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Pandigital PAN7000DW 7-Inch Digital Picture Frame Black Description:

The world’s first 7″ frame displays in 4:3 aspect ratio for no stretching, cropping or distortion. Digital screen displays up to 6400 images on 1GB of internal memory. Transfer images, audio and video from a memory card via 5-in-1 card reader or from PC with included USB cable. Customize the look of your frame with the interchangeable white and charcoal mats. WiFi/Bluetooth compatible.

• Size: 7-Inch
• Color: Black
• Brand: PanDigital
• Model: PAN7000DW
• Dimensions: 12.00″ h x 4.00″ w x 11.50″ l, 3.35 pounds

Features

• 7.0″ viewable LCD display - holds up to 6400 images, 4:3 Aspect Ratio
• Stylish flat black frame to fit any decor
• 5 in 1 Card Reader - SD/MS/MS-PRO/MMC/XD, 2 Paper Mats - White / Charcoal
• Alarm, Clock, Calendar and Programmable ON/Off timer, Audio, Video, Bluetooth, Wireless
• 1GB Internal Memory

Customer Reviews:

Good frame, good value, works as expected
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 (16×9 when I wanted 4×3, 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 800×600 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.txt
for /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.

Great for pictures, has shortcomings
I bought the Pandigital PAN7000DW so that I could load it up with pictures and videos of my new son and send it to my grandmother. After a few hours dealing with it (I’m very experienced with computers and electronic gadgets), here’s my take:

- I like the look of the frame (classic looking) and the screen is bright and crisp.
- I could not get any video files to work. The documentation says it plays motion jpeg AVIs, and I tried many conversion options on my Mac using MPEG Streamclip and could not get it to work.
- Navigating the menus is a pain using the built-in buttons, so at first glance you’re glad they included a remote…except the remote only registers about every 3rd button click, so you’re constantly over clicking.
- The UI is pretty slow and lags your button presses.

All that said, it’ll do what I want it to do. I’ve loaded it with 223 pictures at 1280×720 resolution, and it only takes up 34MB of the 1GB internal memory.

Meh. The user interface of these digital picture frames is annoying.
Right after I purchased a digital picture frame (about to become my Mom’s 90th birthday present), the Pandigital PAN7000DW 7-Inch Digital Picture Frame (Black), I found an offer from Amazon Vine for a similar item, Smartparts SP72 7-Inch Digital Picture Wood Frame with Beige Matting (Espresso). Oh well — it gave me the opportunity to compare-and-contrast the two frames (which are similarly priced). *I* didn’t know which of these gizmos was best for the purpose, and I dare say you’re just as unsure, so maybe my experience can help you.

The short summary: both these frames do what they claim to: They display your photos. But neither of them will give you a heartwarming feeling. The ideas are sound; the implementation kind of stinks. Perhaps more-expensive units have a better user interface, but these two frames are somewhat disappointing.

Let’s start with the positives. The picture frames both have a 7″ display, which is big enough for sitting on a desk or coffee table, and the displays are bright and clear. You do need a power cable, which might limit where you set up the frame; I can’t see hanging them on a wall. The wood frame on the Smartparts is slightly nicer than the Pandigital, but both are reasonably attractive. The basic setup is extremely simple: stuff an SD memory card into the frame and turn it on.

A 2GB card holds 1000+ photos, depending on image resolution. That’s a LOT of pictures, even when putting together a huge “this is your life” collection as we did for Mom. I bought a 4GB card along with the Pandigital, which would hold about 5,000 photos, and I could have saved a few bucks.

One thing that isn’t clear from the documentation is that you don’t HAVE to use an SD card. Both units have their own on-board memory that lets you add a decent number of pictures. You’ll need to use the USB connection to get to that memory (and I never DID figure out how to delete their sample photos, grrr); more on that USB connection in a moment.

The Pandigital frame will also play MP3s, if you like. I didn’t explore that feature because (a) my Mom’s almost deaf and would never use it and (b) there are probably better options for playing music. The Pandigital can also be used as a clock and calendar, though I’m “eh” on that option myself; perhaps you care.

