Friday May 9, 01:25 PM
Kodak's Easy-to-Use EasyShare Frame
By
Olga Kharif
Kodak (NYSE: EK - news) 's (EK) EasyShare family of digital photo frames clearly deserves its name. When I tested the EasyShare EX1011, I found
the frame simple, elegant, and, yes, easy to use. That's a rarity. On other frames, the screen menus are confusing, the functions don't always work properly, and the remote controls seem to come from an alien planet. I figured out most of the EX1011's features in under 10 minutes without using the manual. That's remarkable considering how capable this device is.
The 10-inch frame displays up to 149 photos from its internal memory, or a never-ending stream from your photo collections on a computer or the Kodak Gallery site. It also can be used to play videos or songs stored on your PC. There's also a slot to insert a memory card from your digital camera.
The screen menus are written in simple language, and the remote control buttons are self-explanatory: The one with the red dot turns the frame on and off; the one with a little house icon takes you to the main menu. And, unlike remotes for some other frames, Kodak's is super-responsive and works from as far away as 5 feet.
The frame has a built-in Wi-Fi transmitter to connect with your home wireless network, making it unnecessary to string a USB cord for access to photos from your PC or kodakgallery.com. The first time you connect the frame with the site, you enter your user name and password. Then you just select Kodak Gallery on the frame's menu whenever you want the device to start streaming selected slide shows. The frame can automatically receive new albums that friends share with you via the site, too.
Possible Drawbacks
What's lame, of course, is that you only can access photos from Kodak Gallery, and not from other photo-sharing sites, such as Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO - news) 's (YHOO) Flickr. Another possible drawback, common among wireless-enabled frames, arises if you place the device near your Wi-Fi router, for example, on the same desk or shelf. If they're not separated by at least a few feet, the frame gets flooded with data from the router. This impedes the photo stream from Kodak Gallery, which can slow a slide show, leave the screen blank, or produce glitchy images.
While the Wi-Fi setup for connecting with Kodak's site was easy, using the wireless connection to gain access to my computer's hard drive required a bit more effort. First, I had to download Windows Media Player version 11 to my PC. Then, I went into the player's "library" and selected Media Sharing. Finally, I restarted my frame and the PC. After that it was easy to browse all of my computer's video, music, and photos, and even search that library by plugging in keywords or dates with the remote control.
Because the frame's processor isn't as powerful as a PC's, printing photos directly from the frame to my PictBridge-enabled printer wasn't as straightforward as I'd have liked. Then again, most frames don't offer a direct printing feature at all. Instead of automatically recognizing the printer as a PC does when you plug in a printer cable, you must go into the frame's settings menu to configure the connection. While this wasn't incredibly arduous, you'll have to reconfigure the frame again the next time you want to connect the frame and your PC with a cord.
Many Features to Love
Another thing I'd like Kodak to tweak: A picture I saved to the frame's internal memory happened to be turned upside down. After I rotated the photo on the frame, I assumed the device would remember the rotation and display the photo properly the next time I viewed it. It didn't.
That said, there are many features to love about this frame. You can specify in the settings whether you'd like to view photos in a landscape or portrait orientation. You also can order the frame to automatically compile a slide show of pictures no older than a week. You can schedule times for the device to turn on and off each day.
And then there's my favorite feature: You can select from one of a dozen languages. My native language happens to be Russian. When I switched to that, all the menus appeared in Russian. Many digital frames lack these extra touches, which makes the EX1011 well worth the $250 price tag.
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