Kodak EasyShare W820

I purchased the frame as a birthday present for my wife who was complaining about never seeing all the photos of the grandkids taken over the years. Since I had a wireless router installed, I only looked… at frames that had that capability. At the time ( July 2009 ) there were not that many competitors to look at. Kodak had the most installed, and also the most feedbacks on Amazon, and other sites. I was surprised that it only had a 3 star rating overall, but had the biggest customer base. Most of the negative comments were on installation, support and documentation problems. Digging into the complaints they seemed mostly centered on installation and networking issues. Prior to ordering, I happened across a You Tube video that showed the entire process from opening the box to installing the software, connecting to the network, loading the photos, and running the frame. It appearded straight forward, and in some cases intuative or obvious. When I got the unit, I proceeded to follow the brief and somewhat sketchy installing steps. The network steps were straight-forward if you have previously added wireless devices to your network. if not, the terminology could be daunting and worst case confusing. The frame found my network, logged on and appeared just like every other device I have networked. At that point I was ready to load the frame. Although I loaded Kodak software to control and operate the frame, I decided to use Windows Explorer to copy the photos onto the frame. It worked, but when I tried to manipulate the photos, the frame did not respond. I then switched to the Kodak software and everything worked fine. I really have no major issues with this product. I have not tried using the photos stored on the Kodak site, or other on-line photo sites. I have no reason to believe that they would not work as advertised. My only minor complaint is the touch commands on the frame. I have the urge to actually touch the screen ( as opposed to the border icons) to enter commands. I would have liked a touch screen, but the icons work fine. Even my wife finds operating the frame easy and straight forward. I can highly recommend the product as it does exactly what it is designed to do.

expand

collapse

Just like almost everyone who bought this frame, I wanted it to stream from my Flickr account into my parents home. The usability of this frame is terrible. It drops wireless connection all the time, it… freezes, and the UI is awful. The Kodak software you have to use to manage the frame is also terrible. Nothing is user friendly, nothing is intuitive. Even with the latest firmware and software updates. The slide UI is ridiculous and seldom works as expected. The lack of control over what streams from your Flickr account is also non-existent. I doubt my parents want to see all my contacts photos too. I realized after spending two frustrating days with this frame, that handing it over to my parents would be down right evil. If I was frustrated beyond belief with it, they would be completely lost. Run away from this frame if you are buying it for its wireless capabilities, you will lose many frustrating hours of your life to it, that you can never get back. Seriously, I had high hopes for this frame, and did my best to not let it beat me. I am now returning TWO of them. Why are you still reading? You should be running.

expand

collapse

It's very nice looking and does the trick. I've set it up to get pictures from Kodak Galery. Unfortunately sometimes the picture gets stuck and stops moving and only restart helps. also, if you add more… pictures, they do not automaticall refres, you have to restart. and it could be nice if you could have more sources for pictures. for example, Shutterfly is not supported, and you cannot mix sources (kodak galery, facebook and internal memory). also, pictures are sometimes cut and not fit the screen good. I hope they will release a firmware upgrade soon with some fixes.

expand

collapse

We have a new baby and we bought a frame for each set of grandparents for christmas and one for ourselves. I can download pics onto my computer with my camera and upload easily to Kodak's site, then the… picture automatically (after you set up an account etc..) update on the grandparent's frame - it's awesome! They love getting new pictures of the baby all the time. This is a fantastic gift! The frame was easy for us to use although with the initial setup we needed to help out the grandparents who aren't very technically inclined. But once it's done it's great!

expand

collapse