|  |
| | Customer Reviews: | | | Average Customer Review: ( 314 customer reviews )
Write an online review and share your thoughts with other customers.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
582 of 594 found the following review helpful:
 A clever Wi-Fi enabled frame, but it has its limitations. Mar 27, 2010
By Anthony Pantliano
"The Photo Guy"
The Kodak Pulse digital frame is a nicely designed Wi-Fi enabled frame that you manage through a website. It's an excellent frame for the most part but there are some things I wasn't fond of.
Design wise it is a nice looking frame with a glossy black front and a chrome strip running around the edge. It reminds a lot of the iPhone aesthetic. I especially like the fact that the Kodak logo on the front of the frame is very subtle. On the back of the frame is a door that covers the memory card / USB jump drive slots, a power button, and a status check button. The frame is primarily controlled via its touch screen and the Kodak Pulse website. The touch screen itself is very nicely done. It's quite accurate and responds to the first touch most of the time. You can swipe your finger across the screen to flick through the photos like an iPhone too. While the frame is light in weight the built quality is nice and it feels solid. To store your photos there is 512MB of internal memory, and my 2,510 photos are using 56% of the available memory.
Once you take your frame out of the box and plug it in it prompts you to enter your Wi-Fi information. The process is simple and it walks you through step-by-step. I was able to connect it to both a NETGEAR and Apple Airport router without problems. Both routers have a hidden SSID and WPA2 security. Once you have successfully connected the frame to your network, you are provided an activation number, and are directed to the frame's website.
You add pictures via several methods; 1) directly from your computer via the website, 2) from a memory card and/or USB jump drive, 3) from your Facebook and/or Kodak Gallery accounts, 4) from a custom e-mail address just for the frame.
I added photos to the frame from the website and it was a simple process (I am using a Mac running Snow Leopard and used the Safari browser). I had some friends e-mail photos to the frame and everything came through fine as well. Lastly, I accessed my Kodak Gallery photos, and the process was simple and worked well. The website also allows you to view all the pictures on the frame and delete some as needed. Being able to manage the frame this way is very convenient, and it is what makes this Kodak frame special. It's very nice to be able to manage your frame's photos remotely. This makes it an ideal frame to give to people who do not live close by and/or are not tech friendly because you can manage the frame for them remotely. (see my included photos for screenshots of the website)
Not only can you manage the pictures through the website, but also you can change the frame's settings. You can adjust the picture display duration and transition effect, how the pictures fit the frame, and whether one picture or a collage is displayed. Lastly, you can set times for the frame to automatically turn on and off.
The frame's picture quality is very high. The photos are sharp, the colors are vivid and true, and the viewing angle is good. The frame's resolution of 800 x 600 allows you to view the photos up close without the pictures looking pixilated. Additionally, the frame's 4:3 screen-ratio is much better than widescreen frames, since 99% of photos are not taken at a 16:9 ratio. Thus, your photos are not cropped as much. The only picture quality issue is some light leakage from the bottom. Basically when you are close to the frame, and it is displaying a dark photograph, the bottom edge looks brighter.
The only negatives I have are as follows: 1) The settings for the frame are very limited, you can only choose from 3, 10, and 30 second picture display durations. There is a smart setting that starts out fast and slows down to 30 minutes a photo, but I find all these choices either too fast or too slow. A Philips' frame I had allowed for much more flexibility in this area. 2) There is no separate schedule to turn the frame on and off for the weekend. Again, the Philips' frame had an automatic schedule for both the weekdays and the weekend. Moreover, you can't change the frame's schedule through the frame itself, it has to be done via the website. 3) If a photo is in portrait orientation there are just black bars placed on both sides of it. Some frames will tile portrait photos to eliminate this problem. 4) There is no adjustment for the frame's screen brightness. 5) Lastly, the frame cannot do a slideshow of both the memory card photos and online photos together. It would be nice if you could so you could supplement the frame's memory using a card. I am hoping that Kodak can fix some of these issues by updating the website, or the frame's software, since it is Wi-Fi enabled.
All in all... a very nicely done Wi-Fi frame, with good photo quality, and a well designed website.
P.S. Sorry for the long review, but there is a lot to cover. If you have any questions feel free to leave a comment and I will respond promptly.
3/27/2010 Update - Some of my photos had quotes in the titles and they did not upload even though the website said they did. Make sure your photos don't have quotation marks anywhere in the title.
