Rating: 
Summary: It's all in the connection
Review: I've always been into the coolest and latest gadgets to hit the market. Lately I've slowed down on my purchases as the world of electronics seems to change daily, but last year I happen to run across Ceiva and thought the idea was pretty cool and fun to use. I gave it as a Christmas gift to my brother (who just recently was married) as he now lives over 1,000 miles away from home, and my grandmother whom I see once or twice a year due to distance as well. Never have I ever given a gift to anyone that has meant as much as this Ceiva product. It has kept us close as brothers and as a family. It's really hard to explain how much this product has changed our lives, but it has. I purchased a Ceiva for myself sometime in August, and have enjoyed the same wonderfully emotional experience. This year Ceiva has a new version of their product out (Ceiva 2) which as a family we have decided to give as Christmas gifts to several family memebers and friends! It will be so amazing to stay in touch with the lives of our own family and lifelong friends. Other reviews on the Internet talk down the fact that Ceiva requires a subscription, but I have to tell you, it's the connection that makes this product as my grandmother would say "a magic show". I looked at other products (the most recent one made by a company called Pacific Digital) which I wasn't impressed with at all. It doesn't require a subscription, but I can tell you the quality of the product is very poor, and in the end I wasn't interested in looking at my own digital photo's at home. Ceiva allows me to share my digital pictures with my family in a way I was never able to before. Note that someone in the family does need to have a computer to send pictures to the Ceiva Receivers in-box, but it really is fast and easy to do. The endless "thank you's" from my family has been worth every penny!
Rating:
Summary: Brings Family Together
Review: First, a little about the Ceiva. And then, a little about just how cool it really is. The Ceiva is basically just a screen that shows digital pictures. I bought some last year that show 20 pictures at any one time. The new ones (I just got 3 more!) do 30 -- plus some very cool new stuff too. See... what makes this so awesome, is that the Ceiva plugs into a phone line, and then dials out every night and grabs new pictures from your account -- you could get 30 new pictures every day. There's a cost for this service, but for the value, it's really quite reasonable. They have monthly and yearly plans, or if you're buying it as a gift, you can get a gift certificate good for a year of service. This new Ceiva does some cool things the first one didn't. First, I can delete pictures out of my slideshow right from the unit. Before, I had to do it on Ceiva's website and then have the Ceiva dial in again. Also, if I like a particular picture, I can just hit a button, and it'll order prints of that picture for me -- and they'll show up in the mail in a couple of days! We bought 5 Ceiva's last year. Each one of them has turned out to be amazing, in increasing our ability to share our lives, our joy, and our pain with our family. My adopted daughter's great grandmother had one. Even though she was bedridden, she was able to keep up with Erin, and see pictures of our family, as well as her other grandchildren's families, as we sent her new pictures every day. When my own grandmother passed away this year, we took pictures of all the friends and family who came for the funeral, and then sent some of those out to my sister, who couldn't make it. She still thanks me for that. My wife's father likes the fact that the weather channel is available on the ceiva -- every night he gets a 3-day forecast uploaded, which he can see at a glance when he gets up in the morning. They're out in Missouri, and they call us every couple of days asking for new pictures. I never thought such a little thing could have such a profound effect on our family, but it has. I can't recommend the ceiva high enough.
Rating:
Summary: So much more than a digital frame
Review: We looked at many digital frames and what won us over wasn't screen quality, picture capacity or computer interfaces. It simply was that only the Ceiva allowed our family to stay in touch from Rhode Island, Florida and Los Angeles. With Mom and Dad retired in Naples, FL, this feature allowed my 3 sisters and I to send them pictures of our families every day. All our parents have to do is wake-up and view. Mom almost cried when she saw my sister's sonogram...pretty cool.
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Summary: Awesome Gift, My Grandfather loves it!
Review: This is really a neat gift. My grandfather lives in another state (Oregon) and rarely sees his kids and grandkids. Now he is getting new pictures from all kids & grandkids every night with his Ceiva Digital Photo Receiver. I mailed him one and all he had to do was plug it into an electrical outlet and plug in the phone line and press a button. Now every night it automatically calls the Ceiva website and retreives any pictures we kids have sent. He also gets new weather forecasts with his new pictures every morning when he wakes up. An incredibly easy way to keep families in touch. One note: I was worried at first because dad does not have a compuer & "that internet thing", but thankfully with Ceiva they are not needed!
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Summary: Perfect for Nursing Home
Review: I bought this for my paralyzed cousin that is in a nursing home. She has had it about 6 months and it is great. It does a slideshow through 20 pictures and I change the pictures out about every week or so. I subscribed her to some of the channels they have available with the subscription (so I wouldn't have to take so many pictures...) and she get the current weather forecast, her horoscope and a flower a day. It is perfect.
