Product Description

Varnam VM830BT comes with a unique touch sensitive front panel to control the functionalities. The touch panel provides the user interface for the photo frame there by avoiding protrusive buttons on the frame. A full function remote control complements the touch panel control. Not just that it also has a built in re-chargeable battery for operating it with out the mains power adapter. It also comes with a built in flash memory to store your photos, music or video files The Photo frame can read and display photographs taken in JPEG format, if you insert a memory card with pictures, the frame will automatically start playing them as a slide show. The slide show timings (the time interval for which a particular photo is displayed) can be adjusted between 1 second and 60 minutes. There is a choice of built in transition effects. The photo frame can read and display contents of plain text files contained in the memory card or in the internal memory. Wide viewing angle, with LCD screens, this is an important factor that needs to be considered. In Varman digital frame the viewing angle is 130 degrees when viewed from left to right. 45 degrees when viewed from top and 65 degrees when viewed from bottom. Varnam digital photo frame has a built in rechargeable battery making it convenient to take them around. On a fully charged battery the frame can operate for 1.5* hours. When the photo frame is connected to the mains charger, the battery gets charged and simultaneously it can do its normal functions. Like a LCD television the photo frame uses a LCD panel. Quality of the LCD panels used determines the quality of the display and hence determines the price of the product. Varnam uses one of the highest quality 8 inch displays available with a resolution of 800x480 pixels reproducing rich and vibrant colours. The lifetime of the LCD panel is 20,000 hours. With an average viewing of 10 hours per day this gives a life time of the LCD panel as 5 years.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #288 in Camera & Photo
• Colour: Black
• Brand: Varnam
• Model: VM830BT
• Memory: 128MB
• Display size: 8

Features

• Use it as a Video Player
• Built in memory 128MB
• Built in rechargeable battery. On a fully charged battery the frame can operate for 1.5* hours
• Auto on and off. Calendar function
• Supports JPEG, MP3,AVI, MPEG1(mpg/dat), MPEG4, DivX, Xvid

Customer Reviews

Excellent Screen quality and battery life
This is my Third digital photo frame since last Christmas and I can confidentally say that VARNAM has exceeded all the others in the hardware & software specifications as well as performance.

I had three in the past (one subsequently returned). My requirement was for a digital photo frame with a built-in battery and internal memory.

Early this year I bought a Philips digital photo frame, then a Linx digital photo frame (which I returned) and then Varnam.

As I have seen the positive and negative sides of all the three, I thought it will be better if I compare all the three in the review for making it useful for other potential buyers.

Screensize & Resolution - Actual Picture quality

Philips 9FF2M4 my first frame - When I purchased this philips digital photo frame, I assumed based on the model number that it is a 9 inch screen but it is actually 8 inches. Resolution of the screen is 640x480.
The screen quality is good as long as you don't compare it with the others

Linx - It is advertised as 8 inch with an awkward screen resolution of 720x480, I assume that it is using a display used for American Television standards. The screen quality is good so are the pictures, but the pictures appear only in the middle area of the screen (640x480) with black borders surrounding the sides. If I insert the memory card from my camera all the pictures appear only in the middle of the screen surrounded by black border.

Varnam - Screen size is 8 inches with a resolution of 800x480. Images are displayed in full screen with out distortion. The frame automatically adjusts the pictures to fit the full screen. The screen size and picture quality definitely stands out when you place the three displays next to each other. Varnam screen also has high brightness and contrast definetly real life pictures.

Internal Memory

Philips - It can hold roughly 100-110 images and the frame automatically compresses the images to hold in its memory

Linx - It has internal memory but I was disappointed with the frame due to its display and fidely controls, I returned it with out checking the actual memory size, but I assume it is 128MB

Varnam - It has a 128MB built-in

Battery operation

This was my main criteria when choosing these frames.

