Kodak EasyShare M820 Digital Frame with Home Décor Kit
Apr 8, 2010 Digital Cameras
- 8-inch high quality LCD with 4:3 aspect ratio; Kodak Color Science give your pictures crisp details and vibrant colors.
- Play your videos or listen to your favorite MP3’s with the frame’s built-in speakers
- Kodak’s Quick Touch Border makes it easy to control your digital frames; 2 decorative mattes included
- Store up to 300 of your favorite pictures directly on your frame’s 128 MB of internal memory
- 2 SD card slots are available to allow you to have extra memory to view more pictures
Product Description
Kodak Easyshare M820 Digital Frame W/Home Décor Kit
April 8th, 2010 at 03:49
If, like me, you want your video clips to fill the entire screen of this frame (like it does with stll photos), rather than add in the black vertical borders, please feel free to email me for a solution at andynetter AT hotmail DOT com]. I’ve spent many hours trying to find a solution for this (Kodak were no help by the way!) and now that I’ve found one I thought it fair to share it. I will edit this post with step-by-step instructions when I have time to type them.
Overall, great frame, really cant complain about anything. The iPhone-style finger-swiping to flick between pictures using the touch screen is very cool! Highly recommended prodct, shame about Kodak’s rubbish customer service.
Rating: 5 / 5
April 8th, 2010 at 05:18
I was so excited when I received this for Christmas — all I did was throw some pictures and music onto a jump drive, plug it into the back of the frame (where it doesn’t show) and I had an instant slide show set to music! Forget the software that comes with it. Later I tried to use their software and it was horrible. . . but you don’t need it! While the slide show was playing I played with the controls on the front of the frame (which don’t even show when you are not touching it)and it took about 1/2 hour to figure out all of the different options etc. Overall, this was very easy to use and looks great having different mat color options.
Rating: 4 / 5
April 8th, 2010 at 06:37
I got this as a Xmas present today. I’m a computer expert. I can’t believe how problematic the software is with this frame.
The picture quality is actually very good compared to others I’ve purchased. I like that it takes multiple types of memory cards and it is a very nice looking frame. However, I couldn’t get my computer to see the internal or external memory cards no matter what I tried. I finally gave up on it and just downloaded the pictures directly to my SD card. Kodak brags that it has 128MB of internal memory. Big deal! You can buy a 2 GB SD card for less than $10 these days. When will manufactures of electronic stuff quit being so cheap with the internal memory? I can’t use it anyway because I can’t access it from my computer.
The navigation controls on the outside of the screen is a nice idea, but it is not intuitive to learn. Once I got the hang of it I was fine, but believe me – this is not how to do human engineering.
Now for the bad part. The software took about 1 hour to install on my very fast computer. Most of the time was downloading the outdated software that came with the CD. I actually thought it had stalled once or twice. I don’t think I have ever seen software take so long to load. Once the bloated software was loaded it failed to recognize my computer. Then it started locking up on me.
I spent pretty much the entire afternoon messing with this thing not believing I couldn’t get this to work. Surely it can’t be this difficult to link to my computer? I must be doing something wrong? (I thought) If I was, I couldn’t figure it out! (I updated firmware, uninstalled the software and reinstalled, changed the order of putting in the USB cable, rebooted the computer lots of times, looked at Kodak’s website for help – which was useless!)
BTW, the box says it comes with a USB cable but it doesn’t. Nice touch Kodak! The very poorly written manual tells you this. (Maybe Kodak should fix this on their box?) And. . . if you are lucky enough to have a double flat male USB cable on hand, (which isn’t common at all )it still won’t work. It also has a fire wire connection which I didn’t try because I didn’t have that cable.
Folks – this is bad engineering in my book. How does Kodak stay in business making products like this? I understand from others that the previous model was even worse.
IMO this is a very poorly designed product. Too bad, it could have been an outstanding one if someone would have taken the time to write a simple software interface to it. Heck, I would have been happy just to transfer files directly from my PC to the internal and external memory on the display.
I haven’t decided if I’m going to keep it yet or not. I give it two stars because it wasted so much of my time this afternoon and I’m still mad about that.
KODAK ARE YOU LISTENING? probably not. . . . . . .
Rating: 2 / 5
April 8th, 2010 at 08:23
I bought it for my dad and he loves it. It doesn’t require to be technological savy, and can be operated very easily. His only complaint is that the frame does not save his definitions for each picture (such as the screen spreading and the magnifying). Overall, great product.
Rating: 5 / 5
April 8th, 2010 at 09:35
I got this to entice myself to take more photographs. It’s not perfect, but I’m happy overall.
First of all, it’s really easy to set up. You don’t actually need to install the software. Just load your pictures onto a memory card or USB storage, plug it in, and the slide show starts. The screen is bright, it has great contrast, and the overall unit looks pretty with the included red or silver border. The frame is plastic and feels cheap when you hold it. You can’t tell by just looking at it, though.
My primary complaint is with the height to width ratio. The screen has almost panoramic dimensions, and as a result, it chops off a sliver from the bottom of horizontal 4×3 pictures, or displays black bars at the sides (you can choose which behavior you want). It’s not a huge deal, but it’s enough to be annoying, at least initially.
The real question is if you want to spend close to $100 on this, instead of a 17 to 20″ LCD monitor that you can use just for slide shows. A dedicated digital picture frame makes the most sense as something to be placed in isolation from your desk, or in guest areas.
Overall 4 stars. It hasn’t changed my life, but it’s a competent product.
Rating: 4 / 5