Sony DPFV900B 9" Black Digital Photo Frame - Bluetooth Ready With 512MB Internal Memory

---

---

Customer reviews

review by: date: 2008-11-28 rating:
It's a Sony - you get what you pay for - but....
Initially I gave this frame 5 stars and a very favourable review but I've been using it a fair bit since and there are a couple of niggles that I think are worth pointing out. Firstly the fact that some edits made in Photoshop or other apps appear to prevent the frame from displaying these images (you just get a question mark instead). This does not happen for all edited images (many of mine worked fine) and I eventually got the duds to work by re-exporting from Photoshop. However it's a bug that Sony should have identified and ironed out. However, worse is the cropping issue - I can't be doing with a landscape frame showing landscape shots with either black bars either side or zoomed in using the 'fit to screen' feature which wrecks my composition and arbitrarily cuts off someone's head in the process! I realise that for portrait shots in landscape and vice versa there will always be a trade-off and ideally you need two frames (one for each). However I did not expect to have to manually crop a load of shots to 15cm x 9cm in order to fill the frame on landscape which means I lose some of the image.

Now I know about this I guess I can account for it in terms of composing future shots but it's a really annoying downside nonetheless.

All that said - it's worth doing because the visual quality of this frame is simply stunning, it has superb build quality and some nice additional touches. To have matched the formatting to most digital cameras however would have really nailed it.

I still love it - but it's more of a labour than I though it would be. Still 5 stars but only because the results make the extra effort worth while.

---

review by: date: 2008-11-27 rating:
Very good pix
Well, I was a little concerned at first as someone said you cannot display altered images.... you can if you use photoshop, alter as usual, then save as.....a Tiff, ie not compressed and Taaaa raaaaa your pix will display...
Great display and lighting, you can zoom in to make the pic display a little better too. Glad I bought it.

---

review by: date: 2008-11-24 rating:
good digital photo frame
Sony frame is good enough, however I would point out the things which are hyped up. Firstly the visible screen size is 8.4 inches not 9 inches, secondly this is a wide screen frame with 800x480 pixel resolution with an aspect ratio of 15:9 because of this most of the pictures are intelligently cropped which means you don't get to see the full picture. Secondly for a screen with 800x480 resolution the price is a premium. I recently got the DekoElite as my second gift purchase after purchasing the DekoElite 8.4 inch Touch Sensitive Digital Photo Frame 800x600 pixel high resolution with internal memory this frame is having the same screen size as Sony. It is cheaper than sony but with a HIGHER resolution 800x600, Deko elite has all the features as that Sony, infact it has more features than Sony. Sony doesn't support video or music play back where as DekoElite can play MP3 & MPEG4 video. DekoElite also has a higher resolution screen and 4:3 aspect ratio which doesn't distort or crop the images.

---

review by: (BSc CEng FIET) date: 2008-11-23 rating:
It's true, "You get what you pay for".
And this is a WONDERFUL product !

This is the fifth digital photo frame I've bought for various relatives, so I have some experience of them, I'm also a Chartered Engineer, and so vaguely competent in my comments and not just wowed by the first decent picture I see ! It is also the first one that has prompted me to write a review.

This is beautiful, elegantly engineered and presented, flush at the front and thin from the side view with the electronics in a small lump in centre back.

The single image view is everything you could ask for, clear, bright, crisp, and the auto rotation is a joy to behold, you just can't help yourself but rotate it from Landscape to Portrait just to see what a wonderful job it does !

The multiple image mode is very elegant, providing several varying layouts for multiple photos (up to three) on screen at once, also in Landscape or Portrait modes.

Clock view looks interesting, but the clock intentionally shows the time & date the photo was taken (not the current time), so not ideal for the working desk. However the calendar view does show the current time & date, along with the photo, again working in both portrait and landscape modes.

The built in photo-retouch beats what I can do with a dedicated photo optimiser program and also my best efforts with Paint Shop Pro. It even manages to improve focus on some shots that I was already quite happy with !

The discrete illuminated Sony logo can be switched off, and automatically switches itself off when the frame is placed in portrait mode (so it doesn't display sideways)

When you view the whole memory card as thumbnails, the thumbnails are quickly generated (in a choice of two sizes), and easy to scroll through to select specific photos. Photo's are sized well, without distortion, and the unit can be set to either fill the screen (ie expand the relatively smaller dimension, clipping the other dimension where necessary), or to display the whole photo and add black bars. I've selected the `whole photo` option, as this is most effective when using the `Multi image view`.

