This is a warning post to stay away from eStarling, company and products. Like many geeks, I preorder the eStarling WiFi Photo Frame from thinkgeek. This was the perfect gift, a frame that updates photos from your flickr account ensuring the grandparents always have fresh photos of the kids. Units were supposed to ship early December and thinkgeek said "if you need this before Christmas, preorder and we'll get it to you - if not we can't guarantee anything." Thinkgeek is a trusted source by geeks, so I took heed. The frames arrived very late, so late thinkgeek upgraded everyone's shipping to overnight or next day for free.
On Thursday 12th December, 2006 - a date which will live in infamy - thousands of eStarling frames arrived B.O.D. (bricked on delivery).
Mine wouldn't connect to the PC. The software reported a "No Disk" error, which you had to click cancel 20+ times to close. I went to the eStarling forums and found already over 100 posts of problems. I posted mine (it wasn't listed) and a helpful geek replied back it needed to create a system folder on the eStarling internal flash drive. I had a system file, not folder, so I deleted it and power cycled the unit several times. No good, the file kept coming back. I couldn't create a directory named system either. I then deleted the file, scandisked and defraged the drive - finally I could create the folder. The configuration software worked with only clicking the "no disk" error once.
Then I found out the frame must be 4-6 feet from the WiFi hub, and is 802.11b only. This is bad for many geeks, as you would normally disable "b" on a faster "g" router because one "b" device will drop the speed of all devices connected. I also learned the unit is only configured by the eStarling website, and this is the only way photos can be loaded to the frame. Last, if the unit cannot connect to the eStarling site, it cannot operate. (It has slots for every type of camera flash memory, but even the require access to the site).
Reading the forums, there were issues by everyone. eStarling's product images left out the, in one customer's words, "phallic rubber antennae sticking out the back." It runs a craptastic 480x234 resolution - painful on it's 7" 16x9 screen. Oh, 16x9... photos are 4x3, so everything gets a black bar. The documentation included is a worthless quarter sheet telling you to insert the CD and visit the site. It runs *very* hot. It claims Google Picasa and Webshots support (on the front of the box even) and supports neither. It will only work with gMail - if you use another email service forget the "email photo to frame" feature. People that did get it to read Flickr RSS feeds found it downloads one photo about every 30 minutes. It changes photos at a seizure causing 1-2 times per second.
So what has eStarling done? They deleted the forums, and left a message to email or call a voice mail number for support; they will get back to you after the holidays. They have also taken to astroturfing blogs. Sorry eStarling, this is 2006 and we have the Internet. Gizmodo already has an honest review posted. Your customers (like me) have blogs and will use them. And we can do things like 
I've already requested an RMA with Thinkgeek, a site that pays for shipping on returns of defective products. It's good to see some companies take customer service seriously.
Update 12/26/2006: eStarling is claiming all the problems are related to bad power supplies, and claim they are shipping replacements. Forums are still offline, and I fail to see how the power supply will fix the need to go through their website for all configuration. As an aside, this FAQ entry tell you there is no Picasa support, but this page claims there is - also check out the reason 480x234 is high quality but know that 4:3 standard photos can only use 312x234.
Thinkgeek still lists the product, but is listed both as "in stock" and "unavailable for order." For reference, here is the "before and after" image of the product (before and after it shipped):
The astroturf blog has an "update" post... funny how it was picture perfect a few days ago.
I've been dugg!
