Coby DP772 7-Inch Widescreen Digital Photo Frame with MP3 Player
by Coby
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List Price: Category: Digital Camera See more product details |
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Customers in the UK,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Coby DP772 7-Inch Widescreen Digital Photo Frame with MP3 Player
Customer Review: Great idea
Summary: 5 Stars
The Coby DP-772 is 7" digital photoframe is really amazing, very cleverly engineered, and fairly inexpensive. For under $75 with fee shipping, it shows brilliant photos, videos, and plays mpg3 files. The 480x234 resolution sounds low but actually shows very clear pictures, although I have not tried viewing text with it. Supposedly it can play back through a TV, but the cord is not included, so I did not try it. It even has a remote control. It accepts SD-MMC, CF, XD cards, all at once. It has a USB cable and you can load all 3 cards (e.g. F:. G:. H: drive) with photos from your PC without the need of another card writer. The stand can rotate for either landscape or portrait mode, or detach entirely for wall mounting It needs to be powered with a wall plug, but can be left on 24/7 for probably around $5-10 of power per year (5-10 watts?).
It replaces the film camera photo album. It makes a good gift for parents so they can see all your digital photos. It might be useful for Alzheimer patients to help reinforce memories.
Crop your photos to 16:9 (i.e. width = 1.778 x height for full fit in the display. If you then resize them to 480x270 (.1MB jpg file) you could store 10,000 photos on a 1GB card (under $10 if purchased together with frame from Amazon), or fewer if you add videos. Even an old 32MB card will hold 300 photos.
Be sure to order a memory card with it if you do not have one. Order 2 of them if you want to keep your parents updated with your latest photos by swapping an updated card when you see them.
Coby also makes a 10" (diagonal) version for double the price, but the 7" seems adequate and unobtrusive, and the display is the same size as a 6.1"x 3.4" photo.
Customer Review: Returning, not replacing
Summary: 1 Stars
I bought this frame to display pictures of my newborn daughter on my desk at work. I didn't really have high expectations for it, because it was so inexpensive. As soon as it was turned on I had the following problems:
1) Five seconds after I turn it on, it always says "USB Connected!"-- and I don't have a USB cable inserted into it! This also freezes the device. I found a way around this by selecting the memory card to read from within this initial 5 seconds or turning the frame on without any memory cards inserted.
2) I cannot copy files over to it as described in pages 33-35 of the manual. My computer does recognize the USB device, but when I try to copy files over to the frame, I get a "path is not found" error.
3) I thought I could live with the above 2 problems if it could JUST SHOW MY PICTURES. So I used a card reader to load .JPG files onto a CF card at 400x300 resolution. When, I plugged the card into the frame, these files show up as "Invalid" when I try to view them.
Emailed Coby with the 3 bullet points above, got a response 30 hours later saying:
"Coby Tech Support to me
5:25 am (3 hours ago)
Hello,
We have received your inquiry. It appears that your unit is defective. Return the unit to the retailer for an exchange."
What an inconvenience and disappointment. I will be buying a different product.
Customer Review: Great alternative to Ceiva Frame
Summary: 4 Stars
I've had a Ceiva brand digital photo frame for almost 5 years. The Ceiva has been a lot of fun, but requires a recurring subscription charge that was increased to $99.95 a year in 2007.
Although this frame doesn't offer remote internet management, it does offer a wide variety of card input options and even has a USB port.
Thank you very much to Chukchiboy for the suggestion to use the freeware program XnView to resize the pictures to 480x234. This improves the display quality and allows you to store a large amount of photos on a card. I've got an old 16 MB compact flash card that I wasn't using anymore and now it has a use again!
I haven't used the sound option and seems like that would get old pretty quick having the same music come from a photo frame. I couldn't expect the sound quality would be much good from such small speakers either.
I'm very pleased with the cost of this frame. If it breaks after a couple years (and I won't be surprised if it does) I will have still saved a lot of money compared to the Ceiva.
******
adendum: I bought another similar Coby frame, the DP-102 in Nov 2007 and it totally died in JUN 2008. It was good while it lasted, but I would like more than 7 months life. As others has posted, Coby's support and warranty is poor, so you roll the dice and take your chances.
Customer Review: All-in-One Desktop Media Player
Summary: 4 Stars
This is conceptually a brilliant product. A digital photo frame with a built-in MP3 player. I have purchased quite a few of these and I estimate that there is a 5% chance of getting a defective unit. Therefore, as soon as you get it, you would be well advised to ensure that it is working properly (especially if it is going to be a gift).
That aside what is really convenient about this product is the remote, this allows you to control the volume, and the music and the slide show.
Apart from just showing still photos, this frame also has a Video Mode where it will play AVI and MP4 files. Some lower costing frames will not have this capability.
Here are the specifications for this product:
- Display type: 7" Full-Color TFT LCD (3.5" H x 6.0" W)
- Display Resolution: 480 x 234 pixels
- Cards Used: CF, SD/MMC, MS/MS Duo, xD
- Audio Format Support: MP3 (32-320kbps, CBR/VB), WMA
- Video Format Support: AVI, MP4
- Photo Format Support: JPEG, BMP (14MB)
- PC Interface: Standard USB 2.0, 5 pin Mini USB (cable provided)
- Plug and Play Support: Windows 98se, 2000, ME, XP; Mac OS X
This is wonderful product and can provide many moments of happiness, once you ensure that it works as soon as you get it.
Customer Review: Decent frame for good price
Summary: 5 Stars
This frame by coby is a great value entry level frame, and hard to beat in price. Coby is a name that many tend to run away from, they do tend to have lower end DVD players, but I consider them a value brand and own several other product from coby and have had no problem. This frame is no exception. It has the 480x234 graphics, the standard entry level for a 7" inch frame, SD/XD/MMS/CF memory card capability, stereo speakers for MP3/MPEG playback. easy to navagate menues. I must say when looking at this item, a westinghouse 7" frame was next to it, and I actually thought that this had a slightly better picture quality, although both are 480x234. This also has the interchangable frames as pictured here. Decent value for a neat toy to have at the office.
UPDATE, For about about $40-50 more there is now an 8" Coby frame available with High resolution 800 x 600 screen for really crisp pictures. If I had waited about 6 months, hand down may have owned it. But this 7" frame has come down in price since then as well, and is still a great value. Either way, highly recommend the frames, and don't be scared about the COBY entry level name. At this point, I have looked at many frames, and this is as good as the higher priced namebrands in quality and reliability. Check them out.