Which photo frames with electronic displays offer the best value for money?
Photo frames with electronic displays can be extremely versatile additions to your home – helping you connect and share with your loved ones more effortlessly. One of the main issues you’ll face is trying to find the right frame. On paper, even cheap digital frames can seem like massive value bargains. Many of them even claim to offer the features and functions of much more expensive frames.
Unfortunately, real-world and paper performance are often on opposite ends of the quality scale. Most cheap and mid-range digital frames miss out on key features and functions required to make a digital frame reliable, versatile, and easy to use. These features include Wi-Fi, cloud storage, USB/SD card support, offline functionality, and more.
Pix-Star’s photo frames with electronic check a lot of the right boxes. You get free-for-life cloud storage, intuitive interfaces, video & audio playback support, access to a mobile app & web dashboard for sending photos from anywhere in the world, a 4:3 aspect ratio, versatile slideshows, and much more.
Pix-Star was the company that came up with the idea of giving a digital photo frame a unique email address for receiving photos and identifying the frame. Other features like the ability to remotely control any of your Pix-Star frames from anywhere, web album support (importing photos from social media and photo-sharing sites), and automatic cloud backups make the Pix-Star well-suited to the modern home & family.
You can send up to 250 photