Rating: 
Summary: System overload
Review: A great idea, when it works. We repeatedly have difficulty getting on the Ceiva server to upload photos; my impression is that they don't have enough capacity (or reliability) to meet the user demand for services. Unless they upgrade, this should dissuade people who don't want to spend their day waiting for the Ceiva homepage to load.
Rating:
Summary: Not-Ready-for-Prime-Time Product with N-R-f-P-T Customer Svc
Review: This is a prime example of the risks of buying new technology site-unseen from an company not heard of.This was ordered for my mother so that she could receive family photos from relatives the world over. Problems:
1. The product itself is not particular well constructed. The screen is capable of only low resolution display such that jpegs that appear sharp on your computer screen turn on grainy and fuzzy on the Ceiva receiver.
2. The entire concept is flawed. It simplicity of use is supposed to allow techno-unsavvy grandparents to easily receive photos without having to do more complex things like openning up their e-mail and receiving e-mails with attached photos. Yes, but the setup of a Ceiva account absolutely requires logging onto to Ceiva's website to: a) program in local dial-up number(s); set up the user's Ceiva account (why it's not a secure [https] site is beyond me even though it asks for personal information); specify who can access the account to upload photos. Also, if you move the receiver from one site to another (in a different dialing area), you (preferably) need to log into the website to change the local dial-in number BEFORE you move the unit. How's that for intuitive and user-friendly?
3. Most egregiously, customer service is abyssmal. Ceiva makes it clear that holidays are busy times during which their server is overwhelmed. But it took from 12/25 to 12/28 before we were first able to download our pictures because of Ceiva "server congestion". For the past 2 days, I've tried to call Ceiva's customer service line. But, surprise again, it's always busy. Think I'm harsh? Well, read some of the more critical reviews posted previously - they will confirm our experience.
Rating: 
Summary: Great product
Review: I love my Ceiva. I am compulsive about sending myself new pictures, then sending them on to my Dad's Ceiva. What an ingenious product - rotating photos on your desk! My co-workers love to see what's new on the frame. They even use my Ceiva to check the weather!
Rating:
Summary: Quite Dissappointed
Review: I purchased a Ceiva for my girlfriend, and was horribly disappointed when I used it. The "springloaded" tray creaks like a 50 cent childs toy when it opens and closes. The field of view for the frame is quite minimal. The contrast on the frame itself is poor as well. The constructioin itself is quite "cheap", and very lightweight. Overall i would give this product a 2 out of 10. Unfortunately I was unable to view the product before I purchased it. (The store said that since it required a subscription it would not open the box). Now I am stuck with a hoorid product that not only did i pay $150 for but now i have to pay a monthly fee to make it even remotely useful. On the good side, the channel feature is nice, but certainly not worth the money.
Thanks, well for ripping me off and teaching me a lesson I guess.
Jason
Jongalt2626@comcast.net
Rating:
Summary: Do not put purchased reviews on your site please.
Review: Well I read some reviews on your site regarding the receiver and unfortunately bought one. To my utter surprise there is no way you can put your own picutres on your own receiver,except for the company's web site which you have to pay for.So you end up being a milking cow for the company. So your reviews were not helpful at. I can't believe people like paying everymonth for something that they already purchased. I am not saying that being able to send pictures directly to the receiver is a bad thing,but not having an option seems a weird thing to do.
Rating: 
Summary: Buyer Beware
Review: In theory, this should be a great product. Here's a fairly reasonably priced Photo Display, at least for what's been around in the past few years. If someone doesn't have a computer, they can still use it..pretty much just plug it in and wait for the pictures to come. I bought one for my 72 year old mother despite the mixed reviews online. It seemed that with the new model, some of the problems had been worked out and it was worth a shot. I figured I would beat the Christmas rush and get everything set up at my house before I wrapped the present. We could just plug it in and not worry about the tech support issues on Christmas Day. Well here I am, about 12 hours after I first opened the box and I'm still waiting to finish downloading my photos and channels. Here's the process: 1) I created an account and registered the receiver. I purchased the extended warranty and got the one year subscription. This was an easy set up and there were no problems here. 2) I selected 17 pictures from my computer and uploaded them to the site. Again, no real problems here. I used a program to reduce the size of the photos to less than 100k and reduced them to 640x480 pictures because of the info I read here. 3) I attempted to dial in to a local number and download the pictures. Here is where the trouble started. I had to dial in at least a dozen different times because of connection failures. I kept getting messages like "congestion" and "general failure". These messages have appeared over these past 12 hours. I had to unplug and restart the Receiver twice because it froze after attempting downloading. 4) I finally got the pictures downloaded and then attempted to add the Weather Channel, and a couple of picture channels to the Receiver. I went through the procedure to add the Weather Channel on the Website. It told me it was added, but never showed up in my "pictures to download" folder. I emailed customer support and got an automated reply back. I tried entering a different Zip Code and amazingly it worked for Minneapolis, but not St. Paul. 5) I then attempted to delete pictures through the website. I went through the ones I wanted to trash and followed the procedures as directed. The pictures were never deleted, so the channels did not download to the Receiver, because there wasn't space. I finally selected the pictures to delete on the Receiver itself and tried to download the channels again. I was finally able to download the Channels after several more failed attempts to connect to the network. 6) There are also ways on the website to change the duration of display preferences on the receiver. So far the changes I made in these preferences have not made it on any of the downloads. My pictures are stuck on 5 second display. I'm still working on trying to resolve this issue. This might work out OK if you are willing to take the time to work through all these problems. If you are giving this to an elderly person or someone who has little or no computer experience, think again. You will probably have to provide tech support for them for this to work properly. I hate to think about all the people trying to get pictures on this thing Christmas Eve or Day. The display itself seems to be adequate. The pictures are fairly bright and can easily be seen, even in a well lit room. The angle of viewing is OK, but not great. It's kind of like the old passive matrix computer screens...well, better than that, but not up to the quality of current LCD technology. Improvements that I would like to see are viewing preferences on the display and a way to directly transfer pictures to the display without going through Ceiva. I realize this ruins their "razorblade" scenario for making money through annual subscriptions, but there has to be a better way of accomplishing transfer of the photos.
