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Here's what CNN has to say about it!
The $250 9FF2M4 is a digital photo frame that's a standout in the rapidly evolving and expanding digital photo frame category. The frame looks a lot like a miniature version of the display on Apple's original iMac flat-panel all-in-one computers, with clear plexiglass around a white border that surrounds the 6.7 x 4.5-inch (8-inch diagonal), high-pixel-density LCD panel.
The 9FF2M4 comes with three extra borders in red, silver, and black that are easy to change (they adhere magnetically). The adjustable and removable stand on the back lets you set the frame vertically or horizontally in landscape or portrait orientation. You also get a wall-mounting kit in the box. The 16-bit (65,536 potential colors) display has built-in memory, which allows you to store between 110 to 150 photos internally, according to Philips.
Additionally, around back you'll find slots for Compact Flash, SD, MMC, xD, and Memory Stick memory cards. You can choose to leave the images on the card or transfer however many will fit into the display's remaining internal memory. Another option is to upload photos from your camera to the display via a USB cable.
The one advantage to transferring the photos to the display's internal memory is that, as part of the copying process, the unit automatically resizes the images to 720x540 pixels -- or as close as it can get to that size. If your image won't quite translate to 720x540, the display adds black bars to the top and bottom or the sides rather than cropping your image -- which is a good thing; some frames chop off large parts of your picture. Since the screen has 680x480 pixels, Philips says that some cropping may occur, but it must be minor because we didn't notice much in the various images we viewed.
You can select from 14 transition effects, as well as random mode. All in all, the images were very sharp with vibrant, accurate colors. You can create labeled albums on the frame that you can then select for slide-show viewing.
The built-in clock is also a nice touch -- the numbers are nice and big -- and we also appreciate that you can set the frame to display reminders, as well as to turn on and off at selected times. The new three-button interface (one is a four-way directional button) is a lot easier to deal with.
As it stands, it's one of best digital photo displays we've encountered, though we do expect to see the competition heat up in 2007 as more established consumer electronics companies jump into the frame fray.
Editor's note: Philips also makes the 7-inch 7FF1M4, which offers many of the features of 9FF2M4 but won't automatically rotate your images and doesn't have as many options for albums and effects.
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