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Samsung SPF-105P review

Samsung SPF-105P
Our Rating :
Price when reviewed : £140
inc VAT

The SPF-105P has a big, high-quality screen, but it's ruined by a long list of design flaws.

It’s hard to understand how a company as big as Samsung has allowed a product as flawed as the SPF-105P to reach the shops. It’s almost as if the development team had a long, boozy lunch and knocked up the design on a hazy Friday afternoon.

It took us a long time to find the power button, which is camouflaged on the back of the frame against a swirly floral pattern. More swirls appear on the front border, and although they’re mercifully subtle, a plain black border would be preferable. The touch-sensitive controls illuminate when they’re touched, but as is common with this sort of controls, they’re not as responsive as normal buttons. This, combined with the fact that the frame often took many seconds to respond to successful button pushes, made using the 105P a frustrating experience.

The frustrations certainly didn’t end there, though. Inserting a CompactFlash card produced a message to say it was recognised, but the frame continued to show its demo images from the built-in memory. Switching to the card wasn’t too laborious, but each time we switched the frame on, it reverted back to the built-in memory. Fortunately, it behaved better with SDHC cards.

There’s no orientation sensor to detect whether the frame is positioned in landscape or portrait mode, and tags to say that photos must be rotated weren’t recognised. Some photos were incorrectly rotated for no apparent reason. Slideshow progression has only three speeds, and the slowest is too fast at one minute. Slideshows can be paused, but after a few minutes the frame seemed to get bored waiting and moved on to the next picture anyway. There’s a headphone socket but no video support, making this the weirdest MP3 player ever invented.

The 10.2in screen’s image quality is good and the built-in battery is welcome, despite its paltry 28-minute life. We also like the option to power off at a specified time, or power on then off at scheduled times. However, after such a catalogue of problems, we can’t recommend the SPF-105P. If you want a 10in frame, Jessops’ budget 10.4in Hi-Res 2GB frame is the larger version of the Best Buy-winning 8in frame.

Details

Price £140
Rating *

Physical

Wall-mounted orientation N/A
Stand orientation portrait, landscape
Viewable size 10.2 in
Aspect ratio 15:9
Native resolution 1024×600
Contrast ratio 500:1
Brightness 300cd/m²
Size 199x289x46mm
Weight 990g

Features

Audio playback formats MP3
Video playback formats none
Speakers 2x 1W
Wireless networking support N/A
Timer yes
Motion detection no
Accessories USB data cable
Batteries integrated
AV outputs minijack audio-out

Storage

Memory card support SD(HC), MMC, Memory Stick Pro, CF, Microdrive, USB storage device
Integrated memory 1.00GB
Image viewing formats JPEG

Buying Information

Warranty one year RTB
Price £140
Supplier http://www.play.com
Details www.samsung.com/uk

Environmental

Power consumption on 7W
Power consumption standby 1W

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