Home > Consumer Reviews > Opteka DF-TFT8 8-Inch Digital Picture Frame with 128MB Built-In Memory (Black)

Bought this product as a gift. This product has exceeded my expectations in every which way possible. The picture clarity is great, ability to store tons of picture on internal memory. Strongly recommand this product.

Just got this frame a couple days ago. The product is beautiful. Great Resolution and Very Nice Looking frame. However, the onboard memory drive is faulty and I am unable to upload images. The drives appear in my windows explorer, then dissapear, then reappear....I have tried copying photographs to it, only to recieve an windows error message that the computer cannot recognize the drive/device. This is not a huge deal, but I did have to go out and buy a second memory card.

Also, the frame won't read jpegs that I created in photoshop. They appear as a thumbnails on the device but will not display during slide show. I am not sure what the problem is with that - yet. The manual is very limited. I have tried contacting customer service (only option is via email) we'll see if I get any response.

Overall it is a great frame - this is the third frame I have purchased and the only one I will keep. I returned the other 2 because of terrible resolution and overall shoddy quality. This one, despite its flaws is a keeper.

If you are looking for a frame that displays photos very well, and is easy to use -- this one is great for that! The photos look bright and very crisp. I was impressed with that aspect of the frame.

One of the key drivers for me in buying this frame over others is it's ability to display video (AVI) files. My digital video camera natively creates AVI files so I thought this would be a great way to actually display those little 2-minute clips I take while I'm on vacation. Unfortunately despite hours upon hours of tinkering (creating new AVI files in various configurations using video editing software) I am unable to get the frame to properly display AVI files . . . it does play the files, but the audio plays at normal speed while the video plays VERY slowly.

Perhaps there are some AVI files this frame will play just fine, unfortunately the details of what settings are required are not included in the manual or the manufacturer's website. I have emailed customer service, but have not yet received any response.

Additionally I have discovered there is no way to have a slide show that includes both photos and videos -- you can display one or the other, but not both.

For photos only I'd give this frame five stars. . . but the video aspect either doesn't work well, is totally unusable, or is very difficult to use. . . so I take away a star for that plus the manual, website, customer support are very lacking so three stars.

I bought it as a gift with expedited shipping. I receved it immediatedly (thanks). It took me 15 minutes to select 100 photos and 2 minutes to copy to a 1 gig card(with much space left). I inserted the card and it was beautiful. I researched for picture clarity and ease of use. The recipient is not too computer savvy, so I had to ensure it was simple. The quality of the frame and the picture views themselves were better than I expected. I just made a leap and bought a Portable USA 10.4" frame for almost the same price on a Labor Day sale at Amazon. I hope I am as pleased with the new one as I was with the first.

I got one of these for my wife for Christmas, and it was the most successful gift I've ever given her in 27 years of marriage, I think.

The trick is that I bypassed the 128MB of internal memory and just put 2GB of photos of her grand-daughter and pics from our travels on a CompactFlash card, using the card slot in our PC, and used that instead. That way on Christmas morning she unwrapped it, plugged it in, and right off the bat was looking at pics of her granddaughter.

The 800x600 resolution isn't the equal of even an ordinary laptop (usually 1024 x 768 minimum)--but it's not a computer, remember. And its resolution is good enough to show my pics taken with a 5MP camera satisfactorily. I think anything less than 800x600 would be a problem. However, we use an 800x600 projector for slide shows at our dive club and resolution works even on a projection screen, so don't think this is going to look fuzzy or pixelated (unless your pics are already).

I did try accessing the 128 internal memory by hooking the picture frame up to a computer with a USB cable--available for a few bucks from any electronics store. I was surprised to discover that it uses USB 1.0--about a tenth as fast as the USB 2.0 every computer has used for years. But you're not going to be using this as an external drive anyway, so that's not a serious complaint. I use Windows XP Home as my operating system and had none of the problems Vista users report.

The workaround for Vista users is simple: just put your pics on a memory card like I did. The picture frame takes a variety of cards in a variety of capacities. If your PC lacks card slots--supplied with most new PCs--you can buy a cheap card reader that plugs into a USB port. I can get 2GB Compactflash cards locally for $10, readers for the same or less.

It also runs the kinds of movies a digital camera makes. I was able to run movies from two kinds of cameras (Sony and Olympus). I did notice that the sound seemed to stop after a while--must be filling up the buffer. But for the typical little clips shot by digital cameras it works fine, and having videos of her granddaughter in a picture frame on my wife's desk as work yielded a big wow factor.

I hardly needed the manual, but I know computers, and so does my wife.

At work she discovered she could switch it from the default shuffle mode (random display of pics) to strict sequential display, which she wanted. She was also able to change from the random sequencing mode (pixelation, fade in/fade out, dissolve etc.) to whichever type she preferred.

Note that a number of other reviewers didn't realize you could alter the default settings (and you can't alter them on some other kinds of digital picture frames).

So this is a flexible device produced in the smallest size that really makes sense (that is, 8"), since this format has the same form factor as most digital camera pictures.

Like another reviewer, I saw no sign of alternate frame colors, as was implied by the manual. But the black frame it came with works for my wife, and I like it as well.

These digital picture frames let us put picture albums on people's desks and walls. They're a great idea, and the prices and quality have finally reached a point where most people can use them. I picked this Opteka after reading hundreds of reader reviews and product descriptions on Amazon, and it was delivered really quickly as well, even though it was before Christmas and I only asked for regular shipping.

Plus this combines the natural desire of guys like me to buy electronic gizmos for my wife with her natural desire to get things that come from the heart. I took a majority of the pics on the frame, and all the pics show people and places and events that are precious to her.