NOTE: SmartParts is closing shop. Do not buy this product unless it is on sale.
Short Version: A built-in e-mail address for sending photos directly to the frame and a gorgeous 8-inch screen barely even out the shortcomings of the SmartParts SPX8WF digital photo frame.
Overview and Features
- 8-inch LCD with 800×600 resolution
- Built-in Wi-Fi connection for local file synching, remote e-mailing of photos, and Microsoft Live “FrameIt” compatibility
- Supports CF, SD, MMC, and xD cards and can act as a USB host for portable drives
- MSRP of $149
Good
The SPX8WF took less than a minute to hook up and within about five minutes, I had pulled down some photos that I’d e-mailed directly to the frame and had them cycling through as a slideshow. Each frame has a cryptic four-letter e-mail address to which you send e-mail messages with photos attached. The whole process is painless, especially since almost everyone knows how to e-mail photos as attachments. Sending huge files isn’t a big deal, either, as the frame will automatically shrink them.
The frame itself is built well and would look really nice in just about any room. We’ve had company over a few times since I started testing this frame and everyone’s been startled to see the pictures on the frame suddenly change. They’d all thought it was just a normal photo frame at first – so big points for blending in.
The 8-inch 800×600 screen is bright and colorful. Photos look great; you won’t be disappointed on that front. You’ve also got plenty of different methods for getting your photos displayed on the frame – I actually found that using Microsoft’s FrameIt service worked best for me because it allowed me to pull in my Flickr and Picasa photos as RSS feeds, so anything I uploaded to those photo sites showed up on my frame.
Aside from e-mail and FrameIt, you can also just plug in a memory card filled with photos and they’ll start playing automatically. Aside from photos, the SPX8WF can play low-res videos and standard music files if you really want to use a frame for that stuff.
Bad
While the e-mail feature is nice overall, it falls short as a useful function due to the fact that you have to manually check the frame’s e-mail address in order to pull down new photos. First-time e-mail addresses that send photos to the frame have to initially be authorized, which is good, but once authorized, new photos from familiar addresses won’t just automatically show up in your frame’s slideshows.
On a somewhat related note, you have to pick your pony as far as how you’re going to store all your photos. If you’ve got e-mailed photos, FrameIt photos, and photos on a memory card, you can’t view them all at once in a big, fat, everything slideshow. You can view all the photos that have been e-mailed to you, all the photos you set up in FrameIt, or all the photos on a memory card, but you can’t mix them all together.
I picture giving a gift like this to my parents and telling them to just keep it turned on and wait for new photos to show up. Since the e-mail function can’t do that automatically, anyone who wanted to send them photos would have to use FrameIt, which is all controlled by one Microsoft user’s account. I can’t tell you how badly I wish that e-mail feature was automated so their friends and family could just zip photos off to the frame’s built-in e-mail address.
Finally, there’s no user manual included with the frame. There’s a quick start guide that directs you to a website to download the full manual as a PDF file but the link to said manual says “Coming Soon” – seriously? And the link to download the desktop software is under the “Tutorials” section of the product page. It took me all afternoon to figure out how to set the frame up for use with FrameIt.
Ugly
The user interface works fine and your computer and the frame can communicate over Wi-Fi or via USB but it’s not much to look at and it takes a while for the program to open. It handles drag and drop, which is nice, but it doesn’t do much else.
Also, make sure your photos are some multiple of 800×600 or they’ll show up with black bars on the sides or on the top and bottom of each photos. My Canon DSLR shoots at a slightly widened ratio, so most of my photos have the bars. Regular point and shoot cameras should be okay, though, as long as they’re not set at 16:9.
Recommendation
All the negatives aside, once you figure out the frame and get everything working it makes a nice addition to the living room. If you’re savvy enough to figure out how to add the RSS feeds of your photo sharing accounts, adding future images is a cakewalk. This is not a frame you’d give to an average person and expect them to use any of the cool data-centric features, though. They’d be better off with a frame that just read memory cards. However if you can put up with a little behind-the-scenes wheel-spinning at first, the fit and finish of the SPX8WF and the big, bright screen make it a pretty decent choice as far as full-featured frames go.
