Is the Kodak digital frame worth the premium price?
It’s worth noting right off the bat that the premium Kodak digital frame isn’t made by Kodak. The name was licensed by a different manufacturer and doesn’t reflect who made the frame. That being said, the Kodak digital photo frame is priced along with other premium digital frames like the Pix-Star. It features Wi-Fi connectivity, 16GB internal storage, and a couple of Wi-Fi-enabled features like weather, location, alerts, and a calendar.
The user interface feels quite clunky and outdated for the price. There’s a mobile app that works in unison with your user account and lets you send photos directly to your frame via Wi-Fi. It’s a handy feature that works relatively well.
You’ll find the biggest issue with the Kodak digital photo frame to be the display’s aspect ratio. 16:10 is not a good choice for a digital photo frame and means that almost every single photo you send that was captured on a smartphone or digital camera won’t match the frame’s native aspect ratio (most of these photos are 4:3). This results in most photos being cropped, zoomed in, or barred in around the sides by black pillars.
On top of this, all photos are surrounded by a grey border that can’t be removed or changed to a less noticeable color like black. The above issues take away quite significantly from the viewing experience and immersion.
You don’t get any cloud storage or related features and as such, can’t link or import external photos and albums directly from social media and photo-sharing platforms. You also can’t save or manage your photos through the cloud and can’t remotely control the frame.
It’s not the greatest choice for elderly users and not-so-tech-savvy people as both the mobile app and frame’s interface take some getting used to. While the Kodak digital photo frame claims to be able to play videos up to 15-seconds-long, you’ll struggle to get videos to send through the available methods.
The Kodak digital frame uses a touchscreen display. This significantly increases the cost of the frame and means that costs need to be recuperated elsewhere. Touchscreens are less durable, more prone to scratches, and being damaged by minor knocks and falls. They’re harder for grandparents to grasp and are fingerprint magnets – you’ll find yourself cleaning the screen more than you use it.
You can’t orient the frame to view photos in portrait mode, and any photos loaded to the frame in portrait will likely be rotated sideways, or squashed into the center of the screen. The auto-adjusting is a handy feature but doesn’t work too consistently – especially in low light.
All-in-all, while the Kodak digital photo frame isn’t bad, it struggles to compete with what most competing top digital photo frames offer for the same price. It’s a better choice than most mid-range or budget frames but doesn’t offer the greatest value for money.
How does the Kodak digital frame compare with the Pix-Star frame?
Pix-Star’s digital photo frame is arguably the most versatile digital frame on the market. You get free-for-life cloud storage, full Wi-Fi connectivity and related features, a 4:3 aspect ratio, and unique features like web albums support.
The mobile app’s interface is smooth and fluid and makes it very easy to send photos, videos (up to 2-minutes long), and audio to the frame from anywhere in the world. The web interface lets you manage cloud storage and up to 25 connected frames from a single user account. You can remotely take control of a connected frame, change its settings, start slideshows, adjust the color and brightness, and much more.
Pix-Star’s digital photo frames are great for grandparents and multi-frame control makes them great for large families too. You’ll find the user interface is quick and easy to navigate, never leaving you more than a couple of steps from the main menu.
You have plenty of control over the slideshow’s play order, frequency, style, and speed. Slideshows will automatically continue when you turn the frame back on. You can import and automatically sync photos and albums from photo-sharing and online storage sites including Dropbox, OneDrive and SmugMug. These are all saved to the Pix-Star’s internal storage and can be viewed offline.
This isn’t an exhaustive list and you can already see how the Pix-Star frame fills the voids left by the Kodak digital frame. This isn’t to say that it’s the perfect frame, but it does offer one of the best value for money user experiences on the market at the moment.
How many photos can the Kodak digital frame hold?
This depends on the size of the photos you send to the frame. Bear in mind that the native resolution of the Kodak digital frame’s 16:10 display is 1280×800 pixels. Any photos sent to the frame with a higher resolution will be taking up more storage space than needed. It’s also worth noting that the Kodak digital photo frames don’t have any cloud capabilities, so you’re limited to what you can hold in the local storage. That being said, 16GB is more than enough for several months and even photos for a year or two – if you match the frame’s native resolution.
Can the Kodak digital frame play videos?
The Kodak digital frame claims to support video playback of clips up to 15-seconds long. There’s a persisting issue whereby you might struggle to send videos to the frame, be it through the mobile app or by USB/SD card. The frame has a very specific format and length requirements, so make sure you consult the user documentation before trying to send videos.
Kodak digital photo frames can play music over slideshows too, but won’t play the audio that accompanies video files. The best way to send audio files to the frame is via USB/SD card – though you might be able to send with the mobile app if you meet all the format, size, and length requirements.
Can the Kodak digital frame connect to Wi-Fi?
The Kodak digital photo frames can connect to Wi-Fi but don’t offer many Wi-Fi-related features such as remote control and web album support. You can use Wi-Fi to send and receive photos from the mobile app, and it enables basic features like weather & location, reminders, and a calendar function.
Are Kodak digital frames battery-powered?
Kodak digital picture frames come with a 4,000mAh battery that offers up to 4 hours of battery life. This number can change significantly depending on the nature of use, whether you’re playing videos, and if you have a Wi-Fi connection in the background. Other aspects such as screen brightness and slideshow settings can also have a big impact on battery life. We don’t usually recommend getting a battery-operated digital picture frame, so give this guide a read before making up your mind.
Can Kodak digital picture frames receive photos wirelessly?
Only a handful of Kodak digital picture frames can receive photos through any method other than a USB/SD card. This method involves downloading the mobile app that gives you access to your Kodak cloud service. Unfortunately, you can only send 6 photos at once with the app. Additionally, you can only send photos to one Kodak frame at a time.
If you have multiple frames, you can’t add them to a multi-frame control group like you can with the Pix-Star frame. You need to manually load photos to each frame, and there’s no way to automatically set new photos to share to all connected frames.
The only other way to load photos to most Kodak digital photo frames is by USB/SD card. Sadly, you can’t control the play order of slideshows, regardless of the sending method. Even a randomize feature isn’t available – so you need to view the photos in the same order that you uploaded them to the frame.