Review: EStarling ImpactV Clip Frame, the First Wifi Frame that Supports Video

I had been searching for a digital photo frame that would give me more options. A few months ago I purchased one, and unfortunately as much as I enjoyed it, the frame only went so far.
I wanted something that would allow me freedom to upload as much as I wanted, when I wanted, and where I wanted. I wanted a frame that would upload my photos from photobucket directly to the frame. I wanted a photo frame that did more than the average digital photo frame. I wanted the creme de la crop... and I knew this before even seeking out a frame.
Unfortunately, I thought my wants were too advanced for what digital frames these days have been offering.
My quest to finding such a frame though all ended with the eStarling ImpactV. Also known as the clip frame, also known as the world's first wireless clip frame.
Now as mentioned above, I had wants, and after reading what the ImpactV had to offer, I was shocked to see that this bad boy featured 10 times more than what I ever imagined.
Now if you want the frames cookie cutter specs, you can find the on a thousand and one different blogs. However from the looks of what I was able to find, nearly 99% of those blogging about this cool gadget were blogging about the specs, without having any hands on experience with the frame itself.
I wanted reviews, I wanted hands on reviews of this monster, and came up so empty handed it hurt.
Normally I read tons of reviews, professional an consumer reviews before buying high end gadgets, but I didn't want to wait for them to come out, I was too excited...so I jumped in and placed an order on Amazon, and 2 days later my sleek slim gem of a digital wifi photo frame arrived.
First and foremost, let's grind out the features, and afterward I will let you all in on how they worked for me.
eStarling ImpactV grants you access to their seeframe website. Here you can upload photos and videos instantly from photobucket, flickr, facebook, you tube, Picassa, your own computer and more. eStarling has partnered with photobucket as well for safe keeping, so if you decide to simply upload a picture or video to the seeframe site, it will also make a copy over at Photobucket for you. Why this is necessary is beyond me, but cool nonetheless, because sometimes I like hitting up photobucket to buy prints. Not having to upload the same picture twice is just heavenly.
It does not end there though, nope, nope.
You can also email the frame photos, and videos directly to the frame.
How you might ask?
Well the eStarling ImpactV wifi photo frame comes packed with it's own freaking email address! I know... it's enough to cause random bouts of drool!
Basically you can email the frame pictures, or video clips, and the eStarling will plop the photos right smack onto the frame.
Cool... but what's even cooler is the fact that you could give your frames email address to friends an family, and have them directly send the frame pictures. Oh my God... I can't take anymore!!!!
But there is more though... much more.
Video clips display on the frames 8 inch LCD screen in DVD quality video play.
Oh but that's not all... there is more.
The eStarling ImpactV features a touchscreen which sits nestled to the right of the frames border. This allows you to easily navigate through the frame. The screen itself as mentioned is 8 inches, with an 800 by 600 screen resolution.
There's Even More Goods?
Indeed there are.
Besides all of the drool fest information I have added above, the eStarling ImpactV wifi frame also allows users to add RSS feeds to the frame. Basically you can subscribe to photo and video sharing RSS Feeds.
iPhone Application:
I personally don't have an iPhone, but my brother does, and he was pretty excited to see that the frame came with its own iPhone application.
Photo Scheduling:
Oh My!!!!
Directly on the seeframe.com website you can schedule photos to pop up onto the frame on whatever date you choose. So picture it... it's Christmas, and you have the whole family coming over. You can simply direct the frame to add only your Christmas photos on that date when the family will be over. I absolutely loved this feature, and it was one of the many reasons I ordered the wifi frame to begin with.
Now with all of the glorious online capabilities the ImpactV has, do know that it will also work as a standard digital frame. You can upload photos with the available USB cable, or you can place in your memory cards right into the frame for viewing. However who the heck wants to spend $200 on this frame and not use the wifi capabilities? It'd be wasteful to be honest, and if you don't plan on playing with this frame online, than go out and buy a cheap digital frame without the wifi.
So everything sounds like a drool fest, everything sounds like a must have, everything sounds peachy keen.

Unfortunately my friends, this was not the case with my eStarling ImpactV Clip Frame wifi frame.
She's Got Issues!!!!
2 days after placing my order on Amazon.com my Estaring ImactV wifi Clip Frame, finally arrived. I eagerly tore open the box, and what awaited me inside was a gorgeous sleek black frame, with a nice shiny coat and all. I simply fell in love with it, and knew it would go so perfectly in my room with my Samsung HDTV, and Samsung PC monitor. So yep, immediately the eStarling Clip Frame fit right in with it's sleek and slender buddy's.
However the absolute first thing that irked me about the frame was th lack of something so vitally important that it nearly made me pack the bastard back up and sen it back where it came from. The ImpactV does not come with an instruction manual. All it comes with is a slim 5 or 6 page pamphlet on how to set it up. As far as anything else, you are left clueless.
I assumed that it would be so easy to set up that maybe this way why the frame didn't come with instructions. Boy was my assumption dead wrong.
