Smartparts 8” LCD Picture Frame

bought same brand over a year ago and would never do so again. Sometimes the photos are there and next time they are not,but a few hours later they might be. Had to send one back immediately after loading pics as it completely died.

number two? ewwwww

Regarding this photo frame, someone in the family got one of these for Christmas. It works well and easy to use. Not as fancy as the one we have that with wireless updates; but very decent.

Great frame before it died. see http://www.woot.com/Forums/ViewPost.aspx?PostID=3227890 before you buy.

As an A&M fan, I could never buy this.

someday, will have to tell the story about how the TU fans lost their middle fingers. It’s not pretty.

I am surprised that no one comment on the backdoor/trojan use of Optixpro software. It’s hard to believe anyone would spend $40 to get his/her personal info stolen.

I bought this same item last year. I liked it a lot, until I noticed the backlight starting to fail. Now, it’s luck-of-the-draw whether the backlight will work when I turn it on or not. It’s probably too late to go through the RMA or warranty process, so I’m assuming that I just have to deal with it.

I was really excited about the fact that this picture frame had an 800x600 4:3 aspect ratio screen. Unfortunately, that doesn’t matter unless you can see the pictures.

To bad McCoy was a big ol’ punany or you might have been number one.

http://soonerdudes.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/coltfail.jpg

Bought one of these last year for the office. It has been running 24 hours a day now for 10 months with absolutely no issue.

If you’re thinking of buying it and leaving it running 24/7 I have had good luck so far.

Thinking of buying another one for my parents.

Bought two of these from woot last year. First one was DOA, never turned on… Second one died after 87 days - luckily I was able to return it for a refund… I’m still looking for a good deal on a digital frame - but this ain’t it…

To quote the shirt over on shirt.woot today, “It’s A Trap!”

They tend to be DoA a lot, from previous comments on previous woots, and my experience tends to bear that out.

CARP A DIEM. Wootish to English translation - Carp of the day.

These frames have a high failure rate. Press the wrong button and it dies, if it is not DOA out of the box.

If you are a gambler go for it. Otherwise I would stay clear. Especially since it is more exepensive than the last go-round when I bought my lovely unit that I have not gotten around to tossing in the recycling bin yet. Maybe I’ll just keep the frame part and put a nice picture of a working LCD picture frame.

Looks like Yugster.com has outdone woot. They have the same item today for less: $35.97 + $6 S&H.

I’d be tempted to buy if not for the overwhelming DOA reports of this product on previous woots. Also, this frame doesn’t seem to be capable of random-ordered slide shows.

I bought one of these a few months ago and it was DOA. So were most of the others in that batch, according to the many other comments. Woot agreed to take the thing back, but I had to pay shipping both ways. Since this was a mass problem, not an isolated incident, it seemed unfair to stick me with 2 sets of shipping fees. Woot apparently doesn’t care about “fairness” or their customer’s satisfaction and said as much in the email I received. It will be a cold day before I buy anything from Woot again. By the way, Smartparts is no longer in business and will have nothing to do with repair or replacement of this item. You’re on your own.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen Yugster undersell Woot before. Either pigs are flying, or Yugster finally got some business sense. Nah - I’d go with the pigs.

I’ve posted on this issue before. I understand that, in return for the bargains Woot offers, they want us to deal with the manufacturer if an item breaks undeer warranty. I think this is a fair tradeoff (and at least I’ll have gotten some use out of the item). And Woot has kindly stepped in if the manufacturer is not forthcoming.

BUT, I do not agree with this policy if an item is DOA. In this case the customer is not at fault (as opposed to the prior situation, where the item may have been abused), and I NEVER want to pay something for nothing, even if it’s $5. True, Woot may not be “at fault” for shipping a non-working item (after all, they aren’t allowed to open new electronic items and test them before shipping, and it would hardly be cost-effective for them to do so). But they should take responsibility rather than infuriating their customers - that’s just good business sense. I love Woot, but I’ve already met 2 people who refuse to buy here because of this issue.

We’re talking about a site that can sell 3,000 stuffed animals in a hour. Can’t they pay the shipping for the few items that arrive DOA? Or are there more than just a few?

Would anyone from Woot care to respond?

Yeah. Mine works, but if I try go into the menu it crashes. If I remove the SD card and have no pictures in the internal memory it will go into the menu… And then crash when I try to change anything. It also has what I believe is a heat problem. If I turn it off after it’s been on a while it won’t turn on again (or will turn on and crash immediately) unless I let it sit and cool down a few minutes.

Come to think of it, all the problems I’ve seen or have seen reported might in fact be dodgy solder connections. I really ought to open it up and check on that. Not sure what good it’ll do, though; I’m not good enough to hand-solder surface mount components.

It’s a pity. The display is really nice when it’s working. Fortunately I’m mostly interested in the slideshow mode that it defaults to, so it’s marginally usable even without access to the menu.

I too was burned by these frames! I bought one in June 2009 and put it away for a Christmas present for my wife. After she opened it on Christmas day, it partially worked for about 1 DAY before completely dying! I tried contacting Smartparts repeatedly and finally got a phone number from customer service at Tiger Direct as they also sell these frames! I actually received a call back from them and was told that Smartparts was dissolved as a company back in March of 2009 thus the reason for dead e-mail links and phone numbers… Apparently it is also the reason I have no recourse and am left with a dead product! I DID contact WOOT CS regarding this matter and was told that I was outside the 90day warranty as it begins on the date of purchase… I am essentially SOL! It really is annoying to see that WOOT CONTINUES to sell a product that is faulty and has no company to back it without informing potential customers of this fact! That is LOW in my book! **STAY AWAY FROM SMARTPARTS PRODUCTS! **

Was it because of my post, or just luck?

Woot’s selling these AGAIN??? After the fiasco last May? I’m losing what little respect I had for Woot, that they would knowingly sell a product that’s had such a bad history of failure. (That, and the garbage that passes for “deals” on deals.woot.)

The first time around was bad business. Doing it again, IMO, borders on fraud.

Bad Woot!