TAO 1.4 inch LCD Digital Photo Keychain Review

TAO 1.4 inch LCD Digital Photo Keychain Review

We all love taking pictures and showing them off to our friends and family, be it a special occasion or just having some fun, but digital pictures are hard to take with you as they are not tangible, material things, they’re just data after all. One of the reasons sites like Flickr are extremely popular is because of the popularity of taking photographs and sharing them, but people can’t always access the site, and it’s not always worth it to print out every photo we take. Digital Photo Keychains are an inexpensive and easy way to take our photos with us to share them, and they also make great gifts to give away to family and friends, load them up with photos and you’ve got a great gift that can be used over and over again. You can easily load your pictures on them, share them, and then just put more pictures on when need be, it’s very simple and easy to do, they make a great temporary photo storage and display device.

 

Today for review I’ve got another Digital Photo Keychain from our friends at Wholesale Keychain , it’s called the TAO and it features a 1.4 inch Lcd screen, large memory capacity, and even an included AC adapter to make charging the battery easier.

 

 

 

 

TAO 1.4 inch LCD Digital Photo Keychain Review

Author: Kristofer Brozio

Sponsor: Wholesale Keychain

 

 

 

Tech Specs,Features or the Basic Info:

You can find more Product Reviews of many

Digital Photo Frames at Testfreaks.com .

TAO 1.4 inch LCD Digital Photo Keychain

Digital Photo Keychain – TAO 1.4 inch Square

TAO is proud to be the industry first with the digital picture keychain. This year, TAO again raises the bar by introducing the 1.4″ digital picture keychain, and by offering Macintosh support for past and current models.

FEATURES:

* Holds 56 photos, period.

Surpassing the brag-book standard of 20-30 photographs, toting around a comprehensive collection is a breeze. Utilize TAO’s user friendly software to transfer photos directly from your PC or Mac; then share you precious memories with your co-workers and friends.

* Bigger, brighter, clearer display.

The 1.4″ digital picture keychain is bigger, brighter, and clearer than before. Three times the resolution of its predecessor, our new model brings crisp images of our loved ones anywhere, anytime.

* Rechargeable lithium battery.

Never worry about batteries! After 30 minutes of being connected to the outlet or computer, your little gadget will brim with 2 1/2 of “on” time (which roughly translates to a week or two of standard show-and-tell).

* Slideshow & auto-off.

With 56 photos, it can get tiring to keep pressing the buttons – so we included a slideshow mode! We’re all a little forgetful now and then, and the friendly little keychain will turn off after 3 minutes of neglect.

 

SPECIFICATIONS:

* Screen: 1.4″ CSTN LCD – 108 x 80

* Internal memory: 8 MB

* Pictures: 56

* Battery: 2.5 hours

* PC interface: USB port 1.1

* Software: Both PC and Macintosh

* Weight: 4 oz

* Dimension: 1.8″ x 1.8″ x 0.5″

INCLUDES:

* AC Adapter

* USB Cable

* CD-ROM

* User’s Manual

* Gift Box

Price: $34.99

for $5.99 more you can get three lines of engraving on the back as well

A Better Look at Things

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The TAO Digital Photo Keychain comes packaged in a nice gift giving box, you can actually just put an address on the box and ship it along it’s way to whoever you wish.

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Inside the shipping box is the actual TAO box, it’s also nicely done and gifting quality. You can plainly see the TAO through a window on the front, and the back has lots of information about the keychain including a diagram of the functions of the keychain.

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Opeing it up we find another small box which has the AC adapter in it, user manual, software CD, USB cable and the TAO Photo Keychain itself.

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The front of the keychain just has the word TAO on it underneath the actual display screen, it’s made mostly of plastic that is black and silver in color.

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The back can be engraved by Wholesale Keychains for a more personalized look, they made a label for us with our logo on it as an example, as it was a bit large to be engraved, so they’ll work with you depending on your needs on what you want done with the keychains personalization.

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On the top are three buttons, Back, Power and Forward, these buttons also double as options buttons for deleting pictures without going into the software. The Forward button when held in is used to Delete one picture, the one currently being viewed, the Back buttons is used to Delete all pictures, and the Power button is used to confirm deletion. Since you have to confirm deletion you won’t have to worry about accidentally deleting the pictures.

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On right side is a mini-USB port that is used for charging via the USB cable or AC adapter, it’s also used to transferring your pictures to the TAO.