SmartParts SPX8WF [SmartPartsProducts.com]
I am SOOOOOOOOOO sorry that this frame has the problems that you point out. I have been looking for a frame to which I could send pictures to my mother. She would never manage the technical side, and my brother and I are far away in different parts of the world. PLEASE let us know when you find a frame to which one can send pictures and is simple.
Thanks.
John
I use the estarling frames and their customer support is pretty nonexistent, but if you can get it hooked up to wifi it is sooo simple to email pictures too. I mostly use the iphone app and just send pics to it that way, it automatically adds them into the slide show. it does the same thing however, where you can either see the pictures it has stored online or the ones from a card or its memory, so i just never put ones on it directly and keep emailing them and we love it.
DITTO !! on John’s comment
This frame is very easy to use and I had no problems understanding the user interface and setting up the wifi. If it were any more simple it would have a clap on clap off mechanism for John.
Jean, we cannot figure out how to get the CF card into the frame – it doesn’t fit! And while I did find some online instructions, they are kind of generic and don’t quite match the model.
According to the product description, you can set up a “buddy list,” allowing emails from specified accounts to “automatically show up on the frame.”
Shouldn’t that do the trick?
After reading this review and comments, I decided to call tech support at Smartparts. They said (after asking their management) that the SPX8WF can be setup to automatically display photos sent into its e-mail from senders that are on its ‘buddy list’. However, they also said that it takes SEVERAL hours of the frame being powered on for it to automatically check its e-mail for new buddy photos. This fits my usage model, so I decided to order one. I’ll update this (after Christmas) if it is not as advertised.
P.S. I was also able to order this from Dell for $116 with free shipping. http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?sku=A2129790&cs=19&c=us&l=en&dgc=SS&cid=30322&lid=680414
Are you kidding me? No user guide? What a royal pain this is on Christmas morning.
Learning about RSS
Learning about Windows Live
Learning about FrameIt
Learning about …
And I’m a web programmer trying to give a gift to some grandparents.
Shouldn’t be this hard.
SmartParts has a DUMB user interface and no documentation.
Funny, the technology looks impressive.
What a shame
I hope I get this worked out
I am dissappointed that when you bring pictures in from your PC you cannot put them in a folder. We thought you could bring in 4th of July 2008 in a folder and click on that folder for pictures. No, any picture that is in there is “shuffled” and not necessarily in order. I would hate going thru 2000 pic’s everytime just to see 10 from the 4th of July…
What am I missing here?
And no user manual, that sucks
I bought the frame for my mother. I don’t mind setting it up for her, but the idea was that I’d email pictures of her grandchildren when out doing things. At the moment it seems I’ll need to ring her and say there’s new pictures, please press the email button and get them. What’s the point in that? I wanted them to show up automatically and surprise her.
I am currently trying other methods and I have left the frame on all evening and it didn’t automatically update! I’ve now asked customer support about the email feature.
I’ll report back if I get anywhere.
Well, an update.
I think I’ve got somewhere, I’ve managed to get the frame to do what it implies it does, however there are caveats and it’s not straight forward.
Firstly, unless a software update comes out the frame doesn’t check automatically for new emails – whyever not?
So, to get it to do that you need to abandon the email option provided by Smartpants and follow the instructions below:
Steps:
1. Set up a Microsoft photo account.
2. Set it up to be able to email photos to. It will have a unique email address (nothing to do with the one from the frame).
3. Set up a FrameIt account.
4. Add the photo album to the FrameIt account.
5. Now the clever bit – you need to use the schedule functionality of FrameIt to force the frame to re-sync with the FrameIt stream.
So if necessary set the same album up twice in the account and schedule the first one to display between 1am and 1pm and then the second to display 1pm to 1am. This forces the frame to check for new pictures.
Caveats:
1.This shouldn’t be required – it’s a workaround for poor out of the box functionality.
2. It relies upon FrameIt which is a Microsoft product in Beta release – who knows what the future holds or the standards of the service.
3. I believe whether the information is sent to the frame via email or FrameIt it goes via SmartPants servers to render/resize the image. If SmartPants as a company or this service goes under – so does your clever photoframe.
I hope this proves of some use to people who are in the same position I was a month ago.
What do you mean by a msft photo account. I already have the frame it account.