Smartparts SP8EM 8-Inch Digital Picture Frame

I have now bought 4 different model Smartparts digital photo frames with about the same pixel ratings, and all are excellent. The first one is on a Coast Guard ship in the Bering Stait and keeps family and friends close to the heart. It has played non stop since 1/08. Since this unit came aboard, many were impressed and bought them for themselves. The second one is in an office building, same age, same usage. never problems. The rest are since then. The pictures are clear, the unit is well lit and very easy to start up. I use a digital card so that I can keep lots of memories handy, rather than using the internal memory. I just copy pictures from my camera, scanner or the computer into a folder, copy that to the SD card, insert it into the frame and let the smiles begin! I had tried a smaller 7 " but found that unless I was close, I could not see it as easily as the 8" with my middle aged eyes! Non of us have chosen to add music, so the sound quality is uncertain. This is a great gift and presents as a nice product as well. Very dependable...better than human memory!! You WILL enjoy it.

You can get all the praises from other reviews.. I'll be more critical and focus on the gripes:- The screen is not really as sharp as I thought it would be considering it's supposedly 800x600. The pics are grainier than they are on my laptop screen.. and I've tried all kinds of pic resolutions. You can definitely see the black gaps between pixels.. and viewing angle is not that great. Its not horrible.. but I really thought I hit the jackpot as most resolutions on these things are 640x480 (I couldn't imagine having that res on an 8" screen)- Slideshow intervals is not as flexible as I would like. There is fast (~5 secs), normal (10-15 secs), and slow (30 seconds?). I'd prefer to be able to customize by the second instead. So that I could set it to 30 second interval or 5 minutes.- Interface.. is pretty outdated.. not the most efficient thing in the world to get around. Practically impossible to get anything done without the remote control.

I had a SmartParts frame 4 yrs ago and had no problems with it so tried to replace it with the same. This one has one speed instead of the 3 it shows. Its so fast you cant see the photo or it sits on a photo forever. The photo colors and clarity are not nearly as good as our old one. I cannot pause it to look at a photo or to go back. The remote only performs a few functions and the back of the frame does nothing. All things my other one did. I would love to return it...or dump it in the trash.

In spite of what it says or doesn't say on the box or in the Amazon description or on the smartparts web site, This frame IS NOT MAC COMPATIBLE!Tech support insisted that it was mac compatible because you can plug the frame into your usb port and the internal ram will mount on the desktop. If you own a mac, in order to display images on the frame, you have to use third party software that is not included in the packaging and not mentioned in the instructions to strip the desktop icon files from the sd card or internal ram. Furthermore, the only audio file that it will play is WMA. You have to again purchase third party software for the mac to convert to WMA. In fact it is not MP3 capable or quicktime capable, which is the format used in many digital cameras.That just doesn't sound like "compatible" to me.And it doesn't sound very smart on smartparts part either. LOL

I found it easy to load the pics, and the clarity of them are great. Loaded about 75 of the family for Grandma. She loves the slide show.Only problem was we broke the little plastic stand on the back. Had to super glue it. I recommend this frame. Great deal for the size of the screen.

I have already bought and returned several digital frames. This one is the hands down best one around. The screen has great resolution. Your photos will look very sharp. The boarder is real wood - not plastic or cheep metal. It looks great. The random feature is much better than is found on many others and the price is, well, from Amazon really good. I cannot find a single fault to this frame. I think most of the technical problems people have been having are based on the files they are asking this frame to display. It only shows jpg images, so don't bother with other formats. It also works best with smaller file sizes. I used the free microsoft XP tool called "image resizer" (google it) to resize the files on my SD card to 1200 x 800 - you could probably go smaller without loss of quality. Each image is about 100k and the frame has no problems at all displaying them quickly.This would be a great Father's Day gift. Just add the memory card full of family photos.

I was hoping this would be a simple to use digital frame for my father. It was not quite as simple as advertised and customer service was very demeaning. I tried to load pictures to the frame directly from the memory cards (as they recommended as the best option). One memory card could be read to show the thumbnails but would not copy to the frame. The other one partially did. I tried to unsuccessfully download some software that was supposed to help. Finally, I called tech support and asked them. They basically told me I was an idiot for trying to download the software and told me to load the pictures on my computer and copy them to then frame. This is exactly opposite of their directions which discourage that because they say it will slow down the slide shows. I was finally able to load my pictures via computer (which will be more difficult for my tech illiterate father), but I bought the frame because a computer was supposedly not needed. Otherwise, the pictures look good for the price and it holds a lot of pictures.

The frame looked nice, but it just didn't work. It never even turned on. When I tried to contact Smartparts to troubleshoot, they didn't have a website (despite one being listed in the product materials). So, there was no alternative but to return it. Disappointing.