Philips - was able to stretch operation between 1hr and slightly more than 1hr

Linx - battery lasted for 1.5hrs

Varnam - I was able to watch a full length DivX movie with the battery, it lasted for atleast 120minutes, manufacturer states it lasts for 1.5 hrs

Remote control

Philips - NO
Linx - Yes
VARNAM - Yes

Memory card support

Philips - Like a quality product it supports all types of memory cards. Has a USB device port for connecting to the PC

Linx - Does not support CF (Compact flash) and xD card types. It has a USB host port for USB memory stick, I couldn't use it to connect to a computer.

Varnam - Supports all types of memory cards. It has 2 types of USB ports, one for USB memory stick and another for connecting with the computer, this USB port is USB2 and file transfers are really quick.

Supported File Types

Philips - Only Photos, doesn't support music or video.
Linx - Supports Photo, Music and Video but display aspect ratio distorts images unless they are in native resolution

Varnam - Supports Photo, Music and Video

Ease of use

Philips - Plug and play - easy to use, you can program the unit to switch on and off at a given time of the day

Linx - Fidgety remote control with unhelpful onscreen menu. Remote control sensor is hidden on the sides. So your remote doesn't always work unless you are close to the frame

Varnam - Neatly laid out menu icons makes it easier to use. Also with its touch sensitive controls, it is easy to handle the menu seeing it . Supports auto on and off at a given time of the day like Philips.

Aesthetic appearence - All the three digital photo frames are aethetically appealing.

Reasons to buy

Philips - High Quality Finish
Linx - Cheap

Varnam - Stylish Touch sensitive front panel,high quality finish, Very good picture quality, Auto on and off at preset time of the day

Reasons NOT TO BUY

Linx - There is plenty to list here, but mainly distorted image, small display size (image is shown only in middle area of the screen), poor user interface, not easy to operate if you are giving it to your grand parents, badly written user manual

Philips - High Price for a limited features - you can get all the quality and features in VARNAM for a much lower price

VARNAM - It has more plus points compared with Linx and Philips and you cannot ignore it unless you dislike the black colour of the frame

16:9 aspect ratio, landscape only
I can't argue with what other people have said in their reviews, however there are some things they haven't mentioned and I can't give it 5 stars...

Ordered 2pm Thursday, arrived 8.15am Friday - thank you Amazon and E-Bowl!

The resolution is superb, the best I've seen on a frame this price (after many hours of research online and in shops) and the auto-resizing is a welcome feature, which works very well, and you don't have to spend time editing photos on your computer to a different size etc.

So why doesn't it get 5 stars?

1. The aspect ratio of the screen is 16:9, the same as widescreen TVs and not 4:3 which all photos are - great for watching video but not so good for photos.
2. It can only stand in landscape orientation - a simple change to the stand on the back could have made it so much better.
3. It doesn't really look like a photo frame, but more like a portable DVD player screen.

Varnum 8" Digital Picture Frame
OK I ordered this on the Wednesday before Xmas and within 24 hours it was at my door! Great service!

It's a gift for my parents-in-law, so I took it out to check it over and charge its internal battery up today.

First of all I thought that the screen was scratched but on triple-checking it is a piece of protective plastic that is so well stuck on that the first two times I looked I thought it was the actual unprotected screen. Doh!

The display is very good and the remote and on-screen buttons pretty intuitive.

It had a decent internal battery and resizes photos automatically and very well.
The sound can go much louder than I expected though obviously its not got much bass.

Still the ability to unplug it and pass it around puts it streets ahead of most of the competition.

I only have one gripe.
Whilst it claims to play any avi file (at least the manual doesn't lay down min. or max. sizes or frame rates etc), this doesn't seem to be true.
The little avi movies recorded (and mixed in with my photos) by my casio exilim and my father-in-law's fuji do not play.
The bond movie clip on the Varnum as a sample also appears to be an avi and plays fine.
A call to customer service has not been returned yet (to be fair it was only 2 hours ago and it is two shopping days before Xmas), but I have managed to find a work around - just use an avi to DivX converter. Once you have converted your avis to DivX they all play fine (I had to try a couple of converters before I found one that liked my little avi movies).

So all in all a great product but it loses one star for the pain of having to convert some avis before you can watch them.