Ceiva Digital Photo Receiver Electronics

Average Rating:

The frame cycles between 20 pictures that you've uploaded to the Ceiva web site, showing each for between 5 seconds and 2 hours (the time is up to you). It downloads new pictures from the web site automatically every night; you can also force it to download immediately. You can store up to 1000 (I think) pictures on the web site, and the frame will rotate them, choosing 20 different ones each day. You can also tell it to keep pictures until further notice, or have it choose one picture randomly each day from each of 20 albums that you establish online, or show "channels" like the local weather and prime-time TV schedule, or any combination of the above.

You can send photos in JPEG or several other formats. Ceiva's web site recommends editing photos to increase color saturation and contrast, and decrease brightness, in order to optimize their appearance on the frame (as opposed to on your monitor). I think their advice is correct, but I don't want to bother saving 2 versions of each photo, one for me and one for my mom's frame; the quality is still pretty good. Ceiva also recommends saving in 640x480 pixels, but I've found that larger pictures (both slightly larger and way larger) look just as good, so I don't bother saving a small version just for the frame. (I have a fast web connection, so I don't mind the time it takes to upload the image from my PC. I'm not sure whether this results in longer time for Ceiva to download photos to the frame, but I suspect that they convert them to 640x480 before downloading them.)

Now the drawbacks:

- It's expensive. ....

- The image quality could be better.

- Th image must be viewed pretty much straight on, not at much of an angle.

- The person with the frame can do very little. Basically all they can do (besides enjoy the show) is change the brightness and force an immediate download. Anything else, including telling it what hours to go dark at night, how long to show each picture, what pictures to change the next day, or your changed phone number, must be done on their web site. The assumption is that if the owner doesn't have a PC, he/she doesn't want to get involved with these things. That's probably the case most of the time, so I think this is a reasonable design, but there are probably some users who want to do more. Also, if there are connection problems, it can be cumbersome to troubleshoot and correct them with so little control from the frame.

- The web site user interface is confusing. It's actually pretty powerful once you figure it out, but it's way too hard to figure out.

- Of course, you need your photos in digital form to send them to Ceiva's web site. If you already do digital, this is no problem. If you will have to start doing this just so you can send them to Ceiva, that's additional time and expense that you need to factor in.

- The frame comes in your choice of colors, so long as your choice is black.

- Other users have complained of hardware problems. Most of those seem to show up right away, so you can reduce the problem by getting the unit in advance and trying it out before giving it as a gift. But the number of complaints I've seen seems rather high.

I expect that most or all of these problems will be fixed over time. The price will inevitably come down, and Ceiva's web site suggests that a new model this summer will accept pictures directly from memory cards rather than requiring a service subscription. (Some competitive products already do this.) Display technology, of course, keeps improving. Their web site promises an improved UI in a few weeks. And it implies that other colors will be available eventually. In a couple of years, I think this will be a much more appealing product, perhaps good enough that I'll want several around my house.

But if you have (say) a parent who craves pictures of their grandchildren, a couple of years of pleasure is worth a lot. That's why I sprung for one for my mom last week, and I liked it so much, I ordered a second for my wife's grandma yesterday. I just packed up my mom's after having it running in my office for a few days, and I miss it already!

I recently bought another ceiva as a birthday present for my brother who owns a digital camera. He uses the frame as digital photo album which he keeps right in the livingroom. It is a great conversation piece for when he has people over to his place. I also looked at the Kodak frame since it has a compact flash reader but decided to stick with the ceiva since our mom already had one and it was a lot cheaper.

Overall, I think that it is a great concept and don't have any complaints except making the set up easier for non-technical people.

- Set-up - was easy, and the frame did what it was supposed to do. It only has two buttons, and holding one forces the frame to connect immediately. We had a few problems initially with establishing a connection, but after a few tries (and a call to Ceiva) we managed to get it set up. The website is very easy to use.

- Color and Resolution - we found that the pictures Ceiva included with the frame (the ones done by professional photographers) looked better than our first attempts. However, when we selected pictures with bright colors and used photo editing software to blow up the images, adjust them to the frame pixel size, and save them in the file size Ceiva suggests, we got better results. The frame is in a low light area, so it actually looks pretty good. Keep in mind that at under $300, it isn't going to look like your $x,000 laptop's active matrix display, but it isn't bad.

- Phone Connections - We found the connection time with Ceiva to be longer than they say. Even if the frame doesn't have much to do, it seems to tie up the phone line for 15-20 minutes. As one of our relatives lives in a city without a Ceiva connection, we worried about this. However, be realistic - how often are you really going to update the photos? The phone can be unplugged and the frame will still work. All the relative has to do is plug in the frame once a month or so, do a manual connect, and live with a 20 minute long-distance call - probably less than the 800-number service.

- Grandparent Satisfaction Factor - This is, of course, the most important part of the frame. The grandparent in question LOVES the frame, loves walking through the room and seeing updated photos, and has told us many, many times how much they enjoy the Ceiva. Not to mention the positive comments the grandparent has had from visiting friends!

Yes, a lot of the complaints from other reviewers are valid, but with some work, the Ceiva is a great gift. Yes, it would be nice to have an active matrix screen, but we couldn't afford it. Yes, the logo is large, but after the first five minutes, you don't notice it anymore. Yes, the pictures are very poor if the frame is in a high light area, but with a good location and careful editing, the photos can look very good. Yes, the resolution on a good computer screen is better, but how often will your parents or grandparents turn on the computer to check a website? These pictures are there, in the living room, all the time.

One additional plus - we have multiple family members who enjoy receiving photos. Ceiva allows multiple frames to be registered on the same account, and you can send pictures to all of the frames in your account. We have now purchased additional frames for the rest of the family.