ViewSonic VFD820-50 8-Inch Digital Photo Frame (Black)

My wife and I bought this after we had to put our best friend to sleep. We wanted a way to celebrate our family dog and thought a digital photo frame would be perfect. It was a difficult time and we had never owned one before so we did a little research and this one stuck out at us. So we bought it. We've had it over a week now and really love it! The white frame is nice and simple. It doesn't get in the way or try to pretend to be something it's note. It honestly looks like something Apple would make. The picture quality is great. The photo settings are simple but provide many options. The SD Slot is easy to get to as well, which makes adding pictures to it simple. The light sensor is nice too, if the room gets dark, like turning out the lights, the device will dim all the way down and turn off. It also lets you set the day and time you want the frame to be on. Very helpful feature if you want it on your work desk, but don't want it running on the weekends when you are not in the office. With the sadness we were experiencing I'm glad this device turned out to be everything it said it would be. The last thing we wanted to do during all of this was to mess with returning a product we weren't happy with. Luckily that was not the case and I'm going to buy another one for normal pictures. For the price, this was the best option in my opinion. I highly recommend it!

Ordered this because it was inexpensive and it works great. The manual is not that great and doesn't explain that by default, it will stretch all pictures to fill the screen. I don't like that because any pictures taken in the portrait format will look distorted and cropped. You have to go into the settings and change that in order for portrait photos to not be cropped and made to fill the screen. That is with all digital photo frames but this one just doesn't explain this in the manual. ***Update 6/2/14...So after using this little digital frame for some time, I thought I would share one thing that might not be important for some but is for me so I actually reduced the review from 5 stars to 4 stars. In any case, it seems that there is a size limit of the photo that it can display. I haven't narrowed it down exactly the limit but it seems to be somewhere in the range of 8.5 to 9mb so if your individual photos are pushing or exceeding that size, be careful because they might not display. My pictures were taken with a Sony A7 in extra fine jpeg and when I export them onto the memory card, I don't modify the size of anything. Unfortunately, the pictures that are too large, simply display with a red circle with a line through it. At first, I thought something was wrong but after testing the card in two other different brand photo frames, the memory card and the pictures worked perfectly fine in the other frames and they were much older too. All of the photo frames I tested in had resolutions of 800x600. Therefore, I have to conclude that the processing power of the view sonic isn't enough to process which I find odd because it's the newest and therefore should have the most up to date and fastest processor of my photo frames. At the end of the day, I paid a small amount for this photo frame and as with all things in life, you get what you pay for. My other (older) digital photo frames cost more than this view sonic and it's actually able to display ALL of my photos so be aware of this caveat when buying this frame. I don't believe this is mentioned anywhere in the manual not that the manual was even worth reading but there you have it.

I bought this item as a Christmas gift to replace a cheaper unit that lasted "only" seven years, despite the negative comments posted here about the short power supply cord. When it arrived, the cord was about three feet long, which would be fine for my application. The brightness and picture quality were very good. Navigation through the menu is cumbersome, and the documentation is sorely lacking any detail, so many of the features have to be stumbled upon by trial and error. All in all, though, I thought this was a very good buy and was happy with it for the price. Just two months later, the unit stopped working. I checked the power supply, and it was working OK, so my only option was to return it for repair or replacement. That added another $14 to the cost of this gift, but it would be worth it to get it working again. After almost a full month, I received a replacement unit. This was new, not repaired or refurbished (I don't think they can be repaired... the case doesn't look like it can be opened). Besides this unit's cord being LESS than two feet long (very inconvenient), it seemed identical in appearance and function to the original. But even though the model number was the same, this new unit exhibited strange behavior from the start. Every night (or early morning) the display would switch to only a clock with no images. It did this every night at a different time, and stayed in this mode for a random length of time before switching back to photos. This wasn't too bothersome, but it was a noticeable difference. And there is nothing in the documentation about this behavior. Anyway, after running for less than one month, this unit also went dead. The power supply is still good, so my only option is to ship it back once again. That would be another $14, which in my opinion is not worth it. I will put that towards getting a better quality unit to replace this gift.

