Samsung reveals wireless 8-inch SPF-83V digiframe

As if you weren't already inundated with digiframe options, Samsung is trying to make deciding even more difficult with the introduction of its SPF-83V. This 8-inch frame sports an 800 x 600 resolution display with a 500:1 contrast ratio and 200 nits of brightness, but the standout feature is its WiFi connectivity and the ability to sync up with Windows Live Spaces. More specifically, the unit plays nice with the Windows Live Photo Gallery, and it can also "communicate with Windows Media Player and open standards such as RSS." For whatever reason, Sammy doesn't bother telling us much else, but we're expecting it to come with 64MB of storage and a $230 price tag if Amazon's listing is to be believed.

[Via PhotographyBLOG]

[CT @ Dec 13th 2007 9:20AM]

No Sideshow? One day that thing will catch on.

[John @ Dec 13th 2007 9:46AM]

This is the frame that I have been waiting for!!

[JosephMohmed @ Dec 13th 2007 9:55AM]

I still don't see the point in these things. Why the hell would anybody actually pay hundreds of dollars just for a small LCD screen that's going to show the same picture most of the time? I'd understand if it was $50 or less, but $230 just so you can change the image a little faster? Somebody low rank me and explain why digital picture frames are less useless than normal picture frames.

[Che @ Dec 13th 2007 11:38AM]

Umm, so you can give one to your parents that automatically downloads pictures of the grandkids from a set of pictures you maintain online. That's why I want one. Also, it might be nice for the living room for visitors to see your pictures passively (without having to get on your computer and find the pictures and probably find ones you don't want them to see). As for comparing it to normal picture frames, they tend to display one, or a few, pictures, not hundreds, so you get a bit bored of seeing the same picture every time you look at it.

I'm not sure if this is the one. It does have the advantage of not being tied to a subscription service, but another poster says its buggy. The best rated wifi picture frame I've seen is the Kodak one that gets its pictures from the Easyshare Gallery. I'm likely to buy one as a gift for my mom this year.

Oh, and if you don't have kids and don't want to show of pictures to friends and family, this product is not targeted at you. Don't buy it.

[Ganesh Kumar @ Dec 13th 2007 9:51PM]

How is this compared to the I-Mate Momento? It has wifi too and can synchronize with Google Picasa Web and Flickr. I'm not that familiar but it may be a subscription plan. It looks like this product may be more flexible than this Samsung one here.

Details of product here: http://www.amazon.com/i-mate-Momento-Wireless-Digital-Picture/dp/B000J6FVC2

[bob sakamano @ Dec 13th 2007 9:56AM]

very cool.

they just need to make them cheaper! i never spent 200 dollars on a picture frame/photo album!

[Wwhat @ Dec 13th 2007 11:13AM]

Yeah they are getting more and more expensive lately, what to get, a 24" widescreen monitor or a 7' picture frame...
There is a cut-off point where the price is just not doable, and I think that point lies below 100ish.

[Hannes @ Dec 15th 2007 8:26AM]

The reason why 8" frames are much more expansive than 7" one is that (mostly) 8" are digital panels, while 7" are analog panels.

The quality of digital panels is much better!

http://www.digital-photo-frame-market.info

[Taylor @ Dec 13th 2007 10:06AM]

It sounds exactly what I've been looking for...

Engadget says "As if you weren't already inundated with digiframe options". That's true, but very, very few have WiFi that isn't restricted. Not to mention one that works well from a reputable company.

Cheap, small, WiFi, can receive RSS feed. That's All I'm looking for. $230 will do the trick.

[Erwos @ Dec 13th 2007 10:13AM]

Needs more Sideshow. I think we're going to see more of that in 2008, though, now that PortalPlayer chipset is getting fixed.

[martin @ Dec 13th 2007 10:21AM]

I'm just about to return the european Version of this product to the store, due to a number of defects, which are summarised nicely by marclang:
A great product -- with usability problems. While the feature-set is outstanding (WLAN connectivity, ability to show RSS streams and flickr foto-sets, as well as directly connect to your PC's media library), the setup and use of the product is very buggy.

Firstly, WLAN only supports WEP and WPA, not WPA2. Also, WPA passwords cannot be longer than 8 characters (they also, by WPA definition, have to be at least 8 characters). This is of course nowhere mentioned, so you have to learn this the hard way.

Media library sharing only works with Vista out-of-the-box, for XP users a "tool" is supplied, though the installation files are not only hard to find on the CD, they're also difficult to install (buggy installer).

Last but not least: the frame occassionally "forgets" some of its setting when you turn it off (e.g., at night). After turning it on again, it cannot connect to the WLAN anymore, even though SSID and password still seem to exist in the setup. You'll need to manually re-key the password -- using a 4-way button and an on-screen keyboard (takes forever, especially if you mix Uppercase, lowercase, and numbers in your password!). Oh, and every so often the time & date will be off, somewhere like in 2037 or so. Fun!

So: assuming you have an expert during setup (took me 4+ hours, and I do consider myself quite geeky), and that you _never_ turn it off, this is a great product. However, don't think you can give this to mom&dad for keeping them up-to-date with your flickr collection!! They won't be able to set this up, nor can they recover from the constant re-connection problems.

