Customer Reviews

Westinghouse 8-Inch LCD Digital Photo Frame

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(15)

 

 

[ September 2007 ]

Good:

- Bright high-resolution display. (Watch out for the DPF-0801, lower resolution and less internal memory.)

- MosaicView is occasionally nice, though we don't usually use it. With it, you get a new picture every few seconds but any given picture stays displayed for 4x as long.

- It hung when I had a 0-length JPEG file, but otherwise has been 100% reliable for displaying stills.

Bad:

- Does not include a USB cable to connect it to a computer.

- When I tried connecting it to a computer, the connection was unreliable. However, I wasn't planning to use the internal memory anyway, so I didn't try to figure out where the problem was - could have been the frame, the computer, or the cable. I use pictures on memory cards.

- Memory Stick protrudes past the right edge of the frame. SD is better.

- If you have many pictures and want to select a particular one to display, it's tedious to get to it.

- Documentation is a bit unclear on how to get to the menu. In particular, you can't get to the menu while a slide show is running. You have to stop the slide show by clicking the menu button, and *then* press-and-hold the menu button to get to the menu.

Comments:

- Remember this is only a 0.5 megapixel display, so shrink your photos down to match. They'll only be about 64K with moderate compression, and you can fit an awful lot of those on a modest memory card. Improves performance too.

- It has a number of transition modes, but the only one I like is dissolve. Surprisingly, it doesn't have any simple wipes or "scroll-in" transitions.

Wish list:

- Audio would be fun, though I'm not sure I'd actually use it.

- Display captions, timestamps, et cetera.

- Automatic brightness based on room lighting. (We just keep our at max bright all the time, but that does light up the room when it's dark.)

- A WiFi connection would be awfully nice.

- Have a mode where MosaicView occasionally displays a picture using the full screen. (It already displays "favorites" full screen, but I mean something more random, where any picture might be full screen.)

- Frame can be physically displayed either in landscape or portrait, but the UI is landscape and that's the orientation it displays the pictures. There should be a portrait mode where it displays the UI and pictures in that orientation. You could work around this by manually rotating the pictures, but that would be tedious.

Haven't tried:

- Video
- xD, Compact Flash, USB drive

[August 2009]
I bought a half-dozen of these for Christmas presents in '07. Of those, two have failed after 18 months or so - powers on to a blank screen, then sometimes to a screen with vertical bands and/or a distorted version of the Westinghouse logo. I'm quite disappointed.

Westinghouse DPF-0802
800x600pixels, USB/miniUSB to 128MB internal, all common cards, 6 3/8" x 4 3/4" display area (8" diagonal), 10" x 8 3/8" outer frame dimensions (measured).
No extra border between lcd and frame -nice.
Retains last setting after being unplugged (checked up to 24 hours).
Nice display quality.
Outer frame is quite nondescript, a plus as it does not compete with images. Does not look 'cheap' or flimsy, some others do.
Whining sound is a non-issue.

---

Professionally, I'm an imaging scientist (not kidding, we really exist), so choosing this model took a fair bit of time thanks to the relatively difficult process of finding any technical description of the photo frames currently on the market, or even accurate general descriptions for that matter. Then there is the issue that most of these are not available to see in a store.

The goal:
..to find a frame for my grandparents, who are not computer savvy, or even own one for that matter. It would be best if, after setting it up and shipping it to them, that all they had to do was plug it in and turn it on. This model seems to satisfy that requirement.

Even with the 'mere' 128MB internal memory it'll hold over 800 pics (your mileage will vary) that have been scaled to 800x600pix in a good quality jpeg format.
I've asked the rest of the family to send pics to be included and doubt I'll run out of space. (I did buy a 1GB SD card just in case)

Of the 20+ frames I sorted through this was one of a handful that did not seem to hide critical specs in its description. The worst offenders were ones with an 8", or even 10"!, diagonal display size yet the resolution was 480x324pix. Beware 'bargains' and watch those model numbers.

Others of interest in this price range:
Pandigital PAN 803-BC - which *may* be the same core as this one..???
Catronics PF080-b
SmartParts SP8EM or SP8MIX - ??only dif is frame??

Whining:
Someone complained about a whining noise. Yes, it is there, but only when you have the display at less than maximum brightness. (it's the voltage regulator(stepper, divider, whatever) for the light source)
If you've ever heard someone's hearing aid start to squeal, when you're across the room, this sound is somewhat softer.
I see no reason to ever have the display at anything other than max brightness, so this is a non-issue for me.