I got this for a gift for my Mom and she loves it! She has it on her desk at work and it works perfectly. I really wanted something that could be setup and forgot about and this is it. I got an 8GB Class 10 SD card for it (so it would have fast performance and 8GB was more than enough for her photos). The unit has an easy to understand menu and a coin battery for keeping the time and date information after it is set. You have great options for fine tuning this to how you want it. For example, we have this set to come on and off automatically 7:30 am to 4:00 pm Monday through Friday, I love the fact that you can set it for just weekdays. The frame has a nice resolution and photos look great on it. I did do a batch conversion and shrunk all the photos from there original resolution to a resolution of around 1000px wide (for faster loading and to make them look better on this display). The unit also supports random photo order which is nice (so she does not see the same grouping of photos) and has an option to turn off the calendar overlay on the photos (this can be set so it automatically starts the image slideshow in a random mode and hides the calendar). Essentially this device allows her to have all of her favorite photos on her desk in one sleek photo frame without having to ever touch it. The frame is super thin (top is thinner than an iPad and the bottom has a stand that sticks out and that is where the power and SD card go in). The frame also has a light sensor on the front that allows for auto dimming and brightness of the display for the room that it is in. In the end this is a perfect item for my Mom, she can have all her photos on her desk and never have to deal with the unit. She seems to love this device and seems really happy seeing all of her photos. The unit also looks techy and formal on her desk and meets the decor look of her computer monitors and everything. Highly recommend!!!

If you want a simple 8-inch digital frame that works as advertised, get this. Easy to use, great quality, affordable, Slim and looks good as a fixture at home. It also has settings like timer, auto brightness, calendar, clock, everything you need on a digital camera. Other people said that the quality is not good.. I disagree with that. Of course, don't expect an HD digital frame out of this. The quality of the photos is great. I was also hesitant to buy this because they said that the cord is short. I think it's not really short. I use it in the Kitchen so it was placed on the kitchen counter. So I didn't have that problem. I think if I place this also on a side table with a socket beside or under it, it will reach. Unless you are expecting to place this frame opposite corner of the socket, of course it won't reach but overall, the lenght of the cord looks "normal" to me rather than short. I will buy again as a gift!

--[ TL;DR Review: ]-- Bottom Line: Pass, but it's more trouble that it's worth to send it back and I was able to make it work, despite it's flaws (see full review.) This frame only supports JPEG images in 'baseline' mode. If you don't know what that is or how to deal with it, buy another product. Preferably one than can handle more than one image format, such as GIF, or PNG and doesn't care about compression methods, you know, like most everything else. Pros: It shows pictures in a slide show. It has a light sensor. It looks nice; nice and thin. Decent brightness control. Cons: The cord is too short. It has a calendar (yes, that could go in the 'pros' section but seeing as it's on by default (who needs a calendar in their picture frame?) and it's far from obvious how to turn it off (not in 'settings') it goes in the 'cons' section. It has a light sensor (also in the 'cons' section because while it's cool that it knows when it's dark, instead of going-- dark, it goes into clock mode, and you can't change it, so 'con'. The instructions are bare-minimum helpful. The interface does away with current interface conventions in favor of-- I don't even know what. --[ Slightly Snarky (yet, honest) Full Review ]-- This device is certainly better than the device I returned that was $20 cheaper, which is a little sad. The interface is simple enough, if a bit clunky but if you're used to interfaces that don't follow many conventions established in the last 20 years, you won't mind it much. I got a 4GB card for it. I loaded about 100 pictures, all JPEG format, and as soon as I slid the card in, images popped up and started-- slide-showing. :) No way it's that easy, right? Sure enough, about 30 pics in, the image was replaced by the universal 'no' symbol. Great. This is my life, though, so no big deal, really. This is my wheelhouse. So a quick look through the bare-minimum-effort instruction "manual" and it said it only supports JPEG in 'baseline' format. Hey, I happen to know what that means. After all, I'm a "computer guy" :\ If you'er at all familiar with programs like Photoshop, you may have noticed options during a 'save as...' operation for compression methods (progressive, baseline, etc...) So, it's a simple matter of opening and re-saving every photo to make sure they are all in baseline mode. No? What's wrong? How long could it take someone to open and re-save every photo they want on this? I mean, if you're using a 4GB card, that's what? A couple dozen snapshots? :\ Wait a tick! You only need to re-save the ones not in baseline mode. About half the pics in my collection were incompatible, so it should take half the time. Cool. Just run through the photos on the frame, one by one, and write down the file name of each one that doesn't show, then just open and re-save those ones. (It can read the file name, just not the actual file. Understandable.) For me, that's only 50 or so files-- Sounds like a fun evening. Oh, you have more than 100 photos? Don't have an entire weekend to devote to processing photographs for you new digital picture frame? Ok, so to speed up the process, all you have to do is write a program to do it for you! Actually, you don't even have to do that. Photoshop has a built in batch processor that can do just that. So, if you don't already have it, go out and buy Photoshop! You don't even have to go out, just download it from Adobe and pay the small sum they ask for it. Once you have it up and running, record a few simple actions, and run a batch process to open and re-save all the photos. Sit back with a cup of tea and watch the application go to work-- opening, and re-saving each photo-- one by one. If you have a really fast computer (or a Mac,) it shouldn't take more than about 3-5 seconds per picture, given they are average size. You can do the math based on how many pics you have. It was only about 5 minutes, for me. A quick example would be, say your computer is awesome, like mine, and it only takes 3 seconds. You have 1200 photos (that should be less than 1GB, unless there are a lot of hi-res ones,) then it will only be about an hour you won't be able to do anything else with your computer. Freaking out yet? Unless you're a graphic artist like me with experience with raster image file formats and properties, you may be attempting to rip out your hair. Please don't. If you find some of your photos don't show on this thing, don't fret. Just call your 'computer guy' (everyone knows one) and get him or her to spend their valuable helping you process photos-- for your digital picture frame-- that cost you a mere $50-- and doesn't support more than one file format-- with specific properties-- that may or may not be easy to guess/discover/change. But hey, it's not like this technology has been around for at least a decade or anything. Honestly, give one of the leading display technology companies a chance to catch up to all this really complex raster image processing technology... So, while this product isn't necessarily disappointing for me, personally, I can see how it might be for someone without a similar skill-set. But, then again, maybe it's just me. Maybe I'm the only one whose photos are all exactly the same file format and compression algorithm. I was able to get it up and running, with minimal effort, on my part. If I asked my girlfriend to do it, while she is also capable, she would probably be more likely to spend the effort putting this product carefully back in its box so I could return it. I like figuring things out. She just like stuff to work. Different strokes.

