PanDigital PAN7000DW 7-Inch Digital Picture Frame - Black

The Pandigital PAN7000DW 7" digital photo frame is the best digital photo frame I've found yet. I've purchased 4 other models in different sizes from Axion, Phillps, Smartparts, and Opteka. All of these others had various issues (16x9 when I wanted 4x3, didn't always start picture show automatically, buggy software).The PAN7000DW is reasonably priced (about $65 from Amazon as of 11/9/2009) as compared to the Sony models which are all much more expensive.The PAN7000DW display is excellent -- showing 800x600 pictures crisply and vividly. The software is very good with a reasonable user interface and useful options. I like displaying my photos using their original dimensions (the optimized view attempts to maximize the amount of display used but will chop off edges to accomplish this) - you can pick the view mode you want.The frame accurately shows the EXIF photo date/time if you want to display it. It will also optionally show the current time. It has a nice calendar w/ picture view as well as the normal full frame photo view. And it seems to show ALL your photos eventually (I had a strange problem with an Opteka frame not showing all the photos, only a subset). The remote is small and is held on the back of the frame by a magnet. The remote works well (some remotes I've used have buttons that are hard to press or control). The menu structure (frame software) is logical and well arranged.The clock functionality and auto turn on/off functionality is useful if you have power available to your frame at all times. However, I've hooked my frame up to a motion sensing power strip in my office and the time/date gets whacked when the sensor shuts off for the weekend (the time/date seem to survive for a few minutes or hours without power but not over a weekend). So if you use your frame with a motion sensing powerstrip, forget using the clock/calendar feature.As I've discovered with many photo frames, if you want to display pictures in a particular order, they must exist in flash memory written down in that order - this is not a visible ordering - it does not depend on file name or file creation time. If you start with a totally empty flash card (or internal frame memory) then it will be the order in which the files are copied to the memory device. Macintosh and Windows file copy routines are the fastest way to copy files but the order in which copying takes place is not under your control if you move a large number of files all at the same time - the operating system parallelizes the copying for speed but this places the pictures in different physical memory order. It is too bad that most photo frames do not allow you to display in creation date order or EXIF date order or even file name order.The best way to lay down the photos in sequence is to start with an empty flash device. Then copy the files either one by one by hand or using an automated method that copies files only one at a time. A cmd file on Windows that can do this is like:-------dir /b /od>c:\junk.txtfor /f "delims=*" %%i in (c:\junk.txt) do copy "%%i" f:\-------[...] (you need to change this script to fit your exact situation)Alternatively you can use Photoshop Elements or some other photo management tool to export photos in sequence directly to a memory card or your picture frame.Hopefully future photo frames will become a bit more intelligent and allow you to pick your display order.Overall I've found the PAN7000DW to be a good value and to work as you would expect.

I kept switching out printed pictures in the wooden frames on my office desk, so I decided I could save some time with a digital frame. I'm also a fan of gadgets and electronics.The Pandigital does everything I want. I loaded it up with pictures from my cell phone and PC using a USB cable and set up a sleep/wake cycle that would leave the frame running during business hours. Then I turned on a shuffled slideshow with a 60 minute delay between slides (the delay is adjustable, but not very granular--it jumps from 60 seconds to 1 hour). I also removed the exterior glass frame and matte, leaving only the core 7" LCD unit with its 1" black border. It looks just fine "naked" and fits better on my desk.Some of the negative reviews here mention some shortcomings that I haven't found:The kickstand on the back can be shortened or extended to support the unit at just about any angle. The kickstand even works when the larger glass frame is removed.The display has a decent viewing angle and brightness. It's not a 55" HDTV quality, but it's acceptable for a cheap digital frame. It handles all of my pictures so far without cropping. Some of my pictures look so sharp it's hard to tell that they're not printed pictures.The remote is sluggish, but if you press the buttons firmly and hold it close to the frame, it registers. Now that I have the unit configured, I don't see much of a need to interact with it. There are a few navigation buttons on top of the smaller 7" core unit, so I can just tap those when I want to, say, skip ahead in slide mode. I attached the remote to the little magnetic spot on the back of the 7" unit, and I'll probably forget about it.The UI is sufficiently utilitarian and intuitive, like the UI on my cable box or a digital camera. I had to check the manual once to find out how to disable the clock on the slideshow. Beyond that, I haven't read it.I just dragged-and-dropped pictures into the frame over a USB connection as if I were copying files to or from a cell phone or digital camera. It was self-explanatory. I haven't tried flash drives and such, but I don't expect to fill up the frame's internal memory at any time soon.If the LCD lasts a year or two, I'll consider it a good purchase.