The eStarling ImpactV that I bought came from the actual eStarling company who sent it to Amazon, who then sent it to me. Once the frame was here I was pleasantly surprised at how well packed the frame was.
Inside of the official Amazon box sat the eStarling ImpactV's box. I opened the box, and inside sat my frame!
The frame itself was nicely tucked into a white plastic sleeve. To the right sat the frames power chord, and on top of that a small pamphlet, which I assumed would be the tutorial on how to set the frame up and how to get it to work.
I removed the ImpactV and nearly died when I saw that the frames LCD screen was scratched! Look closer though folks, because I nearly packaged the frame up for a refund till I realized that the screen had a thin layer of protective plastic on top of it. I have heard numerous stories where people sent the frame back thinking it was scratched, little to their knowledge that it was nothing more than a screen protector that was scratched-looking.
I peeled the protective layer away from the frame and before me sat a gorgeous sleek high gloss frame! Yep, the thing is a beauty, I cannot deny it.
Behind the frame tucked into the frame's kickstand was a small white remote control. This is handy for those who don't like smudging up the frame by using the built in touch screen feature.
After unpacking everything, I was pretty excited to get the frame up and running. Unfortunately, I had to dive into setting the frame up head first with no instructions. You see, the pamphlet that came with the frame was nothing more than a little guide on how to set up the frame. Simplistic things that most users would be able to figure out on their own; plug in, turn on, etc. There was nothing that helped guide me on how to use the frame once I had it set up to the network.
Setting the frame up to my network was a cinch. After I turned the frame on a pretty blue screen with some diamond graphics popped up for a few minutes. Shortly after that, the eStarling ImpactV went looking for an available network. In about 30 seconds, it found my network and was ready to roll. Or so I thought.
Once the frame was up and running on my wireless network, it then displayed a temporary email address for my frame, and a temporary password, which I could change on the SeeFrame.com website to something more personal, or easily remembered.
When I first got the frame, the SeeFrame website was nicely laid out in a somewhat easy layout. You had a section to browse all of your uploaded photos, a section where you could upload pics from the PC to the site. A tab that allowed you to subscribe to RSS feeds, Flickr, Photobucket and so on.
The very first thing I did before attempting to mess around with the Photobucket feature was to simply upload a picture from my computer on to the SeeFrame site.
I did just that. Next I simply waited for the photo to make its way to the eStarling ImpactV. Unfortunately, the photo never made it. I toyed around with it for close to an hour before realizing that I had to go to the main page of the SeeFrame site where I noticed a small start and stop button next to the sites where I could get photos.
It is set up exactly like this:
3 photos from Email or Mobile. (Stop)
0 photos from RSS. (Stop)
217 photos by Upload. (Start)
688 photos from Photobucket. (Stop)
I learned on my own, with multiple attempts at contacting customer support (with no reply) that I had to set all other tabs to STOP. Only one photo-sharing tab can be left at START. It sucked because I would have liked to be able to set all tabs to start to have photos come in from all devices. The only fix for this is to set all of your photos with the same tag and creating a play list.
Once I had figured this out the frame began playing the pictures I had uploaded to it.
The SeeFrame site has upgraded this version of the layout into a newer sleeker look, but in all honesty, I still find the old web version to be easier to navigate. You can switch to the old web version on the site by clicking on My Account, and clicking the Old Web Version tab.
-Go to page 3 to learn about the frames compatibility with Photobucket, and the photo image quality on the 8-inch LCD screen.