First off, let's call a spade a spade. This screen is advertized on Amazon as "800x600" (which by mathematical calculations is a 4:3 aspect ratio, so anyone expecting higher quality than 800x600 is mistaken on by the description of the product.) However... As acknowledged in many of the reviews, the length of the AC adapter cord is closer 36", not 2-feet as described by others. In fairness however, I found that the lengths of the wire was still insufficient to accommodate my needs of an 18" table *plus* the ability of using extra slack in the wire to pull it forward for settings and removal of the memory card. To add insult to injury, the size of the power adapter plug is not a common size, making it further difficult to replace the 5-volt adapter with something with a longer wire. Ugg! Being 800x600, one cannot expect photographic quality from this device; you're not paying for this kind of quality. Frankly, I about several years ago I purchased a similar product and realized I was on the "Bleeding edge" (not the "leading edge") of this technology. Not much has changed in this time span apparently. For example, how hard would it be (a rhetorical question for the programmers) to code a "desolve" fade from one picture to the next? Honestly, does anyone know of any paper-print picture frame that changes from one picture to another with some fancy-smancy wipe effect? I don't say that in critique of this particular product, but of an important point: If we choose to change pictures in a physical frame, we don't see distracting graphics grabbing our attention, right? Well, what's the point here? This lead me to a couple of realizations about the point of purchasing this product (purchasing advice): 1. DO NOT purchase this as a "slide-show" device...it's not worth the work. 2. Plan on only landscape pictures, or at a minimum, "square" portrait pictures. Anything resembling portrait is too compressed to be useful. 3. Since this isn't really intended as a "slide-show" device, plan on putting pictures on it that you'll tolerate more than 30 minutes. 4. Delete "garbage" pictures, like when you went to the zoo with your kids and took a picture of the elephant. Yea, it was fun at the time and the kids still get joy of looking at the singular elephant on your computer/tablet today, but in the context of a "Photo Frame", looking at an elephant for 30 minutes can drive one crazy. 5. If you have portrait pictures that you *must* include on the drive, crop them to be as square (or better still closer to 800x600 as possible). But honestly, square pictures (which are displayed with black borders) are acceptable. 6. Whittle down your pictures to those you are willing to look at for long periods of time (as the point of a "Photo Frame"). if you have two pictures of your child's birth and 10 pictures of their first birthday, I would suggest balancing the ratio for a more even display ratio. Back to the device itself, the picture is quite good and except for the setting of "stretch", everything can be left as-is. I'm not sure why "Stretch" is a default, because even a moonlight setting would show an *oval* moon if stretched, so be sure to change it. The front physical design is sleek and nice, but but back leaves a lot to be desired This specifically addresses the fact that the SDCard (*not* Micro-SDCard) sticks out beyond the base. In other words, if you have a two-three-year-old who likes to put their hands on things, you can reasonably expect that the SDCard will be broken in half. Misc. Notes: This device only supports a standard SDCard (not "Micro-SDCard", USB drive, or anything else). Though I'm recording this as a negative against the product, in fairness I should report that of a 4gig SDCard, I'm only using 125meg (986 files). Since SDCard's have dropped in price so dramatically in recent months, I can see it easy to purchase multiple SDCard's based on local themes (like "Christmas"), and putting the appropriate cards in at the correct time. Features: Though I didn't initially think I'd initially like the automatic screen dimming and screen blanking feature (which blanks to both an analog and digital clock), I must admit I was wrong on both counts. The light sensor that detects when it's time to switch from photo's to a dimmed clock works quite well, as does the clock timer. I HAVE NOT used the calendar feature as that seems more oriented towards business users who need to see the calendar at every second of the day, which doesn't apply to me. Bottom line: If the seller would list that the product comes with a short cord, I would change this review to a 5-star. The picture quality is good, the ability to program the turn-on/turn-off time is great, and not being a image proof-reader, the picture quality