Sound:
Don't overlook the fact that this unit has no sound. Just a reminder. It plays the low-res (640x480) videos my still camera takes just fine, sans sound. I have yet to see if the slide show can go through a mix of pics and vids.

Contrast:
In preparing pics for the frame it turned out to be helpful to give the pics a slight bias. Shadows lost a little detail if the min value in a pic was zero. This is not unexpected, is very minor, and is easy to tweak in the batch processing. These are not calibrated displays, yours may well differ.

Color depth:
I found no spec for this but, after testing, believe it to be roughly 16bit.

Power supply:
Yes(!) this unit has a Level IV power efficiency adapter. There are still a few electronic gadgets out there that were actually manufactured long ago enough to still come with the old, heavy, transformer-based wall wart. (my ISP just sent me a new router with one, grrrr)

Resizing:
In an initial test I took a few quick pics at the lowest resolution of my camera, 1600x1200pix. Note that this is a simple factor of two in each dimension as compared to the frame. Take the card out of the camera, put it in the frame, turn it on, bingo - you'll get a slideshow.
One tiny annoyance- the resampling was definitely aliased. Others didn't notice, my family won't notice, but some of you may. Foregoing the details, this particular case (factor of a power of 2) is about as computationally simple as can be to reach an anti-aliased solution. Yet it doesn't.
So, if you're picky, do all the resizing on a computer... GIMP with "David's Batch Processor"(not me) is nice, free, and open source; many of the image management tools will likely also do a nice job - Picajet, Picasa, etc.; and for us geek's there's always ImageMagick, IDL, pdl, Matlab, & _your fave here_.

Hope this helped.
I'm not the gadget type, but I'm fairly excited to give my 92yo grandparents a dynamic reminder of friends and family spanning their lives... including pics of their parents from over a century ago!

This is a bit more in price than some of the smaller frames, but this one is outstanding in quality. Again, it has the standard multi-media card reader, MP3/MPEG playback, and 128mb internal memory (model 801 westinghouse has only 8mb). But the greatest feature of this model is the 800x600 pixel quality high resolution screen, which is even better than the 10 inch frame by westinghouse(800x480). Hard to beat quality for about $60 more than standard 7" frames with 480x234 quality. This frame also features the mosaic view (4 pictures side by side rotating), which is great looking on the high resolution. Check this one out, worth the investment.

Those of us who have had slide shows on our computer monitors or pictures in our cell phones may consider the digital picture frame mundane. The Westinghouse 8-Inch LCD Digital Photo Frame was amazingly easy to set up for anyone who has even basic computer skills. However, I recently purchased this for my mother-in-law, who has never even held a computer mouse in her hand. And she absolutely appreciates a gift that provides her years of memories that flash before her all day long. This is the best gift you can give anyone you love.
The internal memory on these devices is small, so I purchased a 2GB memory card that inserts into the card slot on the back of the digital frame, and I loaded it with many more images. I called several family members and asked them to provide digital images that they had scanned from old family albums as well as new images they had taken with their digital cameras. Once I got all of the images together, I resized them so they were all 72dpi and the same height. This way I was able to fit almost 100 images on the memory card. The model I purchased would also play video and audio, but I decided to fill it with still images set on "random slide show."
The presentation of this gift was everything. Instead of wrapping the digital frame in the box it came in, which looked like a computer peripheral, I wrapped it with lots of colorful tissue in a regular gift box. I had a long extension cord plugged so when she opened it, I reached in I plugged it in and told her to slide the button on the back to "on." She was in awe, as was the rest of the family who had not seen a digital frame in action.
The digital frame is one of the coolest, most accessible and most affordable home electronics products, and I think would be great on just about anyone's holiday gift-giving list. Take the extra time and load a card with images, and this gift will pay off for a long time. I am giving you a heads up now because it takes time to gather all of those images and put them together.
Cindy Davis, Editor-in-Chief
Electronic House magazine
https://www.electronichouse.com
cdavis@ehpub.com

I am very satisfied with this frame. Please note that it is the new 0802 model and not 0801. I put a variety of photos on it, from either a scanner or digital camera. I used the CompactFlash slot, and also tried it with the USB slot. Both worked fine, although the USB is visible from the front. A micro USB drive might look better.

I put 378 photos on it. At first the frame would freeze up after random times. I finally realized (when I took it off random shuffle) that it was stopping on the same picture. It turns out that the frame can be a little fussy about the files. With 378 photos, there were four I had to delete because the frame froze at those photos. It was time consuming to figure out which ones they were. I believe this is a common problem with many frames. Once I removed those photos, it worked flawlessly.

