Transcend PF 730 - Digital photo frame - flash 2 GB - 7" - 800 x 480 - ivory Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I just received mine yesterday (I got black and ordered directly from Transcend). I purchased it as a gift for my sister, so I've spent today getting it loaded with photos and videos.

1) Screen looks amazing. The natural color enhancer is spot on. I haven't adjusted the settings at all. Frame looks sharp and despite being plastic, doesn't look "cheap".

2) Display. I turned off the "fullscreen" option. Otherwise, it crops vertical images to fit in the horizontal view. I also sized all my images to 800x600 based on other reviews of a similar model (720) that higher res images sometimes got a jagged edge through the center. I definitely saw that happen when I tried a 3008x2048 image.

3) Speaker isn't fantastic but it gets the job done. I have the volume on max. I can't imagine actually utilizing the audio player on this with the lack of a headphone jack, so I haven't even tried that. I just needed some kind of audio output for the videos I wanted to include.

4) Videos. The ones recorded on my Canon Powershot played back perfectly on this frame. No others did. After some searching, I found the [...] on my camera's install disc. I added it to Library/Quicktime on my mac, and used Quicktime Pro to convert my other videos to a Motion JPEG AVI. That is the only video type which will playback, which is unfortunate since it's kind of a low-quality codec. Regardless, the videos playback perfectly with no stalling so I can't complain.

5) Calendar/alarm - This wasn't an important feature for me, so I haven't tested much with it.

6) Connectivity. I've used the USB port which is my favorite part of this product. It truly is plug & play and starts a slideshow as soon as the USB key is inserted. I've also tried the mini USB cable provided to connect directly to my computer (Mac OS X 10.5) and it detected the frame beautifully, making it easy to take advantage of that 2 gb of memory. I read some reviewers having issues with getting rid of the default images. Well, on a mac at least, you need to delete the images from the frame and also empty your trash before disconnecting the frame. That got rid of them. Speaking of which, one annoyance is that hidden unix files show up in the frames file browser (ones that begin with a "dot" EX: ._filename.jpg). Wish they would have filtered those from displaying.

7) Haven't tried the remote yet. The controls on the back definitely take some getting used to. More effort could have been put in to making them more intuitively placed, since you're basically trying to look at the menu on the screen while your hand tries to hit the correct buttons on the back. I'm sure the remote would eliminate that hassle. Again, not a dealbreaker for me either way, as I can't imagine needing to use the controls all that often anyway.

8) Size. It's a little larger than a 4x6 photo frame. It's about the right size for a desk. If you plan to have it in a more prominent/public area, I'd definitely suggest a larger size.

I paid $88 with tax & s&h. Hopefully these get cheaper in the future, because now I want one for myself.

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Product Description:
7" Digital Photo Frame, white 2G