Now hooking the ImpactV up to my wifi network was a breeze, and after it was connected all properly all I had o do was go to the eStaring website, or seeframe.com (no matter which you use really), and activate my frame using a code that the frame provided on the screen after the wifi connection was made.
So I happily went away plugging in my code, and wallah... done.
Oh but we were far from done. You see I knew how to upload photos from my computer to the seeframe site, but after that absolutely nothing happened. It said that my uploaded photos would make their way to my frame in about 5 minutes.
I waited...
and waited...
and waited some more.
And still no frigging pictures on the frame.
I next tried getting photos sent to the frame from my photobucket account; again with the same issue.
So afterward I then began to seek help from the site. Only there is such a huge lack of help on the site that it could make you throw up just seeing it.
First and foremost, the seeframe site has spelling errors, and the small help section that contains only a mere 50 or so articles on issues only COVERS older models of their frames, there is only 1 article of help involving the ImpactV.
The other help articles are basically stupid questions with mind blowing idiotic answers that seemed to have been written by a third grader. In fact some questions don't even provide a legible answer.
I was so disappointed with the lack of customer care. I then figured I could contact them for help... but you know, I had to make yup a new user name and password just to have the ability to contact customer care! So you have one user name and password for the seeframe account, and one for the customer service. Pretty damn stupid if you ask me.
Left with no choice I created an account and asked for help on why the frame refused to upload photos to the ImpactV.
I never received a reply.
So here I was on my own once again to try and solve the mystery of the frame.
A day later I solved my own issue. On the main page of the seeframe site yo will notice a a small start and stop button next to the sites where you can get photos from. Ex..photobucket, email upload, phone, etc.
Well as it turns out you have to have all of the other sites set to STOP, and only one can be set to START. So pretty much you can only send photos from Photobucket, or from the actual seeframe site where you may of uploaded pictures. You cannot have two of them saying START. Otherwise nothing gets sent.
This was a huge disappointment, and something as small as that SHOULD HAVE, without question, been stated on the site, or in the frigging manual... oh wait, there is NO manual.
So for all you poor saps out there thinking the frame is bugged, fear not. Its just the lack of DIRECTIONS.
The lack of customer support is horrendous, and the lack of a phone number to contact the company is equally as horrendous.
This is not the only issue that I have with the ImpactV though, far from it... but mainly the lack of customer support is the biggest issue.
More Issues:
Another little issue with the ImpactV was the fact that it did not support XD cards. I just bought an Olympus SW, and love the new XD cards, unfortunately the ImpactV does not support such a card.
However even though this was a known issue before buying it, I figured that I would be doing all of my photo displaying and videos thanks to photobucket, and other online sites. The need to plug in the XD card would probably never even come up.
-Another issue that many bloggers have mentioned was the fact that the eStarling ImpactV only would play back 4 minutes of video.
Personally I find 4 minutes to be plenty of time. Keep in mind, it's not a frigging DVD player. 4 minutes is the average clip time on You Tube, so I find it to be long enough.
-Ahhh but wait my furry little friends. The ImpactV does in fact work well when it comes to displaying video...only there is one minor catch they fail to mention.
Whenever a video clip displays on the frame it doesn't just go ahead and play automatically. In order to get the clip to play you must hit the enter button on the remote, or hit the enter button on the touchscreen frame.
This was a huge annoyance, as I would have loved if the frigging video would have just played automatically along with the rest of the slideshow. Having to interact with the thing in order to get video to show was such a disappointment.
For some this may very well be the deal killer. Had I known this prior to my purchase, Id never of gotten the damn thing, yet all of the cookie cutter reviews never got down to the nitty gritty on the ImpactV because well...they obviously never owned one.
-Another minor issue the frame has is that it will at times randomly freeze on a photo. In order to get the other photos to show you have to unplug the ImactV, and let it load up again. The issue should fix itself, but it does happen more than I like.
So here it is folks, my final analysis on my ImpactV:
I like the frame, don't get me wrong. However I would have also liked a manual, and a fuller description on exactly what this frame did, and how the Seeframe site worked. Instead what I got was nearly 24 hours of headaches, and scratching my head saying huh?
Being the sucker I am, I like to own things before most, and in the ImpactV's case, it taught me a valuable lesson. Wait for some other idiot to purchase it first, and wait for a consumer review. Unfortunately I'm that idiot. I should have just went and bought the Edge Wifi frame.
With that said though, the frame is sleek, it does look nice, and the picture is clear and beautiful, but if you're not savvy this frame will be nothing but a pain in the butt, especially when issues arise and there is no manual for self help, and no number to call for assistance.
All in all, would I recommend the Estaring ImpactV?
Sorry to say, but no. The video feature is what sells this frame, the video feature is what got everyone so excited, but seeing that video won't play without being prompted, it's not much better than the $100 wifi frames. eStarling has this one priced at $199.99 as of now, and as of now it's way over priced for what it does...and err...does not do.