» Smartparts SP8EM 8-Inch Digital Picture Frame

Smartparts SP8EM 8-Inch Digital Picture Frame Reviews

Customer Rating:
Summary: Great quality for a while, then problems, and customer service sucks!
Comment: I bought one of these about a year ago. Was VERY happy with it...great picture quality, features, resolution, etc.. Note they only come with a 90-day warranty. Guess they don't feel very confident about their own product. Well, the remote stopped working and it's less than a year old. I figured it might need a new lithium battery in the remote, so I carefully tried removing the old one. That's when the cheap plastic battery holder broke. Getting around that problem, it still would not work. I emailed the company. After several tries they emailed me they were sending out a free new replacement remote. That made me happy. After two weeks it never arrived. So I contacted them again. Remember this took several emails on my part, and finally a phone call to someone in tech support (Angel) who assured me a new one had been mailed. That first one had never, of course, been sent. They finally did send out a new replacement remote, it looks different, I'm not sure if it's even the right one. Either way, the frame doesn't recognize it, so I am back to using it manually. My conclusion is the frame was good, for less than a year, but their customer service sucks. Cannot even find replacement remotes on their website IF you choose to order one. I wonder how long they will stay in business.

---

Customer Rating:
Summary: Works fine, but too small and not bright enough
Comment: I bought this frame to use at work, but soon discovered the fluorescent lights in my office were just too bright for the frame, even though I increased the brightness all the way up. It also is just too small to appreciate at any distance over an arm's length away.
The frame works as advertised, but it just wasn't right for me.

---

Customer Rating:
Summary: Smartparts SP8EM 8" Digital Picture Frame
Comment: I downloaded my JPEG pictures onto a USB flash drive, Inserted same, plugged the frame in, turned it on, waited a few seconds for it to run through it's boot-up, and everything worked great. It changes pictures about every 5 seconds. Resolution is very good. We shut it off and unplugged it while on vacation; plugged it back in and turned it on again; all is working well. We plan to give some of these as Christmas gifts

---

Customer Rating:
Summary: Very good quality
Comment: Pros:
=====
- Overall quality is excellent. Images are smooth.
- Back stand prop is very sturdy, as is the frame itself.
- Very bright and clear. (Has controls for brightness, contrast, contrast, and tint.)
- Remote control is flat and light. Can be stored with ease.
- Has many photo transition options.
- Can display one or four images at a time.
- Can display only one specific image if you want to.

Cons:
=====
- The one bug I've encountered is that (after a month of use) some images of a high resolution with a perfect 4/3 width/height ratio would be resized to something *smaller* than the frame's resolution and were displayed in the center. Basically, my rectangular images would be displayed in the middle of the frame with a ~40 pixel border of unused space. I've only seen this occur once so I haven't experimented with what causes it or how to fix it easily, but I converted all my 4/3 images size to match the exact resolution of the frame (800x600) and they display perfectly fine now. Note that it could just be a minor bug that can be fixed by removing the card and reinserting it. I haven't been able to play with that yet.

- USB transfer to inserted flash cards is painfully slow. Transferring .6 MB (one reasonable resolution photo) takes over 6 seconds. I would advise that you use your computer(/camera) to put all the images on the card that you want. Only use the USB interface to tweak the existing files, ie to remove and add a couple pictures.
- Slowest slideshow speed is about 27 seconds per picture. Not much of a con but I would prefer something more like one picture every minute or two. (A look at other digital frame specs seems to imply that all other frames have this same restriction.)

Notes:
======
- The digital screen has an 8 inch diagonal. The entire frame itself is 8 and 3/8 inches by 9 and 5/8 inches.
- If you have images of largish resolution (say greater than 1600x1200) that you have displayed vertically, this means that the 1600 pixel height of the image will be scaled down to the frame's 600 pixel height. If the fame does this, it will give a hint of a grainy look. If you care to, you might want to scale the image down using a smart software program to get a better quality scale, and then use that image. Not a fault of the frame, just a practical limitation. Scaling 3 -> 1 makes it hard to preserve detail, especially if the image has lots of detail (ie, a facial close-up with a flash).
- Following from above: If you have pictures that you think look grainy, try resizing them to the frame's resolution with an intelligent software program. It will likely do a better job than the frame can do.
- The default brightness and tint settings may be a bit high. This is most evident in closeup photos with a flash. You may want to lower those two default settings from their defaults by a bit.
- I haven't tested the video/music playback, so I can't evaluate their functionality.

The "cons" section is longer than the "pros" section, but that's because there's more detail to say. In no way do the cons outweigh the pros.

Overall I'm very pleased with the frame. I scoured the reviews of a lot of digital frames before deciding on this one, which had good reviews. I have not been disappointed. I would highly recommend this frame.

---

Customer Rating:
Summary: Great product with very good resolution
Comment: This product works well with vivid colors and high resolution (note that these photo frames vary in resolution - the higher the better). The controls are easy to use via the remote. I use the random display function which does not seem to be completely random but still works well. This size frame is best for a desk or end/coffee table. For something placed on a mantle across the room I would recommend a larger size.

---

More Reviews for Smartparts SP8EM 8-Inch Digital Picture Frame