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Philips 7FF1 Digital Photo Frame review: Philips 7FF1 Digital Photo Frame

Philips 7FF1 Digital Photo Frame

David Carnoy Executive Editor / Reviews
Executive Editor David Carnoy has been a leading member of CNET's Reviews team since 2000. He covers the gamut of gadgets and is a notable reviewer of mobile accessories and portable audio products, including headphones and speakers. He's also an e-reader and e-publishing expert as well as the author of the novels Knife Music, The Big Exit and Lucidity. All the titles are available as Kindle, iBooks, Nook e-books and audiobooks.
Expertise Mobile accessories and portable audio, including headphones, earbuds and speakers Credentials
  • Maggie Award for Best Regularly Featured Web Column/Consumer
David Carnoy
3 min read
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Digital photo frames have been around for a while, but they haven't taken off nearly as fast as the digital photo market. The combination of high prices and mediocre image quality has hurt their growth. However, that's changing as prices come down for higher-resolution displays that serve up sharper pictures as well as convenient features more suited to digital camera users. Philips's entry, the Digital Photo Display 7FF1, is a compact, sleek model that's part of this new breed of digital photo frame. And while it's not cheap, it largely delivers on the promise this type of accessory offers.

The frame looks a lot like a mini version of the display on Apple's original iMac flat-panel all-in-one computers, with a clear frame around a white border that surrounds the 5.4-by-3.6-inch, 133ppi LCD panel. From a viewing perspective, a black border around the display is preferable because it increases the perceived contrast and makes the picture pop a little more. But this is a minor gripe; we really like the look of the frame, which also comes in a wood-tone version for those looking for a less modern, more traditionally styled frame. The adjustable--and removable--stand on its back lets you set the frame either vertically or horizontally on a table or other surface.

7.2

Philips 7FF1 Digital Photo Frame

The Good

Bright, high-resolution 5.4-by-3.6-inch display; slots for most types of memory cards; images are automatically resized during upload from cards; rechargeable battery.

The Bad

Navigating through menu systems isn't as intuitive a process as it should be; battery life is relatively short at 50 minutes.

The Bottom Line

The Philips Digital Photo Display may not be cheap and doesn't have the ability to tap into the Internet for automatic photo delivery, but it is one of the nicer digital photo frames currently available.

The 16-bit (65,536 potential colors) display has 12MB of memory built into it, which allows you to store between 50 and 80 photos--internally. Additionally, around back you'll find slots for CompactFlash, SD, MMC, and Memory Stick memory cards, which give you the ability to display hundreds or even thousands of photos. You can choose to leave the images on the card or transfer however many will fit into the display's remaining internal memory. A USB port, also on the back, lets you upload photos from a USB flash drive or straight from your camera, as long as the latter allows peer-to-peer transfer.

The one small advantage to transferring the photos to the display's internal memory is that as part of the copying process, the unit automatically resizes the images to the size of the display (720x540). For instance, we shot some images with an Olympus Evolt 500 dSLR that started out with resolutions of 3,264x2,448 that were subsequently trimmed down. However, the only real impact of the smaller file sizes is that transition effects in slide-show mode--you can select between none, fade, slide, scroll, snake, or random--work more smoothly. In other words, if you have a fairly high-capacity memory card (512MB or more), you're probably better off just loading the card with photos and leaving it in the display.

Aside from the ability to accept memory cards, we liked the Philips Photo Display's built-in rechargeable lithium-ion battery, which allows you to place the frame wherever you like--or pass it around--without worrying about it being within reach of a power outlet. Of course, if you want, you can leave it plugged in and not worry about recharging it. Depending on the brightness setting--yes, it's adjustable--a fully charged battery offers only as much as 50 minutes of operation, which makes the feature less practical.

One other small gripe: its menus aren't intuitive to navigate right out of the box. Although it didn't take us that long to figure things out--and a quick read of the manual certainly helped--the unit's internal GUI (graphical user interface) could be a little more user-friendly, and the button icons might be tweaked to be a tad clearer. In other words, while the Philips Photo Display has the Apple look, it doesn't have the Apple interface.

Fans of Ceiva photo frames, which allow you to automatically "push" photos to them via the Internet--a convenient option for those who want to send regular photo updates to a grandparent or other family members--will note that this model doesn't offer that feature. On the other hand, you won't have to pay a monthly fee to actually use your frame.

In the final analysis, the Philips Digital Photo Display gets a lot of things right. Although some may think it's slightly expensive at $250--$199 would be a preferable price point--it does offers expansion slots for most memory cards, a sleek design, rechargeable battery, and most importantly, a high-quality image. We have no problem recommending it.

7.2

Philips 7FF1 Digital Photo Frame

Score Breakdown

Design 8Features 7Performance 7Image quality 6