 inch model
- No video playback
- Lacks MP3 music playback for slideshows
- No USB port for flash drives
- Competing alternatives from Sony natively support other image formats (RAW, TIFF, BMP)
- Phillips quality control has been declining; definitely test this within your return period
- Many newer alternatives coming to market which use less power than LCD

The frame comes with a quick reference manual and Windows and Mac software on the included CD. The CD also contains Windows compatible picture manager software. For a full PDF manual you will have to go to the website. There's some kind of menu driven help manual on the CD as well.

But the truth is you don't need a manual really. The built-in menu is really well designed. Not all the settings are on the first screen, but with some searching you can set up almost everything you need.
The frame is listed at a display ratio of 4:3. This means it's compatible with most standard camera formats, including my Nikon and almost all handheld Canon models. Those with wide-format digital cameras will want to look for one of the many widescreen frames to save the step of reformatting.

The optional clock display is another nice extra that makes this frame versatile. This somewhat makes up for the lack of MP3 playback.

The frame also has automatic orientation detection as an option, which rotates pictures from portrait to landscape. There are also collage and thumbnail view options.

This guy doesn't have the native image format support of some of the newer (and much more expensive) frames from Sony. And I'm very nervous about Phillips spotty quality record of late. So far so good. But definitely put this through the paces before your return period expires.

Overall this is a good product at the right price. Hopefully prices will come down over time.

This unit is worth a look.

Enjoy!

I bought this item when it was offered in gold box lightning deals for fifty. It arrived yesterday and have only spent very little time with it so far. Here are my first impressions and if anything significant comes up in the next few days, I will update this review.

The frame is not widescreen - which is a good thing. You see, most cameras capture pictures in 4:3 ratio and it makes no sense to display them in a widescreen format. Secondly, for the same size (diagonal measure), a 4:3 screen has more surface area than a widescreen format. Finally, you don't need to process your pictures.

I had a 16 MB SD card (that came with a Canon camera) which is really useless for me. So, I thought I try loading some pictures onto it and try the frame. I copied some pictures from my computer without any editing. I copied some pictures after cropping them to a random size, but 4:3 ratio. I copied some pictures by reducing the images to 100 PPI resolution. They all looked fine on the picture frame. The picture frame passed the biggest test I was really concerned with.

Below are the technical specs:

Display size: 112.9 mm x 84.67 mm (4.44 x 3.33 inch)
Total pixels: 640 x 480
Density: 140 pixels per inch

Power consumption: 4.3W


Power adapter (2-prong) is small and can support 100 - 220 V and hence can be used in many countries. To me, that is a plus.

Frame comes with a quick reference manual, but the full manual is on the supplied CD. CD also contains Windows compatible picture manager software. Unfortunately, the frame manual is in Flash Paper format and a Macro Media Flash application menu displays one page a time. You can print individual pages, but you can't print all the pages at once. I wish they also supplied a PDF manual. They supplied a PDF manual for picture manager software, though.

Every time I turned the frame on, it went straight to the menu. I wish it went to a slideshow by default. There may be a way to accomplish that, but I couldn't figure out in the few minutes I got to work with it. I also have yet to figure out how to make my slideshow default, not the one Philips has supplied.

You can display a small digital clock during the slideshow. I like that feature.

The frame can detect pictures with portrait orientation (vertical). In that case, you can show other pictures in the black vertical bars on the sides of the main picture in a collage form. Very nice.

Pictures must be JPEG.
No videos.
No music.
There is USB port for connecting to computer (to manage the 32MB internal memory), but there is no USB port for flash drives.
Too much packing material.

A USB cable is supplied.

An elaborate menu system is available. So, it looks like you can adjust every little aspect of your frame and your slideshow. But, obviously, you don't necessarily have to deal with it as I was able to display my slideshow without much hassle. In short, user friendly, but has vast functionaly for configuration.

Random transition between the slideshow pictures showed a variety of interesting transitions.

Overall quality exceeded my expectations and I highly recommend the product.

Update:
I found the frame manual on the Internet. Look at the first comment for the URL.

This is a great frame for the price. Perfect size for your desk. I easily uploaded about 30 pictures to its internal memory in about 10 minutes from my computer. It automatically copied and downsized my high res photos to 640x480 when i uploaded them to the frame. My original pictures were not altered or downsized. Very nice!

I also have the philips 6.5" frame which costs about 3x as much. This frame is just as good for a lot less...even has more features than the 6.5" does. ( clock, effects, collage displays)

Pros:

great resolution @ 640x480
more picture transition effects than my philips 6.5inch frame
clock display feature
multiple pics can be arranged in collages(cool)
puts thumbnails of other pictures in black bars during vertical display
menu is intuitive and easy to load pictures onto.