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You can find more Product Reviews of many

Digital Photo Frames at Testfreaks.com .

Installation, Testing and Comparison

If you read my review of the Silver Digital Photo Keychain (review HERE), then you’ll know that it featured built in software, the TAO doesn’t have that, you’ll actually have to install it from the included disc. I was going to install the software from the disc but decided to check the TAO website first for any updates and there was one, so I installed that instead of the software included on the disc as it was an older version.

The software itself is easy to use, you can navigate to your pictures and add them easily to the picture que on the right side. You can also use the program to crop your pictures to show only the part you want seen. When you’re done adding pictures to the que, you just hit ‘Transfer Collection to Keychain’ and the software transfers it over. Underneath the que window it only displays how many pictures you can transfer over as well so you know just how many will fit on the TAO.

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And here’s a bunch of sample pictures or the pictures on the TAO. They’re decent quality, but you can see the pixels if you look closely at them, but it is only 108×80 resolution so we’re not expecting HD quality pictures here.

I’ve taken the pictures at different distances so you can get an idea of the quality, most people aren’t going to be holding it right up to their face to look at them, from a distance they’re not that bad, but you can still see the pixels, but again the resolution is low.

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I’ve also taken a few with a macro lens attached to show close up shots, you can really see the pixelation when looking closely at the pictures.

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The battery charge life time is fine, 2 ½ hours might not seem like much, but when put in perspective with the actual amount of time you use the device, it’s really a good amount of time, battery charge should last a few weeks if not even longer. You’ll only really use the TAO for a few minutes at a time, if that, depending on how many pictures you have stored on it. It only takes 30 minutes to charge the battery as well, so that’s pretty quick really compared to other battery types that can take an hour or more to charge.

 

I did run into one small problem, the ‘forward’ button sometimes sticks in the down position, you can fix it easily just by pushing the button again, but since the function of the Forward button is also to delete pictures when you hold it in for 4 seconds this might be a problem if you’re not paying attention. Though it won’t actually delete your picture when this happens, you have to actually confirm deletion by pressing the power button, but it can be annoying as it’s stuck there until you fix it. Of course this problem is most likely specific to the unit I received for review, I did search around and found quite a few comments about this particular keychain and not one mentioned the button sticking down…

-One small note about capacity, the specs mentioned that the TAO can hold 56 pictures, but according to the capacity of the one I have it can hold 62 pictures in total, not sure if that’s a misprint of what…

On a personal note, I’ll be loading this up with pictures to give to my mom now so she can have pictures of her grandkids to show off to everyone. Most people that know me personally know that my mom is very sick, she needs new liver, on the transplant list etc, and my children would go and stay with her on weekends to visit, but now due to her condition she can’t get around too well and really can’t handle having them and taking care of them now so she rarely gets to see them as most of the time she is resting/sleeping etc from all of the medications she is on. She loves the kids, and has a wallet full of pictures of them, the TAO Digital Photo Keychain is something that I think she’ll really like and appreciate having that many photos available in easy reach, and I can take my laptop down and load it up with new pictures from time to time for her easily.

You can find more Product Reviews of many

Digital Photo Frames at Testfreaks.com .

Summary:

The TAO Digital Photo Keychain is a great little product that allows you take many photos with you, be them for personal use or even business related.

The TAO would make a great personal gift, or a way to show off your products from your business.

Overall it’s a great little product, the picture quality isn’t the greatest but for the price it’s acceptable and expected. The plastic housing should last a long time under normal conditions, but I’d be wary of carrying it in a pocket full of keys as the screen might scratch.

DragonSteelMods gives the Digital Photo Keychain – TAO 1.4 inch Square a 4.5 out of 5 score.

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Pros:

-Holds lots of pictures

-Included AC adapter

-Nice packaging for gifting

-Easy to use

-Easy to use software

-Acceptable picture quality

-Can be engraved/personalized

-Good quality overall

-Long lasting battery/quick charge

-Makes a great personalized gift

Cons:

-Button sticks at times

-Can see individual pixels

-Picture quality not that great

-Plastic housing might not last

I would like to thank Wholesale Keychain for the chance to review the Digital Photo Keychain – TAO 1.4 inch Square and for their continued support of DSM.

review# 454

You can find more Product Reviews of many

Digital Photo Frames at Testfreaks.com .