4/6/2010 Update - So I've recently run into a problem with the frame. I tried uploading some more photos I recently took. 59 to be exact, and it keeps getting stuck after it uploads a handful of them. All the photos show up in the online gallery, but the frame keeps trying to download the remaining pictures and nothing happens, I've waited days even. I deleted those pictures and tired them again with no luck. Then, I deleted all the photos off the frame except for the e-mailed ones and it got stuck again. I had to resort to uploading all the photos via memory card. I've added some additional photos via the online gallery after I uploaded all the older ones and they came through fine. Hopefully it will not get "clogged" again. I still like the frame overall and think it's neat. I'm hoping this was a one-time issue. The problem has not re-appeared as of 4/19/2010.
4/11/2010 Update - To reset the frame and erase all its photos and setting you can click both the Power and Status buttons on the back. Be aware though that any photos that have been e-mailed to your frame will be deleted as well. Also, I've found that if you add photos via the website, when you display the photo's information on the frame it shows the upload date, but if you add them to the frame via memory card it shows the date it was taken.
4/19/2010 Update - Last night the frame prompted me to download a new firmware update. Very nice.
7/14/2010 Update - A couple of days ago I turned on the frame and all the photos I had added via SD card were gone. I unplugged it a couple of times and cycled the power but they never came back and the frame said they were gone. So I tried to upload them again but the frame stopped halfway through and said it was full. This meant that even though the frame said the pictures were not there, they were, since the memory was still being used. I had to reset the frame and start from scratch but was able to get all the photos on there again. I'm hoping this was just a one-time fluke. If this happens again, I'll update this review and revise my rating.
3/12/2011 Update - I downloaded a new software update for the frame and you can now send a quick canned message (LOL, Wish I was there, That's a Kodak moment, etc.) to the person who e-mailed you a photo through the frame. It's a cute little touch. Additionally, you can now create frame playlists via the Kodak Pulse website.
98 of 100 found the following review helpful:
 A very clever digital frame Feb 28, 2010
By Piper
I've had this for a couple of days now and have to say that Kodak really has a winner on its hands with the Pulse. Kodak has solved the "last mile" problem with photo frames by creating such an easy way to get photos onto the Pulse. After receiving it you create an email address at [...] and simply email photos to that address. It takes about three minutes from emailing a photo to the Pulse to when it shows up on it. Let your friends and family know the email address and they can send photos to it too.
Setting up the Pulse is easy and takes about 10 minutes from unboxing it to displaying photos on it. The frame first connects to the internet via your WiFi and then displays an activiation code. You then go to [...] and create a user account and email address by keying in this activation code. After that you can start emailing photos to your new email account. In addition you can also have it display photos from your facebook or Kodak Gallery accounts.
The Pulse has worked great for me with both photos emailed to it and from a facebook account. It has all the usual slots in the back so you can run a slideshow off a flashcard too. A nice feature of the Pulse is that you can sort the photos displayed on it based on who emailed them to you. Tapping on a photo shows who sent it, when it was sent and the subject line of the email when it was sent to you.
My one concern with the Pulse is with wireless connectivity. Where we originally wanted to put the Pulse our computers, cellphones, etc., easily get WiFi coverage but for some reason the Pulse can't. We moved it across the room and it got coverage but it's strange that it had a problem when other devices didn't. Other than that, however, the frame has been perfect.
I originally bought this for my mom so all her kids and grandkids can email her photos without her having to be at a computer to view them. But I like it so much I've decided to keep it for myself and buy her another. One surprise is that there isn't a simple way to print the photos from the Pulse. It would be great if you could select one or more pictures and have them sent to Kodak Gallery or some other online site and have them printed. Perphaps they'll add this feature in a future software update.
I'm very pleased with the Pulse and recommend anyone thinking about a digital photo frame seriously consider it. Good job, Kodak.
220 of 237 found the following review helpful:
 Great Idea but Falls Short on Delivery Oct 12, 2010
By D. Roberts
The other reviews lead me to believe this was the frame I was looking for - remote management of photos for my parents, what a great idea. It is a great idea, but so far their implementation falls short of that goal.
Please note that I actually bought a Second Pulse frame from a local store because I couldn't believe the issues I was encountering. With both frames running side by side it is pretty certain that the issues I am experiencing are not isolated to just my frame or frames, but rather are shortcomings in how Kodak has set up the frames and their intended interaction - or lack thereof - with the Kodak Pulse website.
Here are the fundamental issues and problems:
- Pulse Frames do not return information to the Kodak Website.
- Kodak Website's report of photos on the Frames may not be correct.
- No ability for remote delete of ALL Pulse Frame photos.
- No ability for remote awarness of incomplete transfer.
- No refresh from server option on the Pulse Frame
- No thumbnail review on Pulse Frames.
- Poor transceiver strength.
- Very limited transition options between photos.
- With no folders, the claim of 4000 pictures would be a confusing mess.
