My favorite social media website is Instagram. It’s straightforward content where I can see a bunch of stunning and exciting looking photos. It’s not cluttered or overwhelming, and it’s focused towards my friends rather than news and videos as Facebook is.
The biggest push for Instagram is their photo filters where you can turn an everyday photo into a stunning professional shot. However, the best experience is when you post a picture on Instagram, and it turns out better than it would with a filter.
The #NoFilter trend is always nice to see because it means what you are seeing is the real deal. Now, we don’t post all of our pictures on Instagram, typically just one out of hundreds ever make it in my case, but I still want to show off my pictures.
Since photo taking is incredibly easy to do, with every smartphone on the market having the capability to take reasonable photos, we tend to take far more than we need. Having them all printed to showcase in your home is expensive and it is tedious work to then hang and frame them.
We are in a technology era where there is a piece of technology for every solution, including photo sharing inside your home.
Displaying every picture on a bright, HD color display, the new HP Digital Photo Frame displays thousands of pictures all day long which you can watch and remember the memories evoked by the photos.
Welcome to my review of the HP Digital Photo Frame DF1050TW.
Design
As this Digital Photo Frame is meant to showcase your photos to visitors in your home, it would be somewhat undesirable if it took attention away from those photos.
To center the attention towards the 10.1-inch display, the body of the Digital Photo Frame is a mixture of matte black and dark gray. This color scheme allows it to sit comfortably in the kitchen, bedroom, hallway, or even on a bookshelf without making it seem out of place.
The front of the unit contains a large glossy glass display followed by a brightness indicator, LED status light, and an HP home button for the operating system. Flip the unit over to the rear to find a power button, volume controls and media inputs.
HP includes onboard storage of 8GB for photos to be wirelessly transferred to the Digital Photo Frame. This 8GB, however, is shared with the unit’s operating system and with how storage works, it only leaves a few (5.6GB) gigabytes available for you to use. Instead, it’s ideal to use a 32GB SD card or a USB flash drive.
While photo is in the name, this unit can also display video and uses two smaller speakers for sound, or you can opt to connect a speaker using the 3.5mm rear headphone jack.
I placed my HP Digital Photo Viewer in the kitchen on a small table underneath the TV. The unit’s small size of 10.5” (H) x 2.9” (W) x 7.3” (L) makes it easily fit into compact spaces and on top of small tables. The only criticism I have is with the viewer’s base.
The Digital Photo Viewer has a rear foot that forces the viewer to only one tilt position. Depending on where you place the viewer, the tilt of the display should suffice. However, if the viewer is placed at eye level, it is tilted too far up for my liking.
I would have preferred if the unit could have an adjustable tilting mechanism or if the viewer could be wall mounted. It seems that HP went towards thinness of the product rather than practicality here.
To finish, the Digital Photo Viewer requires a power source and cannot be battery operated. The included power cable is rather short, and I would have liked to have seen a longer cable as well as one without a power supply in the power plug. The enlarged power plug makes it awkward to plug into the wall next to another outlet.
Functionality
When powered on for the first time, you are presented with an HP setup wizard. You enter information such as your time zone, home wireless, and a few other personal details about your new Digital Photo Viewer.
When powered on subsequently, you are always dropped into the viewer’s home screen of the operating system. This 10.1-inch display is a touchscreen that unfortunately is also a fingerprint magnet. The glossy screen may make photos look better, but it tends to show dust and smudge marks after repeated touching.
The home screen gives you the option to showcase photos, music, and your calendar. If no option is selected, it reverts to an auto-screen-dimming digital and analog clock with the current date or a slideshow of pictures.
To get content onto the Digital Photo Viewer, there are a few ways to go about it. The easiest is to download the HP Photo Frame application. By connecting to the device via the home wireless network, you can choose and drop photos onto the viewer directly from your smartphone.
Somewhat annoyingly, before you can use the HP Photo Frame app, you must register for a new account. I am of the mindset that such an app should have a guest mode for your personal device, but then again it may need to link you to your Photo Frame.
Once inside the app, you can only select photos that were taken with your camera (a slight annoyance) but you can edit the photos to your liking including cropping and slight tilt adjustments. Once finished, you press one button and the selected photos are wirelessly sent to your Digital Photo Frame to be showcased.
One thing I like about the application is that you could place this Digital Photo Frame in a family member’s home and then wirelessly send them new and updated pictures of either you or your family. It makes it a great way to share pictures with, say, grandparents.
This application was developed by iDeaUSA, a company that I have previously reviewed products for. They have partnered with HP to build this HP Digital Frame: while HP takes care of the hardware, iDeaUSA takes care of the software; two companies that have received positive reviews from myself and others.
I opted to use the SD card reader on the rear of the viewer for my photo sharing. The reason why I went around the app was because I could upload all of my pictures onto my computer, pick and choose my favorites, make any edits that I like, and then quickly load them onto the viewer.
When the SD card is inserted, I selected the media device and then pressed Play. After about 30 seconds per picture, the viewer uses different animations to move through all of the photos. You can choose to flip through the pictures yourself if desired.
There is not an autorotation of pictures, so, if a picture is taken in portrait mode, it will display the wrong way. You can edit the rotation of the picture on the viewer for a quick edit, however.
I loaded hundreds of different photos all ranging from different scenery, colors, and brightness. Even though the photos are displayed on a 1280 x 800 TFT display, each photo looked clear, bright, and colorful.
Overall, I was quite happy with how well the HP Digital Photo Frame displayed my photos and how easy it was to load them. Whether through the app or directly, you can share thousands of photos efficiently and cheaply.
With my hundreds of loaded pictures, I could constantly look over and see a new picture each time. It even took the attention of people who would walk by and notice or wait to see the next picture.
My Final Thoughts
If you take a lot of pictures and want to share those pictures in your home, a digital photo viewer is one of the best ways to do so. It’s a onetime cost and showcases every photo you like in clear, bright color.
The design of the Digital Photo Frame is pleasant and fits well into any room on top of any surface. Even if it has the drawback of needing to be close to an outlet, it can still liven up a room and quickly draw the attention of your guests.
The animations in between pictures may be a bit cheesy and make it feel like you are experimenting with PowerPoint slide transitions, but at least it’s better than a quick flash to the next photo.
Pictures are always great to look at, and I see myself using the Digital Photo Frame for many years to come.
Priced at $149.99, it may be a little higher than most people are comfortable paying, but it makes an excellent gift to a homeowner or to grandparents who can now receive your family photos no matter where they are in the world.
Buy it now:
© 2018 Justin Vendette
