Mustek PF-T80R 8-inch Digital Photo Frame with Mirror Finish | List Price: $349.95 Discount Price: $279.95

| Platform: No Operating System Brand: Mustek Binding: Electronics
Features: - Large 8-inch active-matrix TFT (4:3 aspect ratio) touch button screen
- Supports multiple file formats such as Bitmap, JPEG, MPEG1, MPEG2, MPEG4, WAV, AVI and MP3
- Includes unique functions such as photo playback scheduler, clock and calendar
- A 256MB built-in memory, speaker and AV output; also reads CF, SD, MMC and MS media cards
- Includes a rechargeable battery and full functional remote control
Will not rotate pictures [Posted on 2008-03-02] Specs say that it will auto rotate to picture orientation. Tried unsuccessfully to get this function to work. Sent first frame back thinking it was a defect, but second frame the same way, sent back also. Too bad, I really thought this was an attractive frame with all the functions I was looking for. Called customer support, but of no help.
Awful, don't bother [Posted on 2008-03-20] Ugh. Cheap plastic base, screen overly glossy and is a fingerprint magnet, awful washed-out picture colors out of the box (can be improved with contrast and brightness controls but the results are never anywhere close to pleasing). Unresponsive controls require multiple presses before anything happens. The virtual buttons on the unit itself are particularly infuriating, and you'll hurt your fingers from pressing them with force, over and over again. The credit-card-sized remote is no great shakes either. There's no place or slot to keep the remote stashed away and out of sight when you're not using it.
So-so interface. Remote control and screen controls lack essential play/stop button. Charging didn't work, at least not to the point where the frame, when lifted out of the cradle, worked for more than about 30 seconds. After less than an hour of playing around with it, trying to get it to work with only intermittent success, everything froze up and I couldn't get past the picture mode icon. Tried turning the unit off and on, removing it from cradle, no dice.
Mustek asks that, if you experience a problem, you NOT return the product but give them a call instead. I did and eventually the phone was answered by a very slow and remarkably clueless gentleman with poor English skills -- probably working out of some call center in Bangalore -- who made no efforts to troubleshoot, and could in fact offer nothing but the genius advice to (you guessed it) return the product. And return it I shall.
Waste of time and money. And the fact that Mustek offers only a 90-day warranty should tell you all you need to know about how durable the company expects this product to be.
Must Have Mustek [Posted on 2008-04-12] Excellent resolution at 800X600. Rechargeable battery onboard so you can pass hand-to-hand or leave in charging cradle/display holder and leave on a bookcase. Sound is OK--what do you expect from itty-bitty speakers. Has all the bells and whistles. I got it on sale at $99--regular price is $299. Or $277 on Mustek website.
Smoked-mirror finish on screen adds classy touch! I need to talk to someone about converting large, 10 mega-pixel pictures so they load faster and fit the screen better.
Better than I expected given the reviews on this site. [Posted on 2008-04-28] This unit has many features not found on other digital frames. I like the built in battery. It permits sharing a picture with friends around a room or taking the unit to your computer to reload the images. My biggest complaint about this viewer is the slide show viewer that it will only view 300 images and does not automatically repeat. Nor does it allow selecting a folder to start. However I have found a work around. Set up the machine to auto start the slide show and then use the file copy menu to browse to a starting file. Then tap enter and it will start from that point. Normally the slide show can play music as well but for my work around it does not.
The manual documents using the remote to gain access to the function keys but I have also found that you don't have to use the remote if are using the up/down keys to select an image (for example in file copy) and then tap the left or right key you will jump to the functions at the bottom of the screen and you can select the function. tapping up will go back to the list of files. I only wish I could copy files more than 1 at a time. I would like to select a folder and copy it will all the contents. Same with delete.
All in all the quality is good, especially for the price, and the viewer does what I need.
Works Well. [Posted on 2008-05-05] I was expecting the "clock and calendar" to be a semi-transparent overlay on my slide-show photos. Instead, the clock/calendar seems to overlay only on that single image as shown in the product description photo.
The base/stand seems to be sturdy enough. The AC power adapter can be plugged into either the base or the frame, but there is no "wall hook slot" on the back of the frame, so you can't hang the frame on a wall.
Because this is an 8-inch, 800x600 pixels LCD (I read somewhere it is also 16.7 million [8/24 bit] colors), and after turning down the brightness and contrast from the factory settings, my photos look very good.
I strongly recommend resizing a COPY of your photos down to 800 x 600 pixels (a 4:3 aspect ratio) before you load them into the frame. If the frame has to resize your larger photos down to 800 x 600, the resizing can take significant time and maybe not be displayed by the time the slide show advances to the next photo. You can use the free Irfanview program to resize a copy of your photos.
To easily remove finger prints from the screen, use a microfiber lens or eyeglass cleaning cloth (one without any chemicals like anti-fog) to gently wipe the prints off. The small cloth included with my frame seems to be a microfiber cloth and works well.
I tried running the frame on battery power only. It lasted about 75 minutes.
Overall, I'm very satisfied with this picture frame. Four stars because the clock/calendar only shows its own background photo.
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