It was my birthday and I had another chance to pick a gift for myself on behalf of my relatives. I decided that it is unlikely that I will ever have the time to build my own DIY Digital Picture Frame, and after some research I decided to purchase i-Mate Momento.
What I liked about it:
- Standard card/usb drive/flash drive support
- Wi-Fi support
- Vista Sideshow support
- i-Mate’s own Live service that allows RSS type updates
What I was cautious about:
- Relatively low resolution (not a big problem when looking from a few feet away)
- Issues with setup from Engadget post
I’ve read a few reviews and ignoring the warnings about setup issues on Engadget ordered it from Amazon.
It arrived and I had the hardest time connecting it to my wireless network. I have Dlink DIR-655 with two laptops connecting to it without any issues. Momento just didn’t see my SSID, while seeing neighbors’ networks. It seems to detect Netgear networks the best. I tried a lot of different things without success: loading settings through USB, changing settings on Dlink router, etc.
Here is what worked for me:
- Install latest firmware (1.10 as of 2007/10/26) — do not believe status page that says you are running the latest
- Backup settings before installing this one — it resets everything to default
- Turn off “Wireless Protected Setup” – that allowed Momento to see my network ssid, but it wasn’t enough
- Change WPA Mode to "WPA Only"
- Change Cipher Type from AES to TKIP – that allowed Momento to connect.
Here are my settings:
A few words about customer support: horrible, horrible, horrible… Gadget that costs $300 should come with phone support. i-Mate only offers email support that responded with the same generic troubleshooting steps that are available on their website. I am still waiting (3 days) for the answer to my follow up email.
Now that I got it to work, a few first impressions:
- low resolution is kinda annoying if you are trying to examine the picture closer than few feet
- Didn’t see a way to setup a schedule for it (turn on at 9AM, turn off at 11PM)
- Remote control is ok
- Feels a little sluggish
- UI is pleasant
More details to come.
Links:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000J6E2WW/ref=noref/102-6992261-9696926?ie=UTF8&s=photo
http://www.engadget.com/2007/02/25/hands-on-with-the-i-mate-momento-70/
Mike Grushin