Cons:

a tad small (actual picture is 3.5 x 4.5)
frame only comes in white

Definitely best bang for your buck.

Bought this on gold box for 49.00 and was not expecting much....boy was i wrong this thing is amazing and just the right size, i did not want a frame that was large, and this is perfect, very well made, and very modern looking.

set up in 5 minutes without looking at the instructions, one feature i love is the time setting, you can set it to go one and off at certain times, really like that! One for weekdays and one setting for weekends.

Color is very crisp and sharp, this is the best buy i have got all year, you have to give it a try!!!!!!!

I bought this frame because it was inexpensive and I wanted to see how useful a digital frame could be. Overall, it's a nice looking frame and while the interface isn't as simple as it could be, you can play around with it for a while and figure most of the functions out without having to look at the manual. For me, the reason I only gave it 2 stars is because it only supports JPEG images and even then, only supports some of them. If you're like me, you've collected a lot of images from your digital cameras, email, the web, etc and have folders of things that might be fun to display in a frame. I decided to load some up on a Compact Flash card to view them on the frame and that's when the problems started. It seems that this frame is very particular about what kind of images it will display. Even if they are JPEGs, some will not display. In fact, they seem to confuse the frame. In thumbnail view, I get little X's in place of thumb nails even though it also displays a thumbnail of the image. So if I have 25 images, I get 25 thumbnails and 25 blank thumbnails with an X. It appears that if JPEG's have been manipulated through Photoshop or other imaging programs, they might not be easily recognizable by the frame. During the slideshow, sometimes it plays them, other times it does not. I've tried to figure out what about the images is different but haven't been able to determine a cause. All I know if that if I take a memory card directly from the camera and put it in the frame, it works as expected. If I use images from other sources or manipulated images, it becomes much more troublesome. The manual actually alludes to this problem but doesn't really clarify what JPEG settings cause the problem. It says it supports progressive images but will display them slowly, otherwise they just indicate there could be problems. So, long story short, the frame works great if you have a camera that saves images in JPEG format and you put the images on the frame just as they came out of the camera. If you want to use it to display other file formats or images from other sources like the web or email, this isn't the frame for you. I know Sony's new frames support RAW, TIFF, BMP and JPEG and I'm sure some of the higher end Philips frames do too. Just make sure you know about this limitation and if that's a show stopper for you.

I am extremely pleased with the Philips digital frame. The price was great. Even better because I got i on a gold box deal. I'd get another one too if it ever comes up again.

I've wondered for a long time about what to do with those hundreds of digital photos. Impossible to print and look at them all. This digital frame is a perfect way to to show off all those pictures.

This Philips frame presents them in a very nice resolution and crystal clear.

This is my first digital photo frame. I've waited till now because of price and reviews. When i got this in the gold box deal there were no reviews for this product, now I think mine is the fifth review. I'm a huge techno geek and am really picky, but this affordable frame quite surprised me. the resolution is awesome. i'm picky with my pictures as i shoot with a Nikon D40. easy to use, i never read any instructions, who does that. the white plastic piece comes off via magnet, so i think there must be other colors and or wood/metal accessories coming out for this if they aren't already, or you could make your own custom frame and put magnets on it. Highly recommended when it's on sale. Oh, and there's no virus's like the crappy knock off brands you've heard about in the news.

The best thing about the frame is its resolution. Make sure you check the resolution of whatever frame you're considerng purchasing. This smaller frame looks much better than bigger (6 or 7 inch) frames with lower resolution. Even high quality pictures look stupid on bigger screens with less pixels per inch. I'm getting this one as a gift for a high school graduation.

I am all aobut electronic gadgets and when I saw this as a Gold Box special I couldn't resist. I wasn't sure what to expect, but I liked the fact that it was not widescreen. When it arrived I was instantly impressed just by the packaging and the look of the frame. The picture is amazing and I really like all the options it has. I got a widescreen frame about a year back as a gift and it doesn't even come close to this frame. The picture on the Philips is FAR better and it doesn't stretch or have black bars. I only wish it had a remote...sometimes I like to sit in my chair and just flip through the pics at my own speed. It's normal picture size, so I wouldn't call it small. There are larger ones out there, but you can't beat this little frame for the price.

I got this for my wife to have pictures of our new baby in her office at work. I had received a no-name brand digital frame for christmas, and have enjoyed having it on my desk at work. Now I am jealous of the one I bought for her. The picture quality is no comparison, the Phillips is perfect. And it also has a collage feature; every so often in your slideshow, you can have a collage of several pictures come up. It has a neat feature like the iphone, when you turn it to vertical position, it reorients the picture.

The only thing I wish could be better is that you could set it so your slideshow automatically starts when you turn it on. You have to go through several menus and figure out how to use the buttons right just to get it started. But I would definitely get one of these again for the picture quality.