is quite good. I would strongly recommend it to others who can pre-load it with landscape portraits (close to 800x600), and those who aren't going to put a magnifying glass to the screen. Hey folks, it's a photo frame, not a digital image proof-reader...accept for what it is, OK? PS: Please rate my review as positive, or if you disagree, post a comment. I promise to reply to all comments that are negative until I've answered your question in a positive perspective (for you, not the item). ****** UPDATE 4/22/2013 ****** It must be reported that a bug exists in the randomizatization of pictures of this device; something I could not report on previously due to the need of long-term experience. It's not signifancant, but very relevant. First, the timer function that turns the photo-frame on and off at a given time does indeed work perfectly. I used to have mine set to turn on at 6:00AM, and then turn off at 10:00PM, until... That was until I discovered that the exact same pictures sequenced in the exact same "random" order every day. THAT IS NOT RANDOM!!! After turning off the timer and letting the thing just dim a night, I find that it does the closest thing to random that I can expect from it. STUPID DEVICE PROGRAMMERS! Please let me explain the last statement. When the timer turns on at 6AM, it would display picture 23, 14, 104, 13. On the very next day, it would again display picture 23, 14, 104, 13. And so forth and so on. I never recognized this in my earlier review because it took a few days to notice that at 8:30AM I saw the same picture as yesterday (and the day before). The solution is to *not* use the timer feature. Secondly (and admittedly less important), the random function used in this device is ancient technology and quite poor. Think about it for a second; doesn't "true random" mean that the same picture might display every other picture for 5 mintues? Sure! Because random has no set pattern (or another way to put it, a pattern is included in the random sequence)? Modern day random devices like MP3 players examine the list of files it is to "randomize", compose the list, and then plays it (making sure duplicates don't re-appear). At the end of the entire "random" list, it repeats construction of the randomized list to ensure you hear true random listings. However, this picture frame fails to follow that inherit logic, and will display the same picture from time-to-time without regards to the fact that the specific picture displayed one hour ago (I have my frame set to change pictures every 30 minutes). Don't get me wrong, this isn't a deal breaker, but I'm only cautioning you that this frame doesn't do random in a way that your car CD player or portable MP3 player does (eliminate duplicates in the random list). In the case of this product, it *will* very well duplicate images. I bought this using "Points" on my credit card, so it was essentially "free". So, I'll accept the inherit failure of the random function. ~ Off topic, I've read other reviews about "space", and if you don't mind, I'd like to address them: First, the maximum resolution of this device is 800x600...providing it more than that is a waste of space on your SD card. Second, DPI has *no impact* when it comes to digital displays (DPI stands for "Dot Per Inch" which is a printer characteristic). Suggestion: Using Bing to search for "dpi doesn't matter", and read what the authors say. Third, since the desired resolution is 800x600, use any tool available to resize your images to this ratio (which is 4x3 incidentally, same as the old-fashioned TV sets). To accomplish resizing from various sources (Android Phone, Nikon Camera, scanned images), I use "Visualizer Photo Resize". As a free program, it can't be beat. I set it's "Max Pixel Width" to 800, "Max Pixel Height" to 600, and turn off "Autofix colors" {Note: I'm using version 3.7.1.0, which may differ from your settings. Hopefully my advice will apply.} Lastly, I'm setting the JPG Compression to 90, which seems more than sufficient for good viewing quality. So using remedial math, if I can fit 1,012 images in 118mb per picture of SDCard space, and each picture averages around 116kb, assuming a rather small SDCard of 4gb, it should hold about 34 thousand pictures. Is this not enough for any human being? Regarding questions I've read about pictures not displaying, the biggest culprit I've found is the image size (the frame cannot display large megabyte images). Please use a program like described above and reduce the size. ~ The initial review said that this device works well for it's intended purpose; a player for random {landscape} images that you like to seek pleasure, from time to time. My opinion has not changed, other than the "random" issues discussed above.