The internal clock seems to hold up through a lack of power, and so if the frame is set to come on and off automatically it will do so correctly after a power failure. Yes it's obvious that it should do, but a pair of Toshiba frames I bought lose the clock and settings when the power goes off, and so there's no point ever setting the auto on-off feature on the Tosh !

It successfully displays all the photo's I have loaded on the SD card (some 400+), and the only hiccup was I had to tell the PC software NOT to use progressive jpg's for pictures I had edited. The manual says it can handle up to 9999 images, but also say this is limited to a max of 1500 if you want to display them sorted by the jpgs internal time/date stamp. If you're happy with filename or random order, then it's 9999 images.

The frame is optimised for pictures, it does not display movies of any kind, nor MP3 or music, it just does what it's designed to do, really well ! I have the Bluetooth option on order too, and suspect this will also be well engineered. The intent here is that I'll give it preloaded with photos on a SD card, and the recipients children can Bluetooth extra pics from their phones as they take them. Wonderful ! I chose this over a WiFi linked frame, as I thought it was more practical over a longer period than a frame that has to go to say Flickr to pick up it's images (in case whatever on-line service it has to use isn't there in a few years time).

Any gripes, only one, when set to display images in a random order, the back key on the remote doesn't take you the previous image displayed, but the image on the SD card before the one currently displayed. ie it must choose the next image randomly each time a new picture is required, rather than storing the list of pictures pre-sorted into the random order (but I'm being really picky now !).

Philips if you're reading this. You could learn a lesson here ! The Philips frame I bought last year was a disaster. It would only reliably display images loaded onto the SD card via a USB link to the frame itself (it obviously processed them in some way on the PC) which was useless. Why, because you couldn't provide a relative with an updated SD card with new pics, as you'd already given them the frame, and had to load the SD card in situ in the frame via USB to the frame. You couldn't even load them onto a new SD without the frame, as the damn PC software wouldn't run up unless it detected the frame on a USB port. Aaaargh !

Thankfully the Sony does not suffer from any of these issues, and its drop dead gorgeous to boot ! Well done Sony.

And no, I don't work for Sony !


review by: date: 2008-11-23 rating:
The one to go for at present, despite the price
Purchased this recently as an Xmas present for my mother - I'm afraid she's not getting this one as I am not going to give it up. I'll have to buy her a new one. I looked at digital photo frames last Xmas, but was put off by poor customer reviews and quite diabolical design, both aesthetically and in terms of user interface. It has taken Sony to come up with something that looks very attractive and also functions simply and effectively. I removed it from its packing, plugged it in, loaded up some photographs on a memory stick, inserted the stick in the Sony frame's USB port and we were in business. The menu functions are generally logical and easy to use. And, unlike many modern electronic devices, Sony designers have resisted the urge to make things too complicated. You know, when your car radio comes with a thicker operating manual than the car itself requires, that someone has lost the plot. Not so here. The Sony frame now sits by our bedside, quietly digging out photos and displaying them clearly and in good colour. One downside is that it will take longer than before to make the bed as I keep getting distracted. Highly recommended. I suspect that prices will fall in time, but it is very good value now.

---

Similar products

Sony 4GB Pro Duo Memory Stick
Sony DPF-D70 7" Black Digital Photo Frame - With 256MB Internal Memory
Transcend 8Gb SDHC Class 6 Flash Memory Card
SanDisk Extreme III SDHC 4GB Card
4Gb Memory Stick Pro Duo Mark 2

---

Similar categories

Electronics & Photo . Categories . Photography . Albums & Frames . Photo Frames . Digital Photo Frames
Electronics & Photo . Categories . Photography . General AAS

---

Accessories

Sony DPFV700BT 7" Black Digital Photo Frame - Bluetooth Adaptor With 512MB Internal Memory
Sony DPF-D70 7" Black Digital Photo Frame - With 256MB Internal Memory
Sony DPFV700B 7" Black Digital Photo Frame - Bluetooth Ready With 512MB Internal Memory
Sony Memory Stick Micro M2 2GB With USB Adaptor & Bond Content
Sony D80 8" Stylish Digital Photoframe - Black

---