Product Description

HP df820 series Digital Picture Frame with tons of internal memory gives you an easy way to enjoy and share your favorite pictures with family and friends, all without a computer!It's so easy to use. Just take your pictures, remove the memory card from the digital camera, insert it into the picture frame, and enjoy the picture slideshow. It's that simple!HP df820 offers 800 x 600 high-resolution picture display and supports most commonly used memory cards. Its built-in USB port also supports USB thumb drives adding more exibility for picture sharing.

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Product Details

• Size: 8-Inch
• Brand: Hewlett-Packard
• Model: DF820A3
• Dimensions: 3.70 pounds
• Display size: 8

Features

• Image resolution up to 800 x 600
• 512MB internal memory
• Internal speakers for MP3 playback
• 4 interchangeable double mat gives user 8 color options
• Slideshow, multiple picture, clock and calander display options

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Customer Reviews

Idiotic Shuffle Mode cripples nice product
Picture is nice. Sound is nice. Remote works well. Menus easy to navigate. Image is nice. Easy to use. Just load up a memory card and let it play... BUT... the Shuffle Mode is INSANELY FRUSTRATING!

I can't believe HP released this product. How difficult is it to program a shuffle mode that won't repeat photos? Or a shuffle mode that doesn't repeat the same pattern every time you start it? Not very. Apparently the authors of the manual didn't think this was difficult either. They included a line stating how the shuffle mode SHOULD work. Instead, the frame often displays the same image as many as three times in 5 minutes. (!!!) So, despite having loaded hundreds of photos, I end up looking at the same few photos over and over again. HP's solution? Change the wording in the manual.

Unbelievable.

No Random Mode
I loaded up a memory card with several dozen pictures, put it on my desk at work, set it to change once an hour, and was rewarded with great looking pictures of the kids to brighten my day.

The next day I came in, turned it on, and saw the same pictures. Hmm ... oh, wait there's a "shuffle" mode. Voila! The pictures were in a different order so I saw different pictures the second day. Perfect!

But the third day, the pictures "shuffled" in the exact same order! So out of the 50 or so pictures on it I see only about 8 of them. If I want to I can always use the remote to browse to a different picture, but an hour later it again starts in with the same set I've seen a zillion times.

Too bad ... this would be great if it had true random mode, because the pictures look fantastic. But the firmware is apparently not updateable so I'll be selling this as soon as I find a frame where they put a little more thought into the firmware.

Some other notes: I was showing it to someone at work who said they would probably want to set it to change pictures a little more often, like every 15 minutes. I told him his choices were to change once a minute, once a hour, or once a day. He laughed out loud.

The fade transition is very cheap looking. It clunkily changes from one picture to the next in about 8 steps. A few years ago I had another brand (Portable USA) where the fade transition was gorgeous.

4-Stars for Almost Getting it Right
I tested an in store demo with my own 3MB JPEGs. I use this in a unique way to be described, but as a typical slide show frame in a home the 8" visual quality is very good. It handles most, if not all, memory card types. All slots can be filled to include putting a flash drive on a USB port. Only one may run at a time, including 512MB internal memory, selected by menu. Cool feature - put MP3 music files on your cards and the frame can play the files while it displays photos from the same source. Volume level is adjustable and designed for a home type environment ... it cannot get very loud.

The frame can play selected type video files, which does not appear to include Microsoft versions, starting with WMV. Compatible types listed are MPEG-1, MP4, and motion JPEG in AVI and MOV (Apple) formats. I note that Microsoft versions of AVI, e.g. DV-AVI, are NOT compatible. I found a free WMV to MP4 converter that created a compatible file, converted a couple of my WMV "Windows Movie Maker" slide shows, and two annoying things happened. WMV files converted to MP4 and AVI played fine in the computer. Both started fine in the frame, but the video gradually lagged more and more behind the audio regardless of file type. Therefore, a slide show timed to music beats will go out of sync and the frame fully faults out of the file after about 3-minutes ... it just quits. I wish it worked as a means of selling a 'season' compilation of photos on CD/DVD.

My unique use for this frame is point-of-sale. The built-in memory contains a permanent slide show of business offerings, rates and reasons to buy. The business is selling special event photographs, on site, as they are taken. I have put MP3 music files on otherwise blank camera cards, taken the shots, insert the CF into the frame and - voila - instant slide show to music for event participants to review and select. The camera does NOT mind the MP3 files on the card.

Summary ... a star loss for a video play system that works very poorly and 4-stores for all the other features with an inuitive menu system that is best accessed by the included remote control.