Customer Reviews

ViewSonic DPG807BK 8-Inch 512 MB SwifTouch Multimedia Digital Photo Frame

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

 

 

It was easy to load photos onto the frame. I like the blue lighted buttons that disappear when not in use. The picture quality is great and the memory is more than sufficient for over 500 photos and music clips.
Now for not so good - the photos will only play in the order uploaded, there is no random play option (only random transitions). I had to manually number my 544 photo file names to get them to play in an organized fashion. I had originally named them by the person in the photo, so all the Alison photos played in a row, etc. Music was easy to load, but very difficult to figure out how to play with the slideshow. There is a setup option to play music+photo, but it only works if you then select another option to play the music after you start the slideshow. Then after the first song, the music stops and I cannot figure out how to get it to play past the first song. The buttons are also confusing as they do multiple things. This should be easier to use - press a button for the slideshow to start, with or without music. I have given up on the music. My 80 year old parents will never be able to figure this thing out and it is their Christmas gift. I figure the best I can do is show them how to start the slide show and leave it at that.

This is the first digital photo frame that I have owned, so I don't have others to compare it to. I like the (relatively) high resolution screen of 800x600, which makes the image more detailed. The frame looks nice and professional, and it allows you to read pictures via USB or from many memory card formats.

On the down side, the high gloss black finish shows every single fingerprint - front and back. The touch "buttons" below the picture are therefore always covered in prints. This is not a problem if you just plan to set up the frame on your desk, but if you handle it a lot you need a lint-free cloth to wipe it every time.

The pictures themselves looked slightly darker than they do on my desktop or laptop, and they have a slight bluish cast.

The frame does allow you to zoom in on each picture and pan around to different portions of it, but unfortunately to begin the zoom you have to go into the menus. It would be nicer if it were a single button press.

Good:
Pictures are nice and bright with good contrast.

Bad:
1) There does not seem to be any logic to the order of photos in Slideshow mode. I renumbered the photos according to date, but the frame plays one series of photos, then another block, then another block, but not strictly in an ascending sequence.
2) The photos do not resize to fit the entire screen. Small photos, like from Skype that have been converted to jpeg, are really small on the screen. Same if you use small photos sent to you by email (640x480), they'll show up smaller than full screen. No menu option to correct this like my other digital frames.
3) I prefer real buttons after trying this "touch screen" display. Too much latency in the response and too many multiple functions on some buttons.

I tried on-line chat with Viewsonic Customer Service, but useless. I thought there might be new firmware to fix the issues (frame indicates Version 1.0.0), but they said they couldn't help me. Reana was the CS, so if you get her, good luck

Coby has been the best frame I've purchased so far (800x600, 4:3, 8-inch), so you might check them out instead.

This unit works great for the most part, but the latest firmware available for it to date (version 1.1.2) has some problems. When I upgraded the firmware to version 1.1.2 (available here: [...]), which adds a "shuffle" feature that so many complained about it not having, there were a couple of problems. First, the firmware upgrade gives a "Memory Malloc Error", but proceeds to still update the firmware. Once updated, if "shuffle" is turned on, and the unit is set to autorun with "music + pictures", the slideshow would stop on the 7th or so picture every time I turned it on, although the music continued. I then have to press the menu button on the face of the unit to access the "play" button, and then continue the slide show. I've communicated with Viewsonic 4 times on the problem so far. The last communication sent to me said "Thank you for contacting ViewSonic E-Mail Technical Support. I have re-escalated your concern to proper department for immediate advanced troubleshooting. We will email you back for any updates as soon as we have their feedback." But it has taken about 4 weeks to get this far, and who knows if they will really fix this problem.

Even so, I still give it a 4 star rating because without the "shuffle" feature turned on, the unit works properly, has a beautiful display, and the price that Amazon offered it at the time was $[...], and it's difficult to get the same resolution and size frame, in a 4:3 format, for that price currently.

This was a gift for my parents, and they love it, and I put so many pictures (800+ ranging from 250K to 1MB each) on the thing that it takes an hour to cycle through all of them. So they don't even know it's not shuffling. So I'm satisfied if they're happy with it.

I've been having a hell of a time getting video playback to work on this frame, but I finally got it working, and wanted to share a couple of tips. I'm going from Apple's iMovie to the ViewSonic digital frame. From what I can tell, iMovie will not export into a compatible format. The frame says it support MPEG-4, but what I have discovered is that you need to use XviD MPEG-4 with MP3 audio. I was able to export from iMovie, then use ffmpegx to convert the movie using the "XviD [.MP4]" video codec setting, and setting it to use MP3 audio codec at 128 kpbs and a sampling rate of 44100 Hz (for some reason the default sampling rate in ffmpegx was 48000 and the frame did not like this). Although the resulting file will not play in QuickTime, it does play in VLC and in the digital frame.

And it only took me 4 hours to figure it out.

We purchased this frame as a going away gift for our coworker and she absolutely loved it. It is compact, full of features that young people like and has a very nice picture quality. One just needs to get used to the controls.

First I read comments this one on Amazon from customers, I am hesitate to buy it especially someone claims it cannot play pictures along with music in background. However, I like the style and price is reasonable. I bought this one. Then, when I got it and tried to see why someone said no music play along with pictures. I found out it can play all musics along with pictures. It is so easy to set it up. Just go to setup menu with setting auto start for picture+music. After that, return to main menu and don't put play button. Let it auto start playing after a few seconds. That's all. Your slide show play with all musics in background. Another thing like this one is it can play video format avi that any digital camera supported. I tried video format mmv of Windows player but not working.

Last year for Christmas we bought several View Sonic Digital Photo Frames. Most of the frames were used for presents and the others as gifts. After a few months ours stopped working probably. The picture would fade out. View Sonic replaced it. Now the current one won't work. The screen just remains black. We will buy another Digital Photo Frame but it wouldn't be View Sonic.

I just bought two of these for my parents and they are great. My parents had no problem working them and they loved how they can just put their camera's sd card right in the back to view pictures. The only thing that could be better is the random play stuff. You will see a lot of the same pictures over and over.

The picture quality is pretty good. There are tons of ports for multiple number of devices and the frame doesn't not require any software installation. It is extremely easy to transfer pictures even to the devices plugged into the frame. The frame looks stylish. The buttons on the bottom look cool but they are sometimes hard to press. 'he only thing that's bad about the frame is that you can't display the pictures randomly and that's a pretty easy feature to implement. Overall great frame for the price.