Kodak EasyShare D1030 review

The Kodak D1030's 10in screen and chunky border add up to an imposing presence on the mantelpiece. We'd imagine that most people will choose to unclip the black outer part of the frame to reduce its dimensions. The silvery-grey inner section doesn't look as smart as the glossy black frames of other models, though.

Tapping the frame reveals seven touch-sensitive buttons along the right and bottom edges, and touching one of them brings up on-screen icons to reveal their functions. The menu layout isn't as efficient to use as it could be, but on the whole we found it reasonably easy to navigate.

The frame can be used in landscape or portrait orientations, but this must be set in the menu as there's no sensor to detect which way up it is. When it's left in landscape mode, portrait photos are shown the right way up in the centre of the screen, and that includes photos that are tagged by the camera as being shot in portrait orientation. However, when copying files from memory cards to the internal memory, the tags are lost and these photos are displayed on their sides. These have to be rotated manually using the menus. At least it's possible to select multiple photos from a thumbnail view and rotate them all in one go.

The D1030 is light on extra features, with no battery, wireless networking or music and video playback. Its 512MB internal memory is on the small side, too. There's a USB host port for connecting a flash drive, but no socket for connecting directly to a PC to manage the internal memory.

The 10in screen's contrast was good but colours had a yellow tint. This sometimes flattered skin tones but in most cases it wasn't so appealing. A bigger problem was the poor-quality resizing, which meant that details looked a little soft.

The D1030 isn't terrible, but those looking for a 10in photo frame are better off with Sony's expensive but excellent X1000N, or Jessops' budget 10.4in Hi-Res 2GB frame.

Author: Ben Pitt