Review: Kodak M1020 digital picture frame

We had mixed feelings about the last Kodak photo frame we reviewed, which added convenience in the form of wireless access but let itself down on the performance front.

We're now looking at the 10in version of the company's new frames, the M1020, which offers the same 800x480 pixel resolution but thankfully looks a bit better than the last one.

It's still not perfect, and while colours were far more vibrant and accurate, there were problems with sharpness and we were a little disappointed that there wasn't at least a small increase in the resolution, considering the size of the display.

There's also a bit of a change in the controls: although you'll find dedicated buttons available for power and volume, the majority of the features are accessed using touch-sensitive panels at the bottom and right-hand side of the screen.

A series of spots light up along these panels corresponding to functions that appear on the screen, and they can also be used to scroll through picture collections or settings by sliding a finger up, down, left or right according to on-screen instructions. It's a nice idea but it took quite a while to get used to, and it's a bit too easy to press the wrong thing and enable the wrong function by mistake.

As well as pictures the frame allows users to play back music and video files: there's support for MP3, MPEG1 and MPEG4 formats. We were impressed by video playback, the frame handling a range of files using different recording methods, and quality was fairly good.

There's 128MB of memory on board, and if you want to add content you can either use one of the multi-format card slots, connect a USB memory key or connect the frame directly to a camera or PC to view images or copy them across. Disappointingly there's no built-in battery, so you'll need it plugged in at all times.

While it's improved its display quality front, the M1020 is by no means perfect and despite the fact that there's a good degree of customisation and versatility, including creating slide shows and managing content on the frame, it's not the easiest to use and there are more capable devices on offer for less.

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