Ask and you shall be given!

Armed with my D7000, I've been taking quite a lot of pictures for my wife and girl. And my wife was telling me the other day: "It's time to get an iPad or a digital photo frame, our girl will definitely love it!"

Ask and you shall be given!

I was going through the forums searching for iPhone accessories and chanced upon quite a few folks selling brand new digital photo frames! Happened that these people have just received the Sony DPF-A710 from the Standard Chartered Bank's credit card promotion and are trying to sell them off. I managed to get one of it at S$55, while the normal retail price is S$129. Lucky us!

Sony DPF-A710

The unit I got was brand new and the box had no signs of being opened. It was all factory fresh! It even came with 12+3 months warranty (online registration) by Sony! Nice buy I would say! ;D

The contents

The frame came with a remote control, manual, CD-Rom, power adapter and stand. It cannot be powered by battery, which is something I'm wasn't hoping for since it will be placed near my TV. The stand fits on the right bottom corner at the back and the frame can be placed in portrait or landscape orientation.

Frame in action!

You can see the frame in action in the picture above. We display our family portraits rather than these random shots I took. We love the frame 'cos we are able to have a single display that shows all our pictures but the frame does have it's pro's and con's.

Pro's:
- Nice size --> Doesn't occupy too much space
- Remote controlled
- Good variety --> The frame allows you to display a variety of information: single picture or slide show/clock/calendar/picture with calendar or clock/multiple pictures in a frame etc.
- LCD brightness can be adjusted (the above is set at brightness 2 out of 10)
- Auto on / off timer
- Auto rotate images
- Supports SD / MMC / Memory Stick

Con's:
- Not able to select folder to display. It just reads all images in the memory cards and displays them.
- Resolution: The display is not really high quality so you'll be able to see some pixelation in some photos.

Improvements I'll like to see:
- Ability to select folder to display. This will really allow a user to make full use of the frame. We can sort our pictures into Portrait or Landscape folders and display them in the correct orientation. This will definitely increase the user experience!
- More time choices in between pictures. Currently for slide shows, I'm displaying them at 7secs interval. The next lower allowable interval is 3 secs. I think this is too short. If we can custom set the time interval, it will really be nice!

Overall I give this frame a 7 out of 10. -2 points 'cos of the resolution, -1 'cos I cannot select folders to display. Imagine you put in a 2Gb card full of pictures from different events --> it will be really tedious trying to find the set of pictures you want to display! If the pictures are separated into folders and we can choose the folder to display, it definitely will make everyone happier!

I hope someone from Sony sees this post and work out something for this frame! I will really be thrilled if they tell me the frame's firmware can be upgraded! =D