Kodak has setup the Pulse Website to be one-way communication to the frames. You upload your pictures to the website or email them, and the Website sends them to the frame, and reports to you how many pictures are on the frame. But this isn't always true as it is strictly based on the photos received by the Kodak Website.
In testing , I would upload 40 pictures at a time and found that repeatedly the frames (both of them) would each receive only about 4 to 6 of those uploaded pictures, yet the website would tell me that all 40 pictures were there. It didn't happen every time, but frequently enough to be a concern.
As the intent is to have my folks in another state see different pictures based on different events, changing the photo library currently displaying on a monthly basis was the major desire behind the selection of the Kodak Pulse. It's failure to permit this to occur reliably is a huge problem.
Because the frames are communicating over the wireless network and receiving photos that have been uploaded to the Kodak Pulse Website, your system should not matter. Whether dealing with a Mac, or PC (Safari, Firefox, Internet Explorer) my results are the same - the photos do get to the Kodak website, but they don't always get to the frames. It's also not the same photos that always fail, suggesting that it's not an issue inherent to one photo or another.
According to Kodak Technical Support the frames do not report basic details, like how many photos are actually present back to the Kodak Website. So if the frame doesn't get all the photos intended, you will never know if you are only looking at the website. I also learned that if local photos are uploaded to the frame via a memory card or USB jump drive, the website doesn't receive any information about these new photos. Even a simple indicator that local photos are present would be nice and helpful to a remote administrator.
There is also no way to actually see thumbnails of the photos on the frame - you can scroll through them, but it's a random presentation so you may see the same photo multiple times before you confirm which photos you have and which never got there.
I have devised a workaround that almost guarantees that the photos do get there, but it is a pain, and can result in unknown duplicate pictures on the frame - which will remain until they are manually deleted at the frame.
The workaround is this - I upload a folder of pictures and then as soon as the upload has completed and the first few pictures are arriving on the frame, I switch over on the website and DELETE the very first picture received - which is also the LAST picture uploaded. Then I go back to the upload screen and reselect this one deleted photo and upload it again. This seems to force a refresh to the frame and nearly all the pictures will come through. The one that was deleted may or may not come through even though it will show up on the Kodak website. In other words the Website may tell me that I have 45 pictures on my frame but I may only have 44. In other instances the delete and re-upload results in a double of that one picture on the frame, such that the frame says it has 46 pictures while the website says the frame has only 45. Deleting from the website permits the double image to remain on the frame - the only way to remove this is to manually delete from the frame.
To be clear, on the Kodak Website you can certainly see a display of what pictures are supposed to be on the Pulse Frame. You can select one or all of them and delete them. If you delete all of them the site will tell you that there are no pictures on the Pulse Frame. But if there was a duplication of one or more pictures as a result of the less than assured transfer from the Website to the Frame, those duplications will stay there on the Pulse Frame and unknown to the Website, even though they originated from the Website.
Both Pulse frames do this and I have had lengthy conversations with Kodak Technical Support about this behavior. Having a "Refresh from Server" button on the Pulse Frame would go a long way in helping keep the frame in proper sync, and this has been suggested to Kodak.
I also found that emailing photos directly from Aperture (Mac app) by clicking the email icon after selecting a series of photos resulted in only the first two (2) photos being received. Switch the order around and still only the first 2. Dragging and dropping into email, exporting and then dragging and dropping into email or sending from iPhoto does get all the intended photos to the Kodak website, so it seems to be a quark with Aperture - but assurance that the photos will go from the Kodak Website to the Pulse frame is anything but certain.
I sent one Pulse frame to my parents as that was my original intent. I have now discovered yet another frustrating behavior. Their wireless router is in one room and the Pulse frame they desire to have in another. It's signal strength is sitting at about 45% and occasionally it looses the network. When this happens it reverts to the base setup - asking for a choice of language and for you to select a network.
The suggestion to put the frame next to the wireless router is not practical as it defeats the ability to enjoy the frame in the desired location.
While there are some folks in the Kodak Tech Support group who seem earnest in their efforts to help, others take a canned approach - sending back instructions for how to set up the frame in the first place. If I was not on the network , I would get nothing. Truly there is nothing more annoying then sending in details of a problem and having the tech support group fail to even read your comments before sending out a worthless suggestion.
The Picture quality is great, and when all the photos actually get to the Pulse it's nice. The second Pulse frame will live closer to me at my in-laws which also affords me the opportunity to check on it.
With a capacity sufficient for 4000 photos it would be nice if you could organize them into folders - and then display one folder and not another. But that's not an option. The transitions are also very simple. That's fine - I wanted display quality, but some other choices would be nice.
So in the end it's a great concept and when it actually works as intended it will be great. If you are willing to go through extra steps like the upload - delete - upload I describe above to insure that transfers have occurred, great. But it is a pain.
