Philips digital photo frame

This article was originally posted here.

Introduction:

I have been looking for a digital photo frame for a while, and from what I
read the Philips Photo Frame
models appear to have very good image quality and good features.

I bought a Philips 9″ wood border model 9FF2CWO.

The Good:

• The frame looks very nice.
• The image quality is really very good.
• The frame’s built in software is very extensive and easy to use.
• The frame directly displays pictures from cameras or pictures copied to
  to memory cards, no special settings required, no image resizing required.

The Bad:

• The battery only lasts for about an hour, I see no point in having a
  battery at all if it only lasts an hour, better make the device cheaper and
  lighter without a battery.
• The included CD launches a very nice looking flash based autorun
  application, from there you can read the manual or install the Photo Manager
  software.

  Unfortunately the launcher software does not work on Vista, clicking the
  links to the documentation or the Photo Manager installation does nothing.

  On exiting the application Vista notifies you that the application is not
  Vista compatible and that it will run the application in compatibility mode
  next time.

  On launching the autorun application again the links now work.

• When you connect the frame’s USB connecter to the PC, several new
  removable drives are mounted.

  The one drive is the internal frame memory, the other drives are for the
  removable media slots in the frame.

  When I clicked on the drive letter associated with the SD card, Windows said
  the drive needs to be formatted, the Photo Manager software was also unable
  to access the SD card, yet the frame itself can display pictures from the SD
  card.

  Philips tech support confirmed that the card, 2GB Kingston Ultimate, was on
  the compatibility list, but they did say that there are some compatibility
  problems with larger sized memory cards, and they recommended I use a
  smaller memory card.

  I tried a 1GB PNY SD card, again the frame displayed images fine,
  and this time the SD card was accessible in Windows and in the Photo Frame
  software.

• The Photo Manager software (picture) leaves much to be desired.

  The software is slow, but maybe this is because accessing the frame storage
  is slow.

  It took me a while to figure out how to transfer pictures, no simple
  intuitive copy or transfer, you have to drag and drop them, and you can only
  transfer pictures, not folders.

• When I tried to delete a photo I got this error “Disk has no enough free
  space. There should be 20% free space at least”, what can I say, dumb error,
  poor English.

  Philips tech support recommended I delete the pictures using the frame
  software, or to delete the pictures directly using Windows Explorer.

  

• The version of Photo Manager (1.0.1.6) I received on the CD and the
  firmware (9.01.38) in my frame was both later versions than the versions
  listed on the Philips support website.

The Outcome:

• Because the picture quality is so good, I am willing to avoid the Photo Manager software,
  and using the USB connection directly manipulate the pictures on the SD
  card.
• I can only hope that Philips will replace the Photo Manger software with
  something usable.

Links:

• Pieter Viljoen’s homepage.
• Philips Photo Frame site.