| Portable USA PU-15WB Wireless 15-Inch Digital Picture Frame |  | Brand: Portable USA
Category: Photography
List Price: $399.99
Buy New: $289.99
You Save: $110.00 (28%)
New (2) from $289.99
Avg. Customer Rating:  71 reviews
Media: Electronics
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Display Size: 15
Removable Memory: MultiMediaCard
Size: 15-Inch
Shipping Weight (lbs): 5
Dimensions (in): 20.8 x 15.8 x 4.3
MPN: PU-15WB
Model: PU-15WB
UPC: 094922891419
EAN: 0094922891419
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Features:
| • | Portable USA 15-inch Wireless Digital Picture Frame | | • | 256 MB fast flash memory on board (can store up to 1500 pictures) | | • | Displays digital pictures; plays back video and music | | • | No computer necessary and bluetooth enabled (requires separate adapter, not included) | | • | Ships in a rich real cherry wood finish frame and includes free photo editing software |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
An elegant wooden frame that can show off your digital pictures, movies on a bright crystal clear, large 15" screen by simply adding a memory card from your camera or connecting to your computer. It's the brightest way to display your digital photos. The frame can store around 1000 pictures on its internal memory and by simply adding a media card you can reduce that clutter in your house and show off more than you could dream of with this digital picture frame. By adding MP3 music files (played through built in speakers) to your cards you can add sound to create soothing or exciting slide shows - it's just so simple. Create your own perpetual slide shows! Handy remote control is for pausing or rotating pictures. You can use two different media cards at once. It's so easy to use. Simply insert the media card from your camera and enjoy!
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| Customer Reviews: Read 66 more reviews...
 Excellent frame: The perfect gift for mom January 3, 2009
My dad wanted me to find a digital frame for my mom for their anniversary. Having seen a little one over christmas, that cut off everyones heads and didn't seem to be easy to use, he was very specific about getting a good one. We wanted a frame that was large enough for them to see easily but not too big. I knew it had to be easy to use (I have to reset the clock on my mom's VCR if the power goes out). I also wanted one that would NOT cut off heads or other such problems that I have read about. So far, this was an excellent choice. Both parents were thrilled with the size and look of the frame. All mom had to do is insert the SD card and away they went. Soon, they were both using the remote to choose pictures, skip, go forward and back, etc. This has only been used for about a week, but we have been very pleased with it. I can't comment on wireless stuff, saving pics, etc. as I have not played with it much. All I can tell you is that Mom and Dad can work it, see it, and everyone who has seen it agrees that it is good looking and an excellent size and very good picture quality.
 Sadly, disappointed January 1, 2009
I really wanted to be pleased with this frame. I was going to up-size and upgrade a smaller frame I gave my father a year ago. Unlike most digital frames, Portable USA has a manual written in real English (with humor, even) rather than Chinglish, they offer a longer warranty than many, and their customer support was quick to respond to a pre-sales question I e-mailed. They were also one of the first, if not the first, to provide a picture-change interval longer than about 1 minute (they offer 1 hour), and they're still the only 4:3 models I've found that do so. (See "Notes For Digital Frame Users" at the end.) However, I'm returning the frame, and expect to look to another brand when I eventually order another "upgrade" frame.
The Disappointments
The lighting of the display was very uneven, with darkened brownish bands along the left and right edges, and with dark streaks in the middle. I'm willing to assume that this was a defective display, but lighting can be problematic on LCDs, and what I saw would be a typical failure mode for digital frames, so I would be concerned that any replacement might develop the same symptoms after 6 months or a year of use. That's the main reason why I'm not asking for a replacement.
I was also quite disappointed with the picture sharpness. I had my photos already sized to exactly the frame's specified resolution (800x600), sharpened in a photo editor, and saved at the highest JPG quality (i.e. the least file compression). The pictures were dramatically softer than they appear at the same resolution on my computer screen, and they seemed to be softer than I recall them looking on the 8" frame I bought last year. (That might be due partly to the larger physical size for the same resolution, but still on an 800x600 display should appear sharper than they do.
Brightness, contrast and saturation were a bit on the low side, but that is typical for almost all digital frames.
The display comes with two interchangeable wood frames - black and brown. Surprisingly, they provide a second piece of glass with the second frame, rather than just the frame itself. The second piece of glass in my package was broken, probably in shipping. But the glass already mounted to the display was fine, so that's not a big issue. I was actually more disappointed that the brown frame shows no wood grain: it appears to be finished with an opaque stain. The result is that it doesn't really look any better than a plastic frame, even though it IS real wood.
The labeling of this frame as "wireless" is a bit misleading: it's wireless IF you buy a separate USB Bluetooth adapter. The wireless capability is not built in.
