Pix-Star FotoConnect XD connects your wireless digital picture frame to the internet so you can send pictures to it without physically downloading photos to the frame. It still gives you the option to add photos to your frame through a memory card if you wish, however. To send pictures via the internet, all you have to do is insert the photos into an email and address it to the personal email address for your frame. The pictures will then automatically show up on the screen. Pix-Star FotoConnect XD is our TopTenREVIEWS Silver Award winner because it has many sharing options and the frame gives you the flexibility to rotate it so you can enjoy pictures in landscape and portrait modes.
If you have pictures online already, Pix-Star makes it easy to transfer those photos to your frame. This wireless digital picture frame connects directly to Facebook, KoffeePhoto, Picasa, Flickr, Phanfare, SmugMug, Don't Forget It!, Photobucket, Shutterfly, Ezubi, MobileMe, Windows Live, Padeleon, Signagelive, Arcor, Ictoo, Xiaonei, Lifeshow and photo RSS feeds.
You can add your pictures from Facebook as well as pictures from your friends' profiles. The whole album shows up on the Pix-Star website, which does not give you the option to delete pictures within the album. However, you can delete individual pictures in a Facebook album once they appear on the Pix-Star wireless digital picture frame.
n addition to receiving images on your Pix-Star FotoConnect XD frame, you can send photos to your online email account. When you do this, you can send pictures to your friends, your web albums or you can enter a new email address. When typing in the email address from your frame, you must press the arrow keys to navigate from letter to letter. The keyboard is in alphabetical order instead of a standard QWERTY keyboard.
This Wi-Fi digital photo frame doesn't have a touchscreen. Although a touchscreen can be nice for navigation, it leaves fingerprints on the screen, so the lack of a touchscreen isn't necessarily a bad thing. The navigation buttons are on the back of the screen and are all the same shape and size, which makes it more difficult to navigate the menus while you press buttons. It's easier to use the remote that comes with the Pix-Star FotoConnect XD than it is to use the buttons on the back of the frame because with the remote, you can see which buttons you're pressing and the screen at the same time.
You can rotate the photos, but you can't rotate all of them at once. You can put the frame on its side, allowing you to see your photos both in portrait and landscape view; however, the controls don't adjust to reflect a portrait orientation. This was a bother when we were trying to adjust some of the landscape-oriented photos to fit the portrait orientation. We kept pressing the side button instead of the up and down buttons.
We also noticed that the photos don't delete immediately. We deleted some photos from the online account but they continued to show up on the Pix-Star photo frame for several minutes. If you're in a rush to have the pictures on the website match those on the Wi-Fi digital photo frame, this may be a source of frustration. In most cases, however, the pictures update quickly enough to not cause a problem.
The Pix-Star FotoConnect XD is compatible with JPEG, PNG, BMP and GIF files. When it comes to memory compatibility, you can use the USB port or the SD, MMC, SDHC card slot. You can also take advantage of the unlimited online storage. The Pix-Star FotoConnect frame itself has 1GB of internal memory.
The layout of the keyboard is alphabetical instead of the standard QWERTY keyboard. Moving up, down and from side to side with the arrow keys on the remote to spell out email addresses is tedious, but you can save the email addresses in your contact list so you don't have to type them more than once.
The black frame comes with a power cord, a remote, a little metal rod that attaches to the back of the frame so you can stand it up and a manual. You can either use the stand or hang this digital frame on the wall. The LED screen on this digital frame is 10.4 inches diagonally. It has a ratio of 4:3 and a resolution of 800 x 600 pixels.
This frame's menu allows you to play all albums, check your inbox, look at local albums, see your web albums, access the file manager, change the settings and listen to web radio. You can listen to audio and internet radio stations on this Wi-Fi digital photo frame, which is not true of all wireless photo frames. In addition to seeing pictures on your wireless digital picture frame, you can also see weather forecasts for large cities around the world.
When you set up your Pix-star FotoConnect XD frame, you can determine what time the Wi-Fi digital photo frame will automatically turn on and off. You can also see how much of your memory you're using. The Pix-Star FotoConnect XD wireless digital picture frame is formatted for English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Italian, Chinese, Japanese and Dutch.
Pix-Star has a manual that walks you through setting up your wireless digital picture frame; however, it doesn't go into much depth. We had some trouble download pictures from Facebook onto our photo frame. They identified the problem and resolved it. Now it's even easier to link photos from Facebook to the Pix-Star frame.
Pix-Star offers email support, FAQs and video tutorials. The company is prompt in returning emails, but it is still less convenient to have only one avenue to contact customer support. In addition to tech support, Pix-Star offers a one-year warranty on its picture frame.
Pix-Star FotoConnect XD is a wireless digital picture frame that uses the internet to transport pictures from your computer, the internet and your phone directly to the frame. You don't have to pay a subscription fee as you would for some wireless digital picture frames. The images show up on the bright, 8-inch LED screen within minutes. What's more, you can easily convert this frame from a wall hanging to a desktop picture frame and back again. The Pix-Star FotoConnect XD also has space for you to use a USB port and other memory devices.
