Review - Kodak Pulse Digital Photo Frame

Anthony Caruana
Tuesday, 05 October 2010 16:57

Your IT - Mobility

As well as showing off your favourite family or holiday snaps, Kodak's Pulse digital photo frames can be a great way to show off company graphics and other images in the office. While not the cheapest frames on the market, Kodak's Pulse offer plenty of flexibility.

The 7-inch Pulse frame was easy to set up. As well as being able to display photos from an SD card, MemoryStick or USB flash drive, the Pulse can access photos from online sources as it has integrated WiFi. The 7-inch Pulse frame we tested had 512MB of internal memory so you can easily copy photos to the device. The display resolution is 800 by 600 and the screen has a matte finish so it doesn't get too glary in unevenly lit rooms.

Display quality was great. We looked at many different images shot in a wide variety of conditions and all the images were clear. Given the size and resolution, images from any current digital camera should look pretty good on the 7-inch Kodak Pulse.

Adding it to our WLAN was straightforward. Once that was done, we could either use the frame to display images stored online at Kodak's own online repository or from our Facebook account. Setting everything up on the frame didn't require connection to a computer. Simply tapping the screen brought up a touch-enabled interface.

Our biggest beef with the user interface was that the functions of the icons weren't obvious. Also, the touchscreen required quite a bit of pressure to respond. We found it easier to log in to the Kodak Pulse website, where we registered the frame, and alter settings from there.

The online configuration also offered access to some settings that couldn't easily be directly accessed on the frame. For example, we were able set times when the frame would automatically power on and start showing photos. We could also disable the touch controls - handy if you've got small children at home or prying fingers in the office.

At $179, the 7-inch Kodak Pulse isn't cheap but it offers WiFi access to photos and is an attractive unit that will fit nicely into most living rooms and offices.