Samsung SPF-87H Digital Photo Frame Review

Like many people I suspect, I rarely print our digital photographs despite having Hi-Ti 630PS Dye Sub and HP C5180 printers. There seems little point printing them and putting them in an album when it is just as easy for people to look at them on the computer screen. Also we are not into the clutter of adorning our walls and furniture with photo frames nor any other ornements, preferring a more minimal look.

However, I have been thinking about getting a digital photo frame for some time as they seem a good solution - One frame can display almost countless pictures - so I don't have to make decisions about which ones to print and which to display -  and there is none of the time, trouble, and not to mention cost, of printing them.

Even so, I never seemed to get round to it, but then our son and his girlfriend bought us a Samsung SPF-87H for Christmas. So how does it perform?
Image Quality

The 800x480 display is very bright and sharp. It is easily visible in all lighting conditions, and from any angle.
The widescreen format doesn't lend itself well to portrait photos though. Consequently, I found myself only selecting landscape photos - which contradicts my earlier thought that having a digital photo frame would save me from the decision process.

That said, nothing stops you standing it vertically, but then the same issue would arise with landscape photos. Then just buy two I guess and have one each way.

Or buy a 4:3 aspect ratio frame instead. This highlights another slight issue with a widescreen format display like the Samsung SPF-87H  in that it doesn't match the aspect ratio most commonly used by digital cameras. As a consequence you find that photos don't fill the screen if you use the 'auto fit' setting, or are cropped if you use the 'fit to width' setting. As you have no control over the cropping, I found myself cropping the photos manually before exporting them to the frame. There I go, contradicting myself again over the time and trouble saved by using a digital photo frame...

Storage
The Samsung SPF-87H has 1gb of built-in memory, plus the option to use SD cards. One of the benefits of cropping and exporting the photos first before putting them on the frame is that as a consequence the file size is going to be greatly reduced compared to simply copying the original source photos across which will have no doubt been shot at several megapixel resolution. For example, a typical 800x480 picture with not too much compression is going to come out at around 50-75kb, whereas the source might be 2-3mb. As a result, you can easily fit something like 10,000 photos in the internal memory, plus whatever you put on the card. Of course, you might argue that with storage cards now being so cheap, why bother? Why not just copy the source files. However you would still be stuck with the aspect ration issue.
That said, I imagine that most users will simply copy the source photos across and not give issues of aspect ratio or storage a second though - until they run out of space.

USB
The frame connects as either a

• mass storage device, so you can simply drag and drop photos into the folder
• a photo frame, to display pictures from the host computer
• or as a mini-monitor, acting as a display for the host computer

Mini Monitor - Frame Manager
To use the frame as a mini-monitor you must first download and install Frame Manager on your computer.
Then you can configure the frame as a 2nd monitor. Here it is shown connected to my laptop. Note that the instructions say it cannot be configured as the main monitor, though I didn't try that.


Functions
There isn't too much to discuss in terms of functionality. There are

• obligatory slide show transitions and timing options
• the ability to show the time and/or calendar
• the auto on/off function is useful though, to switch the display on and off at pre-set times

It is very easy to use with simple buttons on the rear of the frame to navigate easily through the options.



Time + Calendar Display

 Calendar + Photo Display

Multi Picture Display
Pictures are displayed one at time till the screen is full, and then the screen is cleared and the process repeated.

There is another variation on this too.


Conclusions
Despite the questions about the widescreen format I raised, I am still very pleased with the display. Though it was a gift, I know it isn't an expensive photo frame, but even so the display quality is very good. It is simple to use and the 1gb of built-in memory makes it useful right out of the box.  I may well get a 2nd one for portrait format usage.

Photo Gallery
See my Flickr photo gallery or click on any of the images above for higher resolution photos.