I have had this frame about 2 weeks & have no issues with it. The picture is beautiful & clear. I had always wanted one of these but was not going to pay the high prices. This is a very affordable frame & looks as well as most of the high priced ones I have seen. The instructions are not the greatest but at least it has the main things that you need to know. I always wait a while before I leave a feedback on a purchase. I am totally satisfied after 2 weeks, if anything changes I will update my review. UPDATE: I have had this frame for over 2 months now. I have had no problems with it. I love it! It is a great buy for the price. The pictures are clear. I have not loaded my pictures into the memory. I just keep a card in it so I can load new photos easily. The cord is a bit short, but I have mine on top of my entertainment center & I have a surge protector mounted behind my center, so I have no problems with the cord length, plus it is protected. I have seen more expensive frames that were no better than this one. I really like the feature that you can change it to the clock or calendar if you want a "rest" from the photos. I am a happy camper with my frame. If I need another one, I will not hesitate to purchase another one just like it. As in all items, sometimes you get a "lemon", that's when I send it back for exchange. This one is truly not a lemon!

Excelente dispositivo, la calidad de la imagen es excelente con una capacidad máxima de 32 GB. Fácil de configurar. Idioma en español.

Super sharp bright image, really impressed with it. I use it at my desk to display travel photos to my clients (I'm a travel agent), it's perfect for the task!

As I'm not that technically inclined it took a bit of time to set it up for the way i wanted it to run. Looks good and it is a true eight inch screen (as measured across the diagonal as all screens are). Certainly a good value product. Easy to recommend.

Muy buen producto me encantó ya que cumple lo dicho en la descripción , tiene muy buena calidad y además llegó una semana antes aunque le falte reproducción de videos se merece las 5 estrellas ya que cumple lo dicho.

EL PRODUCTO TIENE UNA BUENA RESOLUCIÓN, ES MUY SIMPLE EN SU MANEJO Y CONFIGURACIÓN, SERÍA MEJOR QUE TUVIERA MÁS OPCIONES PARA UNA MAYOR PERSONALIZACIÓN. NO REPRODUCE VIDEO, NO REPRODUCE SONIDO, NO TIENE ENTRADA USB. SOPORTA MEMORIAS DE 32 GB COMO MÁXIMO. SUFICIENTE PARA LO QUE SE REQUIERE YA QUE SI LAS FOTOGRAFÍAS SE EDITAN A SU RESOLUCIÓN NO SE ALCANZARÍAN A VER EN UN DÍA TODAS LAS FOTOS QUE LE CABRÍA A LA MEMORIA DE 32GB. SÓLO ACEPTA ARCHIVOS JPG , JPEG. EMPIEZA SIEMPRE EN LA MISMA FOTOGRAFÍA, ESO ES ALGO QUE NO ME GUSTA. CUENTA CON SENSOR DE ILUMINACIÓN Y MODO NOCTURNO. CONTINÚO PROBÁNDOLOY VALIDANDO EL PRODUCTO. TIENE RESPALDO DE UNA BUENA MARCA EN MONITORES.