Customer Reviews

Westinghouse 14.1-Inch LCD Digital Photo Frame

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(14)

 

 

I was very disappointed in this picture frame.

While this frame does have a very high resolution, it has virtually NO side viewing angle. If you aren't staring at it directly face on, then it starts to get overly-bright and washed out, or overly dark and difficult to see - depending on the angle you are viewing it at.

It also has difficulty choosing the correct orientation for a picture. If you edit the pictures in an image editor - like Photoshop - then it seems to get them right. But straight out of a camera it often gives you a "sideways" photo in the frame.

There is also a design problem with the Compact Flash card slot. It is very finicky and if you even slightly misalign the card as you are inserting it into the frame, it can fall into the sealed back of the frame. This is VERY easy to do, and I was fortunate to be able to get my card to fall back out of the slot. But it is a design flaw that had to be apparent to any testers and easily fixed by enclosing the slot so that the card couldn't fall through. Westinghouse apparently decided that this was just something we would have to deal with.

Finally, it arrived with a bright blue "dead pixel" in the center of the screen. This was not noticable on bright, "busy" pictures, but it stood out like a sore thumb on dark pictures and particularly on flesh-toned scenes - like, well - you know - people's faces.

As a comparison, I also own the Matsunichi frame which has been flawless. I expected more from a company like Westinghouse. There are better frames out there.

ONE OTHER NOTE: BEWARE - if you order this through Amazon but actually purchase it through Electronics Express, you have an entirely different (and worse) return policy which even though the product might be defective, requires you to pay shipping and limits your returns to 15 days. Look carefully before you order - if it isn't from AMAZON then you are probably up a creek if there are problems.

I ordered this frame as a gift. It is lovely and has a clear sharp image. However, when I was installing a compact flash memory card, it slipped through a rather sizeable space between the plastic housing and the slot. With the memory card rattling around in the plastic housing, it disconnected some wires, resulting in no picture. Westinghouse needs to make sure there is no space between the slot and the 'black hole' into the plastic housing of the frame. In other words, be VERY careful when inserting a compact flash memory card

at 1200x800 resolution, this many computer monitors and televisions. I trust westinghouse because I do own a few different monitors by them and have had great luck with them. Honestly, you could buy a TV for this price, but for a picture frame this is the Mercedes. Great clear pictures, Multi-media card reader and self contained program so you don't have to hook up a computer or DVD player to play your pictures, just pop in a memory card (XD, MMS, SD, CF) card and watch. Easy to navagate menues as well. Also able to play Mpeg/mp3 files for multimedia slideshow or short movies. Check this out, it does cost more, but its nice, and the rotating mosiac feature is cool as well.

i am thoroughly enjoying the digital picture frame from westinghouse. a good value for the money. takes a little time to figure out the menu and controls but with a little effort it becomes pretty easy. Good resolution if the picture is quality. quite a few features to play with. optimal picture setting will result in your pictures being automatically resized which can lead to some odd results. no music or sound. however the frame will play videos and loop them continuously. using the internal memory is a bit complicated...still relying on external storage options. i looked at a few other frames such as kodak and was not as impressed. I am happy with the purchase. Rated it four stars because i do think adding sound, better automatic picture sizing (for the most part the frame does a good job) and a more intuitive use of the internal memory would improve the device.

I purchased this model and was pretty excited about the large size (I was planning to wall mount). After setting it up though and testing out some images, I discovered that the viewing angle can best be described as "atrocious". Unless you're right smack dab in the middle of the thing, the image will be either washed out, too dark, negative image, or poor color rendition. But hey, in that sweet spot it's a nice picture. Just don't move an inch to any side.

The screen is slightly concave which I thought would hep the side-to-side viewing angle, but no, it's worse than just about any other one I've seen in stores. I wish the store I bought this at had a display model or I'd have known about the poor quality without the hassle of taking it hope, setting it up, complaining to myself, re-packing it, driving back to the store and getting a refund.

It also lacks any MP3/audio capability... not sure what another reviewer meant when they said it has MP3 features... it doesn't.

Doesn't even have a remote control! And lets face it, with a frame this big, you're more likely to wall mount. If you do, the side buttons to control the thing would be nearly inaccessible, making it even more useless.

So unless you have a spot in your house where nobody will ever see this thing from the sides and it's always perfectly at eye level, and you really really really want a large screen, do yourself a favor and get a smaller frame with better image quality. If lack of audio features doesn't bother you, no worries, but it is cool to have audio playing during a slideshow... that was a HUGE hit with another frame I gave as a gift... literally brought tears to the recipient. :)

I would strongly recommend not purchasing any Westinghouse digital picture frames. I purchased the Westinghouse digital picture frame and 10 months later it stopped working completely. They have a 6 month warranty so my $300 purchase was a huge waste of money. They have not yet agreed to any free repairs. Maybe it's me, but when I spend $300 on high tech equipment, I expect it to work longer than 6 months (or 10 months in my case). The short period that it worked, I liked it and recommended it to a friend. His has now stopped working just beyond the warranty expiration. Buyer Beware.

I bought one of these as a gift to put wedding pictures on. It looked GREAT with its high resolution, but we returned it becuase it had one broken pixel (which would really stand out on some pictures). The next one had a bowed screen out of the box and was obviously defective. Returning that one, the third had inaccessible on-board memory. Sorry to say we are giving up on this item. Too bad, as this would be a good item with the right quality control. I have little confidence that one of these would last even if you were lucky enough to get one that wasnt broken out of the box. Fortunately the retailer has accepted our returns with little headache. Glad I didnt mail order it...would have been a hassle.

This is the second of these items we had. The first arrived and did not start up at all. It apparently had previously been returned for the same reason. This second one was provided at no cost by Amazon. While it worked ok for a short time, it soon lost most functionality. We could not any longer get into the menu. We also returned this item to Amazon at no charge, and this time elected to get a refund rather than a replacement.

While the defective aspects were bad enough, it was also very difficult to us. For example, the functionality through the 5 buttons on the side were not intuitive. The written description of how to use the product was poor.This was especially evident when trying to upload photos from my PC or a flash drive.Westinghouse 14.1-Inch LCD Digital Photo Frame

I was delighted with the quality of the pictures, even though there is a limited viewing angle. However shortly after receiving the frame it started to malfunction. There seems to be a problem with the frames ability to read memory cards. It will show several pictures and then all of a sudden chop up a picture into four pieces and completely freeze up. Restarting the frame just repeats the process. There is no fix.

I was on the phone multiple times with Westinghouse support and they tried blaming my memory card. After going all through their tests, reformatting and jumping through numerous other hoops, including using a completely different memory card, they agreed it was their problem and said they would fix the frame. I paid to ship it back and waited over two months for them to fix it. The frame worked fine for one batch of photos. When I went to change my pictures it started doing the same exact thing, the old chop and freeze. I called customer service and they said, it appears you have a problem but it is now out of warranty and there is nothing we will do for you, end of discussion.

Do yourself a favor and look elsewhere for your photo frame.

The resolution of this unit is magnificent even with the viewing angle problems.

Unfortunately the unit I bought conked out after running just a few hours: The control buttons stopped working, and booting without a memory card displayed a corrupted image instead of a demo image as I'd expected.

In view of the other disappointing reviews here, I will return it and purchase a different manufacturer's product instead of trying a second unit.