Resolution of these issues should be achievable by software upgrade, I hope. But until then the Pulse Frame falls short of expectations.
69 of 71 found the following review helpful:
finally, a photo frame for grandparents Mar 06, 2010
By Peter P. Liaw
"peetah"
I've been looking for a photo frame that I can give to my parents, who don't get to see my kids often. I wanted one that allows me to update pictures remotely, and doesn't require any technical knowledge on their part. I tried a few WiFi-capable units: Toshiba (wide-screen ratio, a mistake), Viewsonic (doesn't auto-play when turned on), and Pixstar (seems nice, but $230?). Finally, Amazon emailed me about the new Kodak Pulse, which at the time got three 5-star reviews. Well, what the heck, I decided to buy it and try it out for myself.
Pros:
- Very nice, clear LCD display. It appears to be higher res than other frame. Maybe it's because it is only 7", yet 800x600 pixels. Maybe the LED backlight helps too. The colors also seem richer on this frame.
- Small frame border. Some frames have a ridiculously large border, which takes focus away from the pictures.
- Once configured, zero-configuration needed to use. Perfect for non-technical viewers.
- Impressive web management tools, with many settings.
- No remote! Yes, this is a feature! Since it has web management, there is no remote control to lose. And photo navigation is done thru touch screen.
- Simple, elegant design. The frame is also pretty thin.
- Collage mode, where individual pictures in the collage update in sequence.
- Energy save mode, where you can set times when frame is on. Also can turn on frame when new pictures are received.
- Touch screen interface, for simple management and flipping through photos (you can disable touch screen interface).
- Email upload. This is very convenient, especially from phone.
Cons:
- Management must be made thru Kodak website. What if Kodak website is down, or decides not to support product anymore?
- On first use, it automatically upgraded firmware, which is fine. However, it wiped out my WiFi settings so I had to re-enter it.
- Wished it was offered in larger screen size, which would be nicer for collage mode.
- Security. If you enable upload by email option, anyone who knows the email address can send pictures to the frame. Last thing I want is spam or inappropriate photos on my frame. They should allow you to restrict who can send photos to the frame.
So far I'm very impressed by this photo frame. Never thought of Kodak as a high-tech company, but I guess they know a thing or two about displaying pictures. I think it makes for a great gift that will keep on giving.
41 of 43 found the following review helpful:
 Nice looking and with functionalities above your average digital frame Apr 22, 2010
By R.Suarez
"R-Suarez-"
The first thing I liked about this digital frame is the way it looks. It is an elegant 7" glossy desk frame in black (note it is not designed to be wall mounted) It certainly looks better (in my humble opinion) than the average digital wooden frame (or plastic that looks like wood)
The frame is light and not bulky at all as other reviewers have stated, that of course depends on your perspective, but after comparing this one to others I have seen and owned, this is actually slimmer and lighter.
The touch screen works just great, menus are very simple to use and they will display simply by touching anywhere in the screen. first time you turn it on it will ask you to configure it, I had to go through all the process of configuring my Wi-Fi network and it was a fast process without any problems; one thing to note is that both the manual and the prompt messages in the screen fail to inform the user that the network configuration is not necessary to start using the frame. Other than that, the process is simple and will not take much of your time.
Once configured, you can have Facebook pictures in which you are tagged to load automatically to it, you can enter the Kodak website for your device and upload pictures there that will then upload into your frame. Awesome technology if you intend this to be a present for someone not familiar with this type of gadgets.
There are a couple points of concern with the device though: The first one is related to the quality of the pictures, I have a Sony DSC camera and always snap my pictures in a wide-screen format to be displayed in a high definition screen.; well, the Pulse will automatically re-size the pictures once you load them, which translates in loss of the HD quality (resolution supported by the Pulse's LCD screen is 800x600 pixels) and details lost, if you have a wide-screen picture the Pulse will automatically frame it to fit the 4:3 aspect ratio. For me, as a photo enthusiast, this is a major flaw. The second item I found annoying is the input for the USB thumb drive, it is awkwardly positioned on the back of the frame, say you have a regular sized thumb drive, there is a small protuberance on back of the frame that will push away the drive, if you move it for some reason the drive may get disconnected (It has happened to me a couple times and I will try to upload some pictures), so you may want to ensure you use one of those small sized drives available not to have this issue. In the end, what may be an inconvenience to me may not be for another person but I thought it would be worth mentioning.
Other than that, it is a great device and has performed incredibly well the time I have used it. I could strongly recommend this over other devices I have tried in the past. Well worth the price once you consider all the advantages it offers over other models and brands.
See all 314 customer reviews on Amazon.com
|
| | |
log