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Summary: LOVE IT!! LOVE IT!! BEST GIFT, EASY AS 1,2,3
Review: I AM A PHOTO ENTHUSIAST AND I LOVE THIS GADGET. MY HUSBAND WANTED ONE FOR HIS BIRTHDAY, SO I SURPRISED HIM. IT WAS SO EASY!! POP OPEN THE BOX, PLUG IN, UPLOAD AND WOW PHOTO'S COME TO LIFE. I AM GETTING ONE FOR EACH FAR AWAY GRANDPARENT!!
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Summary: The best gift for long distance girlfriend ever!
Review: I bought Cevia for my girlfriend when it first came out and we lived 3 hours apart. She loved waking up every morning and checking what I had sent. A year later we were married. Now we both load pictures on and surprise each other. It's so easy, your grandmother could use it. And she'll love it too.
Rating:
Summary: Definitely worth the money to stay in touch
Review: I got this picture frame for my grandparents, who are both in their eighties, to see pictures of our new son. They both love it, and that's really all that matters to me. We live in Chicago, and they live in New Jersey, so we don't see each other very often. I took advantage of a trip for Poppa's 85th birthday to buy the receiver, take it out there and set it up for them. The setup is a snap. They've moved it once already (from room to room) and had no problems setting it back up. (Note that if you set it up in one area code and move it, you'll have to do some configuration changes to get it to dial the new number. I made sure that I set it up for their area code before I took it out there.) The picture quality is very good, but the viewing angle isn't so great. You pretty much have to view the frame from directly in front of it. This newer model can hold 30 images, and I usually upload 640x480 JPEGs that are around 50KB each. It connects every night around midnight or so via their phone line and a local number I picked. A little green LED on the front panel blinks to let them know that new pictures are waiting. The spring-loaded plastic panel on the front feels cheaply made and on my unit had a weak spring that didn't push it out all the way. But you only need it to manually advance through the pictures, order prints, or delete an image. You can use the Ceiva without pulling out the panel. Back in Chicago, I just upload images to the festive-looking ceiva.com website (they change the site icon theme for every season) and they sit in the inbox waiting for the overnight connection. Ceiva has a nice upload tool that can upload single or multiple (up to 30) images. It can also customize them by adding captions, background color, etc. However, it doesn't let you see a preview of the changes before you upload the image. The upload tool can also email the pictures to friends who don't have a Ceiva. But it doesn't work like you might think: instead of sending them a message with the images as attachments they get an email with a link that takes them to a "crippled" slideshow on Ceiva's website. Still, it's better than no email at all. The Ceiva website also lets you invite family members and friends to upload pictures to the unit via your account. Since I have a large family that lives all over the world, this is a nice feature to have. The accounts are limited, though. They can only use their account to upload pictures. They don't have access to my master album, which would be nice so they could see my pictures and order prints. As a word of caution, from things I've seen posted around the Internet: if you want the best experience with this product buy it before or after Christmas, which is when everyone buys it and swamps Ceiva's website and tech support staff. I've emailed a question to tech support and received a response within a day, which isn't so bad. Two other minor quibbles I have with the product:
- I wish the monthly subscription was cheaper. I don't like buy gifts for people with a monthly subscription attached, so I pay it. But is it worth $.../month to upload/download images to a website? I'd rather pay somewhere around $...or have it be free.
- Instead of a phone line the Ceiva should be able to connect over an existing Internet connection (i.e., TCP/IP). That way my parents, who are missionaries in Thailand, could have one as well. But all in all, this is a good product, and the thank you's that I keep getting from my grandparents consistently affirm that.
Rating:
Summary: Perfect for everyone
Review: I had seen one of these on a freinds desk, and she raved about it. I thought the prices were high, until I saw a refurbished unit on ebay, so I gaave it a shot. Man is this thing neat. I liked it so much I bought two more for my parents and Inlaws, and they love it too. They get daily updates of the grandkids each morning, and order prints directly online of the shots they like. Limited computer skills are needed to set up initially, and none there after I would definatily recomend this for anyone with extended distance families.
Rating: 
Summary: Terrific gift, especially for non-tech grandparents
Review: We gave this as a gift to my 82 year old grandmother two years ago, and it's still a hit. She checks the frame for new pictures every morning when she's making her coffee; she's even gotten mad at us a couple of times for replacing pictures that we didn't know were her favorites. It's best to set it up BEFORE you send it to them so that all the recipient has to do is plug in a phone cord and let it run. Grandma's never had a problem with her unit, and we wish we could find another gift that would be so popular.
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