Other options are more important, I think. The Smartparts frame has an option for showing multiple pictures at a time (photo of mom on the left, then Pop’s picture on the right, then fade to a third picture to replace Mom’s photo). It really does look good, except that a 7″ frame is too small to show most photos in enough detail to bother with this. Depending on how you use the frame, though, this feature could be useful. (Maybe for advertising purposes, such as in a realtor’s front window, where the detail is a bit less important?)

Both frames have a USB connection, so you can plug them into your computer (mine’s a Mac) and easily transfer JPG files to the frame or to the SD card you already stuffed into it. (That’s a good thing, in the case of the Smartparts frame, since the card is a real pain to remove.) On the plus side, it means that I could choose a photo in iPhoto and export directly to the unit. On the downside, the Smartparts USB connection was very flaky; it would disconnect itself randomly — usually in the middle of a file transfer. I used colorful curse words. You’re probably best off to use whichever SD-card reader you already use to connect with your PC.

But truly the worst thing about these frames is a terrible, awful user interface for adjusting settings and for interacting with the unit. Both let you control the slideshow from buttons on the top or back of the unit. The Pandigital’s are on top, which is slightly more convenient, but both are hard to read without a bright light nearby. The Pandigital also has a remote which (nicely) has a magnetic spot to hold it to the back of the unit. However, I give Mom about 20 minutes before she manages to lose it; it has the right dimensions to be a dandy cat toy, so I’m not upset that the Smartparts unit (which I’m keeping for myself, in case that’s not obvious) doesn’t have one. Plus, the remote’s controls are sticky enough that it takes a few button-whacks to get the frame’s attention.

Anyway, they both work with “OK” and “MENU” sort of buttons, and then up/down/right/left arrows to make selections. But the menu design is so poor that it’s never clear when you want a right-arrow or a down one. (I never did get the clock set correctly on the Pandigital. Perhaps more detail was in its documentation, but I can’t tell you. Other than a “getting started” flyer, the doc is on one of those tiny mini-discs which I feared would disappear into the maw of my iMac’s drive. The Smartparts printed documentation is a little more extensive, but not much; a missing CD promised a Windows app, but I wasn’t going to use it anyhow.)

Please note that you WILL need to mess with the settings. For one thing, the Smartparts frame seems to need to be told EVERY TIME to show pictures from the SD Card rather than from its own memory. The default time selection to show each photo (5 seconds) is probably too fast for what you prefer, one both units. (The Smartparts has slow/regular/fast; the Pandigital unit has specific time measurements, ranging from 5 seconds to one day.) Most irritatingly, both frames assume you want to choose the “optimal” display setting (well it does SOUND like what you want, right?). However, that actually means, “Make sure the photo touches the right-and-left edges of the frame, even if it means I chop off the heads of the people in the picture.” The Pandigital unit automatically shifts the photo display based on whether you arrange it narrow side up or wide side up, but I can’t see moving it around that much.

Despite our trained expectation of 5×7 photos, I came to the conclusion that these gizmos ought to be square to accommodate both horizontal and vertical photos. In reality, if I were to get serious about displaying the photos, I’d crop the images to make them get along with the gizmos’ formatting; I wasn’t about to do that with the 850 images I set up for Mom.

Bottom line: Both of these digital picture frames will get the job done. One isn’t significantly better than the other, so I can’t tell you to choose the Pandigital over the Smartparts or vice versa. No matter which you choose, though, expect to spend some time cussing before you finish with the setup.

