DIGITAL FRAME, 10" W1020, WI-FI,

So, I bought this frame for my wife. The idea was that I would pull the images wirelessly from our server and display them. I could update the folder on the server and the pictures would show up on the frame. Reality is that the frame can not communicate with standard servers for file service. So, no sweat. Just use the special software and serve them from there. Hmm, when it powers up it forgets that you told it to pull from the remote PC and pulls the demo pictures from frame memory. I gave up so wireless was a complete bust. No use at all for pictures.

Now, I put a digital card in a begin transferring pictures over. Oh my, it was incredibly slow on the transfers. After waiting through 20 or so pictures, I gave up again. I have a few thousand pictures and at this pace it would take weeks to get them on the frame.

So, I buy a digital card, load them like normal and insert it in the digital frame. All seems well right up to the point where the frame seems to never finish reading the files from the card to get setup. I left it running and came back 3 hours later and it was still reading the card. I do have 11,000 pictures on that card but what did Kodak expect in today's world.

From what I can see, the demo images look good. However, I will not recommend this frame to anyone. Its slow and the software seems wonky.

I bought 3 of these in the past 6 months (one for myself and one for each set of in-laws). The touch frame is better than a remote but not quite as good as I imagine a touch screen to be (the only touch screen frame I found was very expensive). Most of the setup is very easy once you figure out how to scroll (hint 1: touch directly under the up and down arrows rather than the nearest lighted spot on the frame as these do not necessarily line up; Hint 2: the up and down arrows also scroll right and left when needed). I setup the frames to turn on and off automatically in hopes that the daily cycle would prevent any need of tinkering by the grandparents. I also went onsite to setup the link to their networks. Some have mentioned that network setup has been a problem but I was 3 for 3 and no problems at all. I also setup flickr accounts for each of them. These are then setup as channels in their Framechannel accounts (which I also setup for them). Framechannel has news and weather channels but a limit of 500 photos which is not nearly enough for grandchildren pictures (thus the need for flickr accounts). The paid version of Flickr allows unlimited pictures (note: the free version of flickr only allows your photo stream to show the last 200 photos - thus the need for the paid account). On average I get one or two calls a month because the frame needs to be reset. I consider this to be an acceptable hassle since I (and others) can email pictures to the grandparents accounts which automatically download to their frames.

It looks nice but it is not without it's issues. My husband is super tech savvy. He never could figure a way to get flickr to work with this frame. The Kodak website worked fine. However, my MIL, who received this as a gift has discovered some pictures that I did not put on the Kodak site. They were from a friend who shared her photos with me a while back. Weird thing is I can't access them through my account, so I don't know how they showed up on the frame and I can't seem to take them off. I guess I need to talk to my friend and get her to take my email off of her account. Oy! It also does not grab new photos from the account until it is reset. By reset I mean that the whole frame turns off for a specified amount of time and then reboots up. We set it up to reset in the middle of the night, but if the power goes out for some reason the clock has to be reset. Since we live 2400 miles away, Grandma has to do it. This sort of defeats the purpose of setting it up so she doesn't have to learn all the confusing buttons. The idea was for her to get new pictures of the baby suddenly pop up on the screen. She could be walking by and see new pictures. A few of the times, when it reset it went to the default internal pictures that came with the frame. You needed to go into the menu and make it look at the Kodak account again. We could never find a reason why it did that. Cute concept, but it has a few flaws. Kodak needs to figure a way for the frame to check the online account more frequently to get updates rather then needing a timer set internally. They need to make it work better with flickr, which is a free site. Using the Kodak site means that I have to make a purchase of photo prints every year from them to keep the account open. Otherwise they delete my pictures. Very coy, Kodak and what a lovely way to make more money and screw the customer over. With the amount of money I spent on this frame, I should be able to use the Kodak website for free to get the pictures. So if Grandma has no idea how to set up wifi much less a digital frame and can't understand what an online account is, this is not the gift for her. If she is pretty savvy to fix issues then it might work out okay. And if you don't mind ordering prints from Kodak, then go ahead. I can get them much cheaper through other websites, so I will order the minimum requirement each year so I can keep the account open.

I purchased 4 of these for relatives because I thought it would be a great way to share photos with them without having to instruct them how to get the pictures on the frame. Mission accomplished, at first, but then the hardware quality issues started.

Within a year, I had to return 3 of the 4 frames. One would lock up and continuously reboot itself. The second developed a vertical green bar on the screen. The third lost the menu option to connect wirelessly and even a factory reset and firmware reload wouldn't help.

Kodak honored the warranty with no issues. I received 3 refurbished replacement frames and tested them. Of the three, one of them didn't boot. I had to send that one back as well. I just received it in the mail and it's already having sporadic problems where the screen will flicker or an hourglass will come up and never disappear.

If it weren't for the hardware issues, I would really like this frame.

Like many others, I did lots of research looking for wireless digital frames with the idea of giving them as gifts to my parents and in-laws, and having them constantly show photos of the kids and grandkids, with little to no effort on the receiver's part. The picture quality is great, and the touch-screen controls are sleek and invisible. This frame has many features, but I'm focusing this review on how I set it up to do what lots of other people want it to do, using Framechannel and Flickr. Here's what I did:
1. Set up a free dedicated Flickr account for the frame.
2. Send Flickr login/password info to my siblings so they can upload pictures too, instructing them to keep the photos horizontal and if possible, crop them to 800 x 480 pixels (you can do this from Flickr with the embedded "picnik" application on the Flickr site. The cropping/resizing is not absolutely necessary, but it avoids empty black areas to the left and right of the photo and fills the screen beautifully.)
3. Set up a Framechannel account for the frame, and set it to feed from the Flickr channel, and sprinkle in some weather, calendar, and sports score slides.

We have NO photos stored in the internal memory, none coming from their local computers, none being emailed - all photos are in the dedicated Flickr account.

I'm sure there are other methods of accomplishing the same thing, such as the emailing photos directly to the frame, but we decided to keep it simple, and only use the Flickr site, fed through Framechannel.

Both my parents and my in-law's frames are up and running, and they are both thrilled with the frames. And I can control what appears in their living rooms from halfway across the country!