Kodak EX-811 Easyshare 8-inch Digital Picture Frame with Wireless Capability
by Kodak
List Price:
Our Price: $75.00
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Category: Digital Camera
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Digital Photo Product Details
Manufacturer: KodakAudio: English (Original Language)
Model: EX-811
Product features:
- 8-inch viewable LCD display; widescreen aspect ratio
- Wireless capability; add pictures from your PC or the Kodak Gallery using Wi-Fi
- Play back video and MP3s
- 128 MB internal memory; compatible with SD, MMC, Memory Stick, xD, CF and MD cards
- Convenient remote control included
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Kodak EX-811 Easyshare 8-inch Digital Picture Frame with Wireless Capability
Customer Review: Great frame, horrible Wi-Fi approach - beware
Summary: 3 Stars
This review is appropriate for people who were thinking the Wi-Fi would be great for people who store lots of photos on computer and would love ability to automatically access new photos added periodically, without having to do physical transfers via mem stick etc etc.
I bought this for my parents for christmas, thinking i'd also buy one for myself later. I picked this over other frames because it came with some internal memory (watch out, many of those other cheaper frames have NO internal memory, so you end up having to buy a memory card anyway, making it not so cheap after all.) Also bought this because of its media options (taking different memory card formats) and because of positive reviews from other people re: photo resolution (I had seen comments that cheaper frames had worse and sometimes weird picture resolutions). This seemed like a flexible and safe bet. Turns out I didn't read deeply enough about the wi-fi option and how it works.
Bottom line, i paid extra for an option that does not work in a practical way. I should have just bought the SV model (no wi-fi) and then I would have been 95% satisfied. As it is, I'm 50% satisfied. No one should have released a product touting wi-fi with as many problems as I experienced. The only reason I'm not saying less than 50% is that at least the rest of the frame worked very well.
I'll summarize pros and cons briefly then go into the wi-fi con for those who care.
PROS:
- Came right up out of the box and played pictures in a card or USB stick attached.
- Great looking pictures. I loaded pics I had just scanned and pics that were straight from different digital cameras. No conversions required. Just rotated some before I loaded then so all would be right side up.
- Menu easy to navigate and understand for me using the little remote control. A little less intuitive for my Dad (70 yrs old, decently computer literate, just not as confident as me), but he got it OK. Nice to be able to stick his memory card in and copy from card to frame if he wanted.
CONS:
- Frame requires XP SP2 and windows Media Player 11. Former should be no big deal, everyone should have upgraded to that years ago- but beware if buying this for the grandparents. Midnight on christmas eve, everyone has finally gone to bed, and I sit down on my dad's computer to install the software and get this thing ready loaded with pics and talking to his network before I wrap up the gift. Big mistake. Hours later I'm still doing upgrades to his computer, because he had never done SP2 for XP.
SECOND part of this problem - The frame's software requires Windows Media Player 11. OMG what an evil piece of software. I installed it; actually got the wi-fi between frame and computer working quickly and started sharing pics with the frame. THEN - I wondered why my dad's computer suddenly couldn't do ANYTHING else. CPU totally taken over by WMP related files. Finally brought up my computer (because his was so taken over after a few minutes that i couldn't even get to the web to look anything up), and found tirades online about how WMP 11 in media sharing mode sucks the CPU down when talking to things like Xboxes. Long story short, on Christmas Day I showed him the wifi sharing, then turned off the sharing mode, turned off WMP 11 and apologized and told him I'd try to find a way to make it work as soon as I could. I basically blew at least $30 because the wi-fi mode of this frame is unusable.
I'm now at home doing research online trying to figure out if there's some WMP 11 fix I don't know about yet to get around this problem. How can Microsoft put a product like this out? or is it the fact that my Dad's computer's memory (256MB) just won't handle it even though he's got XP Professional loaded? (I'm going to try this media sharing on computers with 512 MB and 2 GB and see what happens and will update this review if I find antying out... but I have not been able to find ANY help online so far saying "if you just get this much memory the problem goes away.)"
Anyway, I wanted to post this review for any other folks considering this frame for grandparents who routinely use their computer for pictures. Becuase this family did NOT find a way to make it work. (and if someone out there wants to respond and tell me where I'm being stupid, I am ALL ears... this was a very frustrating experience).
- Other major problem, Easy Share software stinks, at least for me. Tried installing this on 2 different computers, had trouble both times. Installed on my dad's computer, older, but then kept locking up. I had to reboot his computer to even get the program to shut down. Wouldn't even install on mine (the one I use and abuse at work for all kinds of programs - so no reason it shouldn't install.) It first goes out to validate that you've got a legit version of Windows- which I do.... but I couldn't even get past that step on my computer. I finally un-installed it so my dad's comptuer would stop locking up. So there goes the ability to log into an online gallery account and download family pics, another reason I got this model of the frame.
Bottom line again, the frame is great except for the way the wi-fi shares pictures with the computer - more Microsofts problem than Kodaks, but I would have expected them to test this better and know that in practical setup, it is NOT USABLE! or issue better computer system requirements instructions. I I buy one for myself, it will be the SV version, no wi-fi, unless I can find some something online about how to get around these wi-fi shortfalls.
More Kodak EX-811 Easyshare 8-inch Digital Picture Frame with Wireless Capability reviews:
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Description of Kodak EX-811 Easyshare 8-inch Digital Picture Frame with Wireless Capability
KODAK 1886845 8? EASYSHARE EX811 WI-FI DIGITAL PICTURE FRAME 8" WIDESCREEN HIGH-RESOLUTION DIGITAL PHOTO FRAME; 128 MB MEMORY; WI-FI COMPATIBLE; DISPLAYS PHOTOS, PICTURES & VIDEOS & PLAYS MP3 AUDIO FILES; BUILT-IN SPEAKERS; ON-FRAME VIEWING & EDITING FEATURES ; SUPPORTS COMPACTFLASH, XD-PICTURE CARD, MICRODRIVE FLASH, MEMORY STICK, SECURE DIGITAL CARD & MULTIMEDIACARD; INCLUDES AC ADAPTER, USB CABLE & HOST ADAPTER CABLE, SOFTWARE CD & RemoteDigital Frames
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