ViewSonic VFD1027w-11 10.2″ 1024 x 600 Digital Photo Frame Review

Introduction

I wanted to buy a photo frame for my parents in law with the following characteristics: reasonably cheap, large good quality screen, easy to use and, very important, capable to accept 220V power input because they are living in Europe. I wasn’t interested in any fancy features, no video / music, just basic photo slideshow and eventually remote control. I shopped around for a while and I found a product that met all my requirements – the ViewSonic VFD1027w-11 10.2″ 1024 x 600 Digital Photo Frame. I bought it, tested it and here is the review.

Unpacking

The box is quite large and contains the power adapter (100-240V) that works for the European voltage as well as for the US, an USB cable, a tiny remote control powered by a coin type battery, a frame stand, user guides and the photo frame itself.

viewsonic-vfd1027w-11_box_5

Technical Specifications

10.2″ Digital photo frame, 1024×600 High resolution, 16:9 aspect ratio
Brightness 400 cd/m2
Contrast ratio 400:1
128MB Internal Memory
Calendar & clock features, Random (Shuffle) slide show
Auto on/off feature
USB host/slave
Remote control
Brightness and contrast adjustment
Expansion slot accepts SD/MS/MS Pro/SDHC/MMC
effective viewing area 8″ x 5.2″

Installation and Setup

The ViewSonic VFD1027w-11 10.2″ 1024 x 600 Digital Photo Frame is trivial to install – just plug it in and turn it on. Immediately it will start in a demo mode displaying a slideshow of the demo photos included in the internal memory. To add your own photos, there are two ways. Use the internal memory (128MB) or one of the accepted storage cards (SD/MS/MS Pro/SDHC/MMC).

To add photos to the internal memory, use the supplied USB cable to connect the photo frame to one of your computer’s USB ports. The photo frame will appear as a regular USB drive and you can copy / delete photos just as with any other USB memory stick.

Note: If you copy photos at their native resolution (directly from your digital camera for example), the internal 128MB memory won’t take you too far and you’ll be dissapointed by the limited number of photos you can store. It is a good idea to re-size / crop the photos to match the photo frame resolution of 1024 x 600. This photo frame has 16:9 aspect ratio so if your photos are 4:3 they’ll need to be croped, otherwise they won’t fit properly on the screen. As with any other photoframes, the normal viewing mode is landscape so if you have portrait photos they won’t take the entire screen area.

By re-scaling my photos to 1024×600 I was able to fit over 1,000 photos on ViewSonic VFD1027w-11′s internal memory.

viewsonic-vfd1027w-11_menu_1

Functionality

viewsonic-vfd1027w-11_menu_8

As I mentioned, I was interested in purchasing a photo frame, not a video player. I needed a simple to use user interface with basic navigation. Beside basic slide shows with multiple transition effects and variable speed, ViewSonic VFD1027w-11 can also display a simple calendar and clock while if you really don’t have any other option, you can also use it as a 5 in 1 card reader due to its USB host functionality.

I tested a couple of 4GB and 8GB SDHC memory cards and both were accepted without any problems. The remote control while cheaply made is responsive and works well with the photo frame. VFD1027w-11 is also plenty bright and the screen quality is surprinsingly good considering the price. I also did not see any dead pixels on mine.

The only negative aspect that I could find is that it doesn’t re-scale properly if your photos are not the right size. Sometime the photos would be cut at top / bottom, sometime they would be stretched the wrong way. As I mentioned, a little work rescaling / cropping them should solve this issue.

Conclusion

ViewSonic VFD1027w-11 10.2″ 1024 x 600 Digital Photo Frame is the best I could find for the price. Aside some negative aspects like weak integrated re-scaling/ cropping and a default behavior to always start displaying the photos on the internal memory with no way of changing that, it most certainly worth the price paid (around $69). Large enough at 10.1″ and good screen quality combined with a simple interface makes it the ideal gift. Recommended!