Full Review

10 April 2008 - Digital photo frames continue to be hot property and great for gifts for relatives, but sometimes keeping your images on to them up-to-date is a pain. Can Kodak offer up an easier solution? We get viewing to find out.

The Kodak EasyShare EX1011 is a 10-inch photo frame that is cased in a matt and gloss black finish. The design is kept to a minimalist but modern look with just a small on/off square button in the centre below the image offering controls on the front.

Around the back and it's a different matter with PictBridge and headphone connections on one side along with a volume knob, the main button controls on the top (out of sight from the front) giving you access to the menu interface and finally a CompactFlash and SD slot for storing more photos than the frame's 128MB memory allocation allows.

The frame comes with the ability to view images, play music and watch video on the screen, meaning you can have music in the background of your slideshows or even bore people with family videos.

All the features are accessed by the unit’s on-screen menu and controlling the unit is either via the plethora of buttons around the back, or for the lazy, a remote control.

There are a number of different slideshow options and you can have different fade between the images from a massive list of options. These can be set as a standard "use every time" option or randomised.

Bringing the company's printing heritage into the mix the photo frame also features PictBridge support allowing - with the aid of a USB cable – connection of the EX1011 to a printer to print off images. We can't see this being a major benefit to users but perhaps the super keen will pop a printer next to the device so guests can print images they take a liking to.

Hoping to stand out from the crowd, the Kodak EX1011 includes Wi-Fi connectivity.

Connecting the frame to your wireless network at home allows you to stream images direct from Kodak's EasyShare gallery. The online photo sharing service is very much like Flickr and allows you to store images online, order prints as well as random things like coffee cups or pillows with your face on them.

Once set up (fairly easy even with a password protected network), you can then stream images as you update your online albums and it's a great feature if you plan to give the photo frame to relatives so they can keep track of your images. Images, like the online gallery, can be broken down into albums so you only show the images you want to when certain guests come for dinner.

The downside is that because of the tie-in with the company's EasyShare gallery you aren't able to stream images from other websites or services that also offer feeds. It's surprising as other digital photo frames on the market that are wirelessly enabled allow you to stream feeds from places like Flickr or even have people email images direct to the frame.

VERDICT
A nice large bright crisp screen that might be a bit big for most, the Kodak EasyShare EX1011 is a good all round photo frame that offers the added bonus of being able to stream your images over the network and manage them easily without having to mess around with memory cards or transferring images to the internal memory.

There are other wireless options on the market that offer more wireless features, but that doesn't detract from the fact that the EX1011 is simple and easy to manage, making it one worth recommending.