Review: Kodak Pulse W1030 wireless digital photo frame

The concept of a digital photo frame makes perfect sense. You can show hundreds of photos constantly and easily update the pictures by popping in a new memory card. The truth is, most digital frames aren't intuitive or fun to use because controls are clumsy and tedious. Here is one that defies the norm.

Kodak's Pulse W1030 10" inch frame  (SRP of $199) offers WiFi access and touchscreen technology which makes it a lot easier to get precious memories on connected frames.

Think of it as a smart-frame, a digital photo frame that has all the right features for ease of use and management. Kodak's Pulse is a 10-inch screen frame that's touch controllable. You first need to set up an account at www.kodakpulse.com to be able to upload your initial batch of photos which the frame downloads through WiFi.

You can also fill up a USB thumbdrive and plug this into the frame which will play the photos directly from the media card. There are other ways to get photos on to the Pulse frame. The Kodak Gallery online service, where poeple post digital photos for making prints out later on.

The Pulse's screen is sufficiently bright, well saturated and just the right size to enjoy photos in portrait or landscape mode. We feel that 10 inches is the optimal size for a digital photo frame. It is large enough to offer great detail yet not too large that it is hard to integrate into one's own living room or office desk.

Wireless connecitivity was consistent for the most part and setup is of moderate difficulty although Internet savvy users will have no problems getting it up and running. The only minor annoyance we had with the set-up was the two-piece wall plug which consists of the power adaptor and the prongs. You need to attach the prongs to the adaptor before you can use it which may not be evident to those who (like us) assemble things without reading the instructions.

Once you've set up your online accoun, you can email photos as attachments to the frame's unique email address and these will be added into the queue or if you're an avid Facebook user, you can integrate your friend's photo feeds to appear on the Pulse frame. All the while, it is easy enough to monitor the amount of storage taken up by the frame's online component.

There is a set-it and forget-it element to the Kodak approach which makes a lot of sense. If you want to leave a frame at your parent's house, connect it to their WiFi network and keep it plugged in, you can easily "push" photos to that particular frame remotely. It makes for a convenient and straightforward way to get photos from A to B.

Kodak has really made a lot of this easy for users and the result is an effective and satisfying cloud-based digital photo frame with intuitive touch controls and some depth as to what online services it can interface with. 

Rating: 4 out of 5