Why You Can Trust CNET Jobo PDJ80 Photo Display review: Jobo PDJ80 Photo Display
Jobo PDJ80 Photo Display
- More than two decades experience writing about PCs and accessories, and 15 years writing about cameras of all kinds.
There's little not to like about the 8.4-inch Jobo PDJ801 digital picture frame. Actually, the frame doesn't do much beyond displaying photos, so that's probably the only thing you may find fault with. It's got a nice display, the build quality seems top-notch, and it has two features that make it particularly appealing: 1GB of internal storage and a rechargeable battery. Not interested in that much memory? The Jobo PDJ800 is identical to the PDJ801, but the internal storage is cut down to 128MB--a big drop for a $10 price difference--for holding up to 800 photos.
Jobo PDJ80 Photo Display
The Good
The Bad
The Bottom Line
The PDJ801 measures 10.2 inches wide by 8.3 inches high by 1.4 inches deep and most of that is the actual frame. Its 8.4-inch display is set off by brushed metal trim backed by a piece of clear acrylic with beveled edges and rounded corners. It's attractive and makes the LCD look a bit like it's floating, however, it won't go with every decor. On back is a removable sturdy metal stand, designed so the frame can be positioned in portrait or landscape. (Unfortunately, the photos won't automatically rotate if you switch its position as they do in other vendors' models.)
The back of the frame is not as nice as the front; it's just typical black plastic. Along the top is a row of navigation buttons that alternate in size and shape. Combined with the onscreen drop-down navigation bar, you can look at the screen when making selections or changes without constantly looking at the buttons. Slots for CF, SD (though no support for SDHC cards), MMC, MemoryStick, MemoryStick Pro, and xD are tucked under a ledge in back between a Mini-USB port and power adapter jack. A full-size USB 2.0 port is on the left with USB On-The-Go (OTG) support, which lets you connect your camera or other portable device directly to the frame for near-instant playback of photos. This is cool alone, but combined with the PDJ801's cordless operation it lets you easily use the frame as a mobile photo viewer.
The LCD itself is quite good as well, with an 800x600-pixel resolution and high contrast ratio of 500:1. It gets fairly bright and has good color performance. However, there is only a control for brightness, so you won't be able to tweak color or contrast. In point of fact, there simply aren't a lot of options on this model for anything.
The frame's file support is limited to JPG and BMP files. There is no music for slideshows or the capability to watch movies of any kind. You can browse pictures one at a time, view them as thumbnails, or let them play as a slide show. Editing options are limited to copy, delete, and rotate, and you can make photos black and white. You can also display a calendar and the time and there's an alarm clock feature, too. It can also be set to turn itself off and on.
Using the frame is straightforward because the menu system is basic and logically arranged. Pop in a card and it will read it and start playing the photos back as a slideshow. Slideshow options include sequence (random or in order), a handful of transition effects, length of time a slide is displayed, and the background color for slides. Copying images to the frame's 1GB of memory takes little effort and needs to be done in order to store up to 8,000 images to the frame. Once a card is inserted or storage device attached, you can enter thumbnail view and select what you want to transfer over or you can just copy all. And you can quickly create individual folders for different slide shows.
Jobo includes a 1-year parts-and-labor warranty on its products. Product information and support is nearly nonexistent on its Web site, but there is service contact information should you need assistance. But again, the frame is so basic that almost all your questions would be answered by the included setup guide.
While not everyone needs the ability to roam cordlessly with a digital photo frame with thousands of images, we definitely see a place in the market for the Jobo PDJ801--for consumers and commercial use. Its features may be limited, but what it does, it does well.