Customer Reviews

Smartparts SP92 8.5-inch Digital Picture Wood Frame with Beige Matting (Ebony)

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

We purchased the 8" SmartParts frame as a gift for an older relative. I followed the instructions and copied pictures from my scanner and computer to an SD card, loaded the card as suggested and the frame optimized the many different scan and photo sizes. It's worked flawlessly for over a week and I've added more pictures to the SD and the frame recognizes only the changed or added photos and loads JUST those.

I have not had to contact customer service since there has been no reason to do so. This is a marvelous frame and are very happy with screen size, image quality and directions.

Over 40 years of working with and on computers makes me strongly suggest anyone purchasing this frame (or other electronics) to read all 15 pages of the User's Manual before firing up the frame. This one seems to have been written in pretty fluent english!

Was easy to set up, looked good initially. However, it completely died after about 80 days. Can't even power it up, black screen. Dead as a doornail. I'd give it zero stars if I could. Oh, and don't bother calling the SmartPart technical support line, no response.

We got this frame for my parents for Christmas. It was in the $70-$90 range on sale at a department store. We purchased in Dec. 2008, it went to a black screen in Aug. 2009 and will not come on anymore. The photos aren't retrievable from the internal memory either (thank goodness, they are stored on another drive). There is no one that answers when you call for tech support and the email is no longer valid. This frame sat in the same place for the entire time, never dropped, and connected to a good surge protector. Somehow, my husband got a voice mailbox, left a message and they called back. When I told them what I was doing to try to fix it, they told me that I had tried everything that would work if it was fixable and there was nothing more they could do for me. The SD card slot is awkward; their online tutorial shows it backwards from correct insertion. And the troubleshooting doesn't even address the black screen problem at all, even to say "Hey. Call us on that one." Bottom line: This company has no business making this product. This price should have bought me a nice digital frame...instead it bought my parents digital photo viewing for 8 months and their service was discontinued. Never again.

My Aunt visited and said she would like a picture of our white Arabian horse Dusty. Instead I took several video pictures of Dusty, uploaded them to picture frame and gave her that. She loves it. I will put together more pictures of her favorite subjects and import them for them.

As this frame was for grandma, I carefully researched size/price/ease of use -- including automatic on off function.
this unit seemed to be worth a try -- although I read all of the negative comments about the buttons and functions not working well.
I discovered the following:
1-the booklet is very poorly explanatory
2-it took me several tries to be a little bit "creative and intuitive"
3-the only time I was able to get the unit to work completely as advertised, I had to ABSOLUTELY make sure that the clock was set and programmed for on off cycle first!!
4-rather than trying to "program the digital frame" (which has small capacity), I opted to buy several very inexpensive memory cards.
5-with these cards, I can "change what grandma sees" very easily -- giving her a completely new set of pictures anytime I wish!
Bottom line:---slow down on using the buttons -- I found that some of the buttons, if you push them too quickly, give you responses you did not want -- for instance, the "ok" button requires a little finesse to make sure you are getting exactly what you want -- "ok, or change the screen, or turn on off, or??.
finally, in the auto mode, I only change the memory card when the unit is off -- I leave it alone when it is programmed for "auto use an auto on" (during the daytime).

I would buy this unit again.

I purchased one of these last year. This thing did not even last 5 months before it stopped working. It started with a flicker and then nothing. I payed $75 for mine and I thought that for that amount I would have got a year of use at least. Now I know why they only give 90 days for defects. Never again will I buy from this company.

I bought several of theses, one for us, and one for each of my step-children and my Mom. They all love it. It's easy to load and looks great on my end table.

I got this frame for Christmas from my mom. It has the worst image quality that I've ever seen! Very grainy and dark. Tried using the Smartparts software to improve them as well as a couple other software products to "brighten" them up... still were dark after loading(and even worse quality). Sent a friendly email to Staples (owns this product) to let them know that they may want to reconsider offering this product and that I would be returning or exchanging mine. I could no longer find the product on their site and was even thinking they had already pulled it. Here's what they said "Technology: Because technology changes so quickly, we can only accept it for return within 14 days of the date of receipt. This includes: computers, monitors, notebooks/laptops, copiers, all-in-one machines, digital cameras, modems, printers, computer peripherals, handheld computers, fax machines, scanners, wireless phones, telephones, and networking products.". I thought that was pretty crappy! I've bought from Staples quite a bit in the past... but never will again!

There's no way to hang this on a wall and it has a huge, unattractive cord. There's no option to put batteries in it. You can't see images at all if you're standing at certain angles or if there's a glare. I should've spent more and gotten a better one!

The Smartparts SP92 digital frame Smartparts SP92 8.5-inch Digital Picture Wood Frame with Beige Matting (Ebony) has a nice look and feel, but its quality is not very good. It worked pretty well for about a month, until one day the LCD backlight just died for no apparent reason. The screen will still display "ghost" images, but they are too faint to view. I'd expect far better reliability for a device that would normally operate for extended periods. The manufacturer's telephone support line drops calls into a voicemail box and I'm still waiting for a callback, so there's no immediate recourse to resolve problems. The Smartparts desktop software provides acceptable basic functionality for loading photos, but the automatic image adjustment feature tends to distort the edges of photos so people appear to have tiny heads. No, I'm not kidding.

I was very disappointed with the durability of the frame's electronic components, and I would not buy this brand again.