The package is supposed to include a printed manual (according to the Portable USA website) but no manual was enclosed. The inner box containing power supply, cables, etc. also looked like it might have been re-taped, so it's possible this package had been returned and then shipped out again.
According to the manual, this frame can have difficulty displaying JPG files that contain "EXIF" information. (Embedded meta-data about the date the photo was taken, exposure settings, etc. that are included in almost ALL files produced by current digital cameras.) That strikes me as ridiculous, but it's probably common among many digital frame brands, because they all seem to use firmware from just one or two Chinese companies. That may explain why the frame I bought a year ago refused to display a handful of the photos loaded into it.
The frame isn't really hard to use, but the interface has its peculiarities. I thought it was pretty funny that one of the FAQs on Portable USA's website was "I accidentally changed the interface on my frame into Chinese -- how do I get it back to English?" -- funny until I accidentally did it myself. It's really very easy to misinterpret some icon or option and bam! you're in Chinese!
Notes For Digital Frame Users
The following are general comments for people considering a digital frame purchase.
1. Pay attention to the actual display pixels, and make sure that "actual display" is specified: a number of frames that call themselves "800x600" actually display 720x[I forget]. I'm not sure whether those models crop or resize your images, but either way the results will not be what you were hoping for. (This model appears to be a true 800x600 display.)
2. If you have a photo-editing program that can strip EXIF data from JPG files, it would be good to do so for the current crop of digital frames. It's absurd that one should have to do so, but it's a problem inherent in some of the commonly-used Chinese firmware. (Essentially all digital frames are made in China.) Many frames, including this one, ship with simple software for resizing and preparing files to load into the frames or onto a Flash card, and I assume that they will strip the problematic EXIF data.
3. Pay attention to the VERTICAL viewing angle of any frame you consider: I've noticed that many of them are optimized for viewing with the frame severely tilted away from the viewer (as if it were lying flat on your desk in front of you or as if you were holding it high above eye-level). Such displays look washed-out when viewed at a typical angle where the frame is on a table and the viewer is standing looking at it.
4. I strongly recommend only considering frames that offer at least one display interval at least one hour or longer. Many frames offer options like 3, 5, 10, 30, and 60 seconds, and that's it. That makes the frame basically a flashing billboard: it draws attention in the store, but it's just plain distracting when the frame is sitting in an office or living-room. It makes a lot more sense to have it look like a regular picture frame, except that when one walks by a little later it's different. Ideally frames wouldn't bother with such similar intervals as 3, 5, and 10 seconds (they're all fast, just pick one) and instead might offer 15 minutes, 1 hour, and maybe even 1 picture per day. No brand offers that range of options now.
5. This is subjective, but I find 4:3 aspect ratio frames more useful than the wider-screen frames that are becoming popular. 4:3 are the proportions of traditional TV and computer monitors, and many digital cameras shoot natively in that format. But the real advantage is that I find it the best compromise for being able to display portrait (vertical) orientation photos as well as landscape (horizontal) photos. While a wide-format photo might display with a little "wasted" space shown as black bars above and below the image, a portrait-format photo will appear much bigger on a 4:3 display than on a widescreen display of the same nominal size (8-inch, 12-inch, etc.). If you have a mix of portrait and landscape photos to display, you're likely to be best satisfied with a 4:3 proportion frame.
Amazing Picture December 29, 2008
This frame has amazing picture quality- came quickly and unlike some others no damage- as an added bonus it was to come with a 1gb sd card but was upgraded to a 2gb card. up and running in 15 minutes- Gave as a gift-
Thanks
 Very disappointed December 28, 2008
Bought this as a Christmas gift for my father-in-law. Bought him a digital camera and thought he'd enjoy having this to view his pictures. The AC cord seemed to have a short in it and it kept shutting off. Could not get his videos to load, either. It sure looked and sounded like it would be a nice digital frame, but did not work out. I will be returning it for a refund.
Very good for the price. Accepts SDHC Cards December 27, 2008
I was pleasantly surprised that this accepted my 4gb SDHC card. It only states it accepts SD cards. I'm also happy with the brightness, resolution, and overall look. It comes with a nice cherry wood frame and a black wood frame that are easy to change out. I like the variety of input options. Setting it up is a no brainer. Just stick an SD card full of pictures in, turn it on, and it works for even a grandma. The menu is not as difficult to navigate as stated. I do wish it had a "random order" mode for displaying pictures. For videos to run without randomly pausing you need to convert them to Divx files but that is a common standard and you can download software to easily do this. I'd give it 5 stars if "random picture mode" was offered.
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