Kodak EX 811 Easyshare 8 inch Digital Picture Frame with Wireless Capability

Start viewing your pictures and videos right away by inserting a memory card or connect your digital camera. Wirelessly add pictures and videos from your computer or the Kodak Gallery using your Wi-Fi network. Set the mood with music by listening to your favorite MP3s with built-in speakers while you view your vacation photos. Fill it up with memories thanks to 128 MB of internal memory. The convenient drag-and-drop feature makes transferring pictures easy. View your pictures on the 8-inch (20.3 cm), 16:9 wide screen featuring Kodak Color Science for vibrant color and crisp detail. It is optimized with Kodak Light Management Film to provide a bright, clear display with excellent viewing angle. Aspect ratio – 16 – 9 widescreen Display type – aSi TFT active matrix, with Kodak Light Management Film Display backlight – LED Display brightness – 350 NITs Wireless compatibility – 802.11 b/g Contrast ratio – 300 – 1 Image file formats – JPEG & EXIF Video formats – MOV, AVI, MPEG 1 and 4 Audio formats – MP3 128 MB internal memory available Memory cards supported – Secure Digital (SD), Multimedia Card (MMC), Memory Stick (MS), xD-Picture Card (xD), CompactFlash (CF) & MicroDrive (MD) System Requirements – Windows XP or higher, Internet Explorer 6.0 or higher, 600 MHz processor or greater, Macintosh OS X 10.3 or higher; PowerMac/PowerBook G3, G4, G5, iMac, eMac, iBook, MacBookPro, Safari 1.1 or higher, 128 MB RAM (256 MB recommended), 200 MB hard disk drive space available, CD-ROM drive & Available USB port Dimensions – 11.2 8.3 1.5 inch (284 211 38 mm)

User Ratings and Reviews

1 Star Do not purchase!
It is really unbelievable to me what a terrible product this is. I am on my second frame because I thought the first one was defective, but I am having the same issues with this one as well. It is EXTREMELY slow, many times not responding to the remote at all. Either the frame freezes or the screen turns black. The only button that works 100% of the time is the on/off button. It takes at least 10 tries to actually connect with kodak gallery to display pictures I have online. I really wanted this frame in particular because I have TONS of photos on kodak gallery, but it is much more effort to get it to work than it’s worth. It’s a nice idea, but Kodak needs to go back to the drawing board on this one . . . .

1 Star OK frame – Bad Service with Kodak Gallery wifi
This was a good frame until kodakgallery started charging for photo storage. If you plan on using the wifi feature, skip this frame and go with one that syncs with flickr.

1) The Ex-811 will let you connect ONLY to kodakgallery.com

2) kodakgallery.com now charges $5 per year to store photos.

I bought this & set it up at a relatives house out of state. Whenever & where ever I, or other family members, feel compelled, we upload photos to kodakgallery.com & then, like magic, they show up on the frame. Its a great way to connect our family members & share photos with people who live all over the country. I realize $5 isn’t much, however I feel the photo storage should be included as a part of the purchase price of the frame – for this reason alone I gave it 1 star.

No one charges for photo storage & Kodak Gallery has been free, but as of May 2009 they will implement the “$5+ per year or deletion policy”.

1 Star The Kodak brand is now a liability
Many digital frames are now available. In searching for a frame as a gift for elderly parents, I decided to purchase a “reliable” brand rather than a newer entrant into the market. I wanted to minimize any problems and was more than willing to pay pay a premium to ensure low-effort, high-enjoyment for my parents. Granted, George Eastman’s legacy is film, not electronics – but this is the 21st century, isn’t it?

If you simply want an frame to display digital pictures from a flash memory card, this unit will work fine. The picture quality is certainly acceptable. However, you will be overpaying by about 2x. The wireless connectivy with the Kodak Gallery is absolutely unreliable and unusable. You could get a frame without wireless capability with 2x the display area for the same cost.

I wanted a frame that would allow me to send pictures electronically (didn’t care how: web based, email, etc.) to my parents living on the opposite coast for immediate display (or even “almost-immediate” – within 24 hours – refresh). Kodak claims that with their Kodak Gallery web site, with proper setup one can upload pictures to private/shared areas and the frame will automatically be notified and download and display the pictures. And (at the time) there were no fees or subscription required (compared to the original Ceiva frame, for example, which required yearly fees). Of course, I expected that this would function without a full-time IT support staff.

As it turned out, the frame’s wireless capability is terrible. I am a computer/network professional. I had no problem setting up the frame to connect to the wireless network. Upgrading the firmware was simple. Pictures from the SD memory card displayed correctly on the screen. However, the wireless connection is totally unreliable. It is not the wireless network as it is stable and the WAP is 10 feet from the frame. I contacted Kodak support, and it was a terrible experience. After going through the scripted questions and rote responses, struggling to educate the 3rd-world support personnel, waiting for return calls that were promised and didn’t happen, and interminable hold times, I was finally “allowed” to call a “technical specialist” in the US. At that time I was told that unless I was using a wireless router from an approved list, I would not be supported – so I purchased an approved router. Still the same problem. Then the “specialist” said there was a problem with the Kodak web site and I’d have to wait a week for it to be repaired. Two weeks later and still the same problems. I was finally given a RMA number to return the frame for repair. Three weeks later I received the frame, with a note from the “authorized repair facility”. Along with the (same) frame there was a note included stating that they had tested the unit with a memory card, checked the display, and tested to be sure the unit would establish a wireless connection. No malfunction found. They had not even tested the ability to automatically view pictures uploaded remotely to the Kodak Gallery. I don’t know if they bothered to read the very specific description I included with the frame, but I doubt it.

I’ve given up with this item. It is now functioning as a 2x overpriced flash-memory reader with 1/2 the display size. I send a new SD card through USPS Mail every so often with new pictures. Kodak has also now changed their policies regarding storage space on the Kodak Gallery – you have to purchase a minimum amount of product from the site to avoid having your pictures deleted.

Bottom line: the Kodak brand, in my experience and opinion, is a liablity, not something that warrants a premium price. Support is terrible, product does not function as advertised, and this was a waste of my time. I can’t think of any reason to purchase this item and highly recommend against it. If you want wireless picture display this will not work; if you want flash-memory picture display many other, larger, less expensive options abound.

2 Stars Unfulfilled Potential
The concept of a wireless photo frame (EX811) has the potential to simplify the process of refreshing the pictures on a photo frame. Most people already upload pictures from a digital camera onto a computer. What if you could simply drag the pictures into a folder on your computer where the frame is “watching” via WiFi. Nice!! No fumbling with memory cards and waiting for the files to transfer. So what’s the problem? Well apparently the picture frame couldn’t be made smart enough to remember what computer and share drive you want it to view when you power on the frame. I mean it remembers your network name and encryption keys but they couldn’t afford one extra bit of data to say “start” here. Instead it reads pictures from internal memory at start-up. So I’ll just leave it on all the time. Right? Wrong!! You see it grabs all the picture at the start of the slideshow and it doesn’t appear to ever go back for more. In addition, it struggles if the folder has a large number of photos. They couldn’t grab some at random periodically. It restarts on its own periodically when it drops its network connection. After mashing on the remote for a couple of hours, I decided that it would be easier and more reliable to fumble with a memory card. In conclussion, my advice is to skip the WiFi features for now. Eventually a manufacturer will focus on how people will try to use the frame. For now they seem content to just stamp “WiFi” on the front of the box.

1 Star Junk!
I expected more from Kodak. The stand on the back of the frame is flimsy and the frame keeps falling over. Also, its operation was quirky out of the box.

I own some off brands that are better than this.

Stay away.

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