Sony DPF-V900 review

As one would expect from Sony, the DPF-V900 is a stunning piece of kit, a 9in picture frame destined to enhance any home.

You'll need a cloth, though, as the price of such stylish glass and metal is finger marks and smudges - lots of them.

Not that you'll need to be hands-on with the Sony DPF-V900, blessed as it is with a tiny remote. Indeed, the remote control is so small you could easily lose it. You can, of course, operate the V900 from the unit itself.

Setup is a cinch. The Sony DPF-V900's stand is discreet, built-in and easy to operate. And it works for portrait and landscape modes - as does the screen itself, automatically righting itself.

There's a plethora of connectivity options for both PC and memory cards, although at this price the omission of a USB cable is irritating.

The inclusion of Bluetooth and 512MB of internal storage are plusses, although to use Bluetooth on the Sony DPF-V900 you have to shell out for a proprietary USB dongle.

The Sony DPF-V900's image quality disappoints. It's not bad exactly, but pictures look a tad washed out, if sharp.

Glare is also an issue. Admittedly our office is bathed in sunlight, and the glare-inducing glossy finish sharpens the Sony DPF-V900's images.

The Sony DPF-V900 has an effective display area of 8.6in, displays images in a 15:9 aspect ratio and can handle images up to a resolution of 8,000x6,000 pixels.

Nice touches include the Sony DPF-V900's clock and calendar modes - both stylishly implemented and simple to use. And we love the fact that the Sony can display Tiffs, BMPs and RAW images, as well as the ubiquitous Jpeg.

You can output from the Sony DPF-V900 to HDMI, too, to display high-definition images on an HDTV.

Alongside the style, the interface sells the Sony DPF-V900. It's responsive, easy to use, feature packed and, yes, good looking. A transparency effect means you can view images even as you’re navigating the menu.

Auto touch-up corrects exposure and red-eye. Keen photographers will eschew these fixes for PC-based editing, but if you want quick-and-dirty improvement to your holiday snaps without booting your computer, you could do a lot worse than the Sony DPF-V900's built-in capability.

TFT active matrix; actual viewing area: 187 x 112mm; display aspect ratio: 15:9; accepts Memory Stick, Memory Stick Duo, SD, MMC, CompactFlash, MicroDrive, xD media; USB, HDMI-out, Bluetooth (with additional adaptor); compatible with Jpeg, tiff, BMP, RAW; max pixels: 8,000x6,000; 512MB internal memory; 245x162x38.5mm; 800g