I am not sure what order it uses when not on random shuffle. It is definately not alphbetical. It might be by file creation date. I created several folders with decades for names (1990, 2000, etc.) Within the photos were numbered file like 1991-203.jpg, 1991-231.jpg, etc. Since I scanned them mostly in that order, it played about 70% in that order. But every so often would jump to a different decade. And my 1900 decade played last (I scanned it last). If this is a concern, you may need to open each file on your computer and save it in the order you want it to display.

Before purchasing, decide what memory card you will use. You may need to also purchase a memory card reader. You can hook the frame up to a computer, but it only writes to internal RAM, not to a card. I also tried writing to the card through my camera, but that did not work either. If you plan to change photos frequently and just use the internal RAM, then this isn't an issue.

I bought this for my wife for Mother's Day. It's a good looking frame with excellent resolution. It's very easy to use and produces a nice slideshow automatically--or it can be tweaked to user preference. The "MosaicViewTM" is interesting, but it makes some of the pictures appear a bit small on this 8-inch screen. The slideshow feature has a nice random mode and you can choose the transition type or set it to show random transitions. I'd give it 5 stars except that my frame makes all red colors look orange--and there's no way to adjust the color.

I am very happy with my purchase of the 8 inch model. The 800x600 display is very clear. I was able to load 5500 photos onto a 1gb xd card by utilizing a multi-image utility to resize all the files to 800x600. You do have to make sure that no uncompatible photos (I had a single bmp image slip) get onto the card. If so, the device will hang. Great value.
Grandma will love this as a gift.

I compared this model against the 8" Kodak SV811K and found the Westinghouse DPF-0802 lacking.

Here's why:

- Screen was initially very bright and then got very dull after 5 minutes. Viewing from angles was impossible. There seems to be no light sensor to detect lighting within the room.

- No remote control. Controls and buttons are behind the frame.

- OSD is very confusing.....if you can even figure out how to get it to come on.

- After rotating pictures 90 degrees, wouldn't keep the settings. Very hard to even get to the Rotation setting.

- If you plan on setting up a slide show with more than a dozen slides then plan on spending 30-45 minutes with the settings buttons.

- The Favorites setting is prominently mentioned in the manual. Can someone tell me where it is?

- Mosaic view is nice but you've got to be up close to see any detail in the pictures. Remember this is only an 8" LCD to start with.

I bought this frame as a Christmas present for my mother, and I made sure to order it early so I'd have time to put together some pictures and make sure everything worked before giving it to her. I read a LOT of reviews and decided this Westinghouse 8-Inch would be the best choice in the price range I wanted to be in. To make a long story short, I think I definitely made the right choice and I do highly recommend this frame unless you absolutely have to have some of the features that come on the higher-priced frames.

The good: The picture resolution is awesome and the 8-inch size is plenty big enough to see well. You can load 128MB onto the frame's internal memory, or you can use external media to display many more pictures. There are settings for the length of time each picture is displayed, the effects used when changing to a new pictures, whether to play the pictures in alphabetical order or randomly, and whether you want to display one picture at a time or a mosaic of 4 pictures. The frame remembers the settings so when you turn it off and back on you don't have to re-set your choices. The buttons on the back are easy to access and operation is fairly simple. The black frame is suitable for just about any decor.

The bad: The manual provided with the frame is pretty skimpy on useful information. It's printed in half a dozen languages, but it's only very basic instructions on how to run it. It could be worse, but it could certainly be better and that's why I knocked a star off the rating.

Features that are not on this frame but would be nice, and are available on frames that cost more at the time of this writing, include:
- Display of picture title or even file name
- Remote control
- Brightness control
- Wireless hookup to your computer to automatically get pictures from a website (would be great for far-flung families to upload pictures and have them automatically show up on the frame)

I'm sure there are more "premium" features that I'm not thinking of right at this minute, but I decided that my mother wouldn't use any of those features, and she isn't set up for wireless anyway, so this Westinghouse frame was just what I needed.

My picture frame started acting strange. The screen would get all pixelated with bars and other graphical artifacts. Power cycling the unit would help things out temporarily but the problems just recurred.

An email from Westinghouse technical support told me that I could only put "raw JPEGs" onto the frame because meta tags added by certain software can't be handled by their JPEG library. Most digital cameras automatically add tags. The suggestion was to open each picture in MS Paint and resave to get rid of any tags. Poorly written software.