We had mixed feelings about the last
Kodak
photo frame we reviewed, which added convenience in the form of wireless
access but let itself down on the performance front.
We're now looking at the 10in version of the company's new frames, the
M1020,
which offers the same 800x480 pixel resolution but thankfully looks a bit better
than the last one.
It's still not perfect, and while colours were far more vibrant and accurate,
there were problems with sharpness and we were a little disappointed that there
wasn't at least a small increase in the resolution, considering the size of the
display.
There's also a bit of a change in the controls: although you'll find
dedicated buttons available for power and volume, the majority of the features
are accessed using touch-sensitive panels at the bottom and right-hand side of
the screen.
A series of spots light up along these panels corresponding to functions that
appear on the screen, and they can also be used to scroll through picture
collections or settings by sliding a finger up, down, left or right according to
on-screen instructions. It's a nice idea but it took quite a while to get used
to, and it's a bit too easy to press the wrong thing and enable the wrong
function by mistake.
As well as pictures the frame allows users to play back music and video
files: there's support for MP3, MPEG1 and MPEG4 formats. We were impressed by
video playback, the frame handling a range of files using different recording
methods, and quality was fairly good.
There's 128MB of memory on board, and if you want to add content you can
either use one of the multi-format card slots, connect a USB memory key or
connect the frame directly to a camera or PC to view images or copy them across.
Disappointingly there's no built-in battery, so you'll need it plugged in at all
times.
While it's improved its display quality front, the M1020 is by no means
perfect and despite the fact that there's a good degree of customisation and
versatility, including creating slide shows and managing content on the frame,
it's not the easiest to use and there are more capable devices on offer for
less.
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