Rating:
Summary: Memories of good times past
Review: We've had a Ceiva for about 6 months, and have loved it - my kids get up every morning and run in to see if we have new pictures, and to see the daily Disney scene. About a month ago, we had occasion to use our Ceiva in another way. My brother-on-law passed away suddenly, and we had a large memorial service. Along with the sadness, we wanted to have a way to think about some of the happy times in his life -- our Ceiva came to mind. We loaded the Ceiva with pictures from his life -- from childhood up thru the past few weeks - and had it on the table outside the chapel as his friends and family came in. People just stood in front of the Ceiva and oohed and aahed and occasionally, cried -- it was an incredible way to share our memories and talk about good times we'd had with him. Thank you-- this is a great product.
Rating:
Summary: Beware
Review: I made the mistake of getting my mother and mother in-law Ceivas last year for Christmas. Both have failed within the first year of use. Ceiva's customer service is difficult to get ahold of (never respond to e-mails, 20min hold on phone) and inflexible on their policies. I made the further mistake of buying a new receiver to replace the one that failed after the warranty expired and found out that the 3 year prepaid subscription was not transferable to the new receiver unless I paid an additional year. Now I have a subscription through December of 2006 for a product I expect will fail within six months. When it works the product is simple to use but the picture quality is substantially below what any computer LCD screen provides.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Gift - Great for anyone!
Review: I recently purchased a Ceivea from the Discovery Store. This was a gift for my husbands Aunt and Uncle. They live close to us for 6 months and go to Florida for 6 months out of the year. I purchased the Ceiva because I never have time to get pictures developed and mail out to them. They loved it! I set-up the Ceiva---coming from a product development background the directions were dummy proof, easy to follow and set-up. I highly recommend this product! It's easy because I control the dial in number, can invite buddies to add pictures and everyone is happy! EXCELLENT GIFT for Gramma and Grampa, Aunts & Uncles and anyone that lives far away that you want to share pictures with! Now they enjoy precious moments and Cevia offers an extra benefit---If they want a printed picture, all they have to do is hit a button and Ceiva will print the picture and send it to them!
Rating: 
Summary: Improving - Ceiva Review
Review: Summary:
Concept: Awesome. I had an ailing Grandfather in an assisted living home who was able to enjoy memories (I utilized the album function to store lots of photos from his past) by watching his frame and never having to touch it. Customer Service: Average. They attempt to do the right thing, but their lack of financial support for their poor technology (basically if the frame stops working after 30 days it isn't their problem anymore) is very upsetting. Technology: Poor hardware. Even the 'Ceiva II' I have now purchased suffered severe rebooting issues before finally stabilizing. And I highly recommend the extended warranty - though it is disgusting that you actually are buying for one year of protection...you aren't _extending_ any warranty they provide.
Their Website for maintaining the frame is very easy to use and has come a long way in allowing lots of different functionality to personalize your frame. Cost: High (too high). Now that they've come up with the Ceiva II the subscription rate is $90 a year. Pretty steep. Be sure that if you have technological problems with your frame that you demand the addition of weeks/months added to that subscription. My History: I bought my first Ceiva Digital Photo Receiver (the 'Ceiva I' as it is now referred to) in October of 2001. Actually I purchased two. Right out of the box one worked (after a bunch of hassle forcing it to dial-in repeatedly) and one did not. Ceiva sent me a refurbished frame in replacement of the one that didn't work (though this refurbished frame worked great, it was disconcerting that they didn't send me a brand new frame).
The two frames worked good for 1.5 years. Then, the frame that was orginally okay out of the box suddenly stopped working. Back and forth, we decided to get a new frame to replace it. Ceiva was good about transfering the subscription we already had over to the new frame and adding a month of service since we were unable to utilize the frame during that time.
Five months later THAT frame stopped working! Ceiva claimed they had a rash of problems with a set of frames and said a little electrical connector should fix the problem. They sent the connector for free. It did not fix the problem. My feeling is that this connector should've been sent to all customers who received those faulty frames because it looked to be a device to stop electrical surges...and obviously once your frame is dead, it isn't going to fix it. Ceiva would not do anything to reimburse cost or swap frames. I was out the money. So, because it was a frame for my parents...and they were just about to have their first grandchild, I purchased the 'Ceiva II' to replace it. Big problem there is that it meant my subscription rate went automatically from $60/year to $90/year. OUCH. Again, Ceiva was good about extending my subscription for the time I was unable to utilize the frame. Basically, Caveat Emptor. The concept is great, but there are hassles in your future with the technology, and additional $$ to be paid out.
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