PS: while there's a 1.010 firmware at the Samsung Europe site and the system has 1.009 installed, it would not let me update the firmware. Putting the 1.010 version on an SD-card and selecting "search for new firmware" in the menu (as explained in the manual) seemingly starts a search that comes up empty, however: "no updatable firmware found". Great!

[Wwhat @ Dec 13th 2007 11:16AM]

Now that was helpful, kudos for warning people.

[s1impled @ Dec 13th 2007 2:10PM]

My sister and family got the 7" version for the grandparents of my new nephew and I had to set the thing up.

It did the same things listed above. Also note that you can't have spaces in your WPA key (I'm certain it's supported, but there's just no space in the soft-keyboard interface to input on) and I could never get the thing to accept the latest firmware. It frequently forgot its last state and wouldn't recover from power cycles.

It also does scaling on the device, so large pictures chew up network bandwith horribly. Not a problem if you size the pictures first.

Lastly, it would frequently report strong signal and just dissappear for no reason (12" from the WiFi point).

The documentation is worthless and appearing as if an afterthought. My words to my sis were similar to: "It's a great idea, and Samsung usually makes great products. But I get the feeling with this product, it was mismanaged, understaffed, and shipped out the door way too early. I think it will be a solid product given some time; I'll come to swear by it and not at it."

Early adopters beware... Still a lot of potential and I do like the fact it runs Windows Mobile.

[s1impled @ Dec 13th 2007 2:23PM]

PS. I would claim I'm rather technically inclined with several years spent developing embedded / WM technology.

As far as giving it to a parent as a gift because it's a set and forget, that initial set is the problem. Let's not forget that we not only need to setup the frame to the local network, but you also have to configure the routing to allow all the proper connections to the frame in a reasonably secure manner. i.e. Static IP (either via DHCP or assigned), Port Forwarding / Firewall Rules, etc.

None of the instructions showed (for lack of a good way to do a generalized set for all setups) how all this could be achieved.

Just saying that as a gift, you might want to send a good comuter service guy with it.

So I guess I'm really saying, "Thanks Sis, I owe you one."

[Bweetza @ Dec 13th 2007 10:24AM]

*blinks*

Is it cold in hell today? Did someone say WiFi? It's about flippin time. I'm buying it... when it's back in stock.

[Db @ Dec 13th 2007 11:42AM]

Dude this is not the only WiFi digiframe

[Bweetza @ Dec 13th 2007 11:58AM]

Correct, but the i-mate and the Photovu are both shite. Bummer is that Martin's review of this thing just classified it as crappy as the others. Time to just create my own it seems. Nobody has yet to make one worth a damn.

[tpp @ Dec 13th 2007 12:02PM]

Db, yes, but it's about the only affordable one that supports RSS photofeeds from anywhere (from what I understand). All the other ones are either $100 - $200 more expensive, or only support the manufacturer's proprietary online photo storage systems (sometimes with paid subscriptions).

As for why would anyone want this. I want to buy one for my parents, who live 10000 miles away. I have RSS feeds on a photo album of my 1-month old baby. This sort of a product would be perfect for my parents.

[tamoghno @ Dec 13th 2007 2:38PM]

frankly , have anybody seen these picture frames in any , any home / office / hotel / shop (except where they sell) & engadget ?

[granny down east @ Dec 13th 2007 2:41PM]

I actually want a digiframe, but don't want to spend a lot of time maintaining it. The WiFi feature is great but not with the bugs martin reported. Keeping my household LAN fed and watered consumes enough of my time.
Waiting.

[skhawaja @ Dec 14th 2007 3:47AM]

I don't really get Digital Photo Frames - but I guess they replace the old photo album where you actually have to put the photos in and organize them and update them :]

I kinda think digital photo frames are for lonely people :[

[Roman Astakhov @ Dec 14th 2007 11:31AM]

I've been using this digiframe for about a month now. Buggy installer, occasionally some "fuzzy-logic" performance as a digiframe, but a really great, neat small USB monitor!!!

The ONLY thing I am really missing is Sideshow... :|

I am using MAC filtering instead of WEP or WPA and it works just fine (look, no hands even after on/off!). One great product!

Frankly, I do not approve of "waiting for the real full-blown..." something, I am a geek, not a plain vanilla flavor consumer. :)

[Roman Astakhov @ Dec 14th 2007 11:45AM]

I run a Toni&Guy beauty shop in Perm, Russia. And I have a triple portrait-oriented 40" plasma screens set running a loop'd slide-show of haircut models (and they are mostly portrait-oriented). Customers are mesmerized. Ain't this a good digiframe example?

Of course, I didn't use any out-of-the-box retail solution: first I tried a CF-based SanDisk Photo Album, then (because of performance issues) I had to switch to a PC-based solution syncroneously rendering 3 different motives to 3 separate "digiframes" at a time.

[Jon Finegold @ Dec 15th 2007 8:41AM]

Both this and the 7" Samsung work with FrameChannel (http://www.framechannel.com)