From the Manufacturer
The Pandigital PAN7000DW is an impressive member of the Pandigital family of digital picture frames.The 7-inch LCD screen with stunning 800 x 600 resolution gives excellent clarity and definition to your favorite photos, while the 4:3 viewing aspect ensures that your images will not be distorted from their original aspect ratio. Up to 6400 compressed images can be stored on 1 GB of internal memory. The black wood frame blends with any décor and your choice of charcoal gray or white mats add a professional finished presentation. Founded in 1998, Pandigital recognized the need to bridge new and traditional technologies like a digital camera and an elegant picture frame. Photography captures the special moments in our lives, moments that cannot be properly displayed or appreciated on the back of a digital camera. Pandigital has shipped more that 4 million digital picture frames and is one of the top 50 fastest growing companies in the US. In 2008, they were the #1 supplier of digital photo frames in North America. Their digital picture frames are of substantial quality, elegant and intuitive designs, they are versatile and affordable. They have helped millions of people move images out of their camera and back into their lives.

The perfect companion for your digital camera
We capture our most precious, and our most common, moments because they are not to be forgotten or taken for granted. The moment when we take a picture we are making a decision to be conscious, to be in the moment and to be grateful for it. But a photo in a camera or on a flash card is only an unfulfilled intention. Let your images free. Give them the power they deserve in your life to make you smile, to remember, or to pause for a moment and consider the past. Take advantage of customizable features like rotate and resize, programmable on and off, and your presentation will be both seamless and earth-friendly

The gift of a digital photo frame to a friend or loved one is every bit as meaningful as the gift of one to yourself. Who doesn’t need a pick-me-up right about now? It is said that the gift of experience is so much more meaningful than a mere material object. If that is the case, then the gift of re-experiencing those special moments must be priceless. The PAN7000DW includes 4 free digital greeting cards, which you can personalize with any message to your lucky giftee. The message will be displayed when the frame is turned on. Imagine the happy surprise of your recipient.

Share yourself with a slideshow
Framed pictures are such great conversation starters, and we get to know each other a little better when we share ourselves by displaying photos of friends, family, and favorite occasions. How much better we get to know each other through the use of slide shows, which allow us to showcase many special moments. We have seen our photo frames set in slide show mode at parties, family reunions, and gatherings to help establish a theme, at wedding anniversaries and bridal showers to highlight special moments in a couple’s past. A slideshow on this Pandigital frame is as easy as inserting your memory card. You can also add digital music, voices, or sound, to be played via the built-in speakers or audio out port. Transition effects between images can add to the entertainment. The built-in card reader accepts SD, xD, MS, MSPro, MMC, MicroSD (MicroSD to SD adaptor not included) and USB flash drives.

A little known feature is the built-in calendar and alarm clock. If space on your bedside table is tight, there’s no reason to not have a digital picture frame, just consolidate. The panel can be turned off at night so that the light won’t interfere with your sleep and a handy remote allows you to control major functions without crossing the room.

The Pandigital PAN7000DW can play digital audio and video, as well as images, straight from your memory card via the 5 in 1 card reader.JPEG, AVI and MP3 files are all accepted, no PC is needed. Alternatively, if you have files on your computer or camera, you can transfer them to the frame with the included USB cable. Don’t forget the images on your cell phone, those can be transferred too. Drop and drag technology makes selecting images from your computer and transferring them to the frame’s internal memory fast and easy, with no software needed. The PAN7000DW is Wi/Fi Bluetooth compatible when paired with the PANWF01 WiFi dongle and will allow wireless transfer with other Bluetooth devices.

The Pandigital PAN7000DW effortlessly moving images out of your camera and into your life

• 7-inch Digital Photo Frame in black domed wood
• 4:3 aspect ratio
• 800 x 600 resolution
• Stores up to 6400 images on 1 GB of internal memory
• Interchangeable white and gray mats
• Built in 6 in 1 card reader
• USB 2.0 port and Mini USB port
• JPEG, AVI and MP3 digital video and audio
• WiFi/Bluetooth compatible
• Brightness control dial
• Stereo speakers
• Headphone jack

What‘s in the Box:

• Panimage PAN7000DW digital photo frame in domed black wood
• White and charcoal gray mats
• USB cable
• AC adaptor
• Remote control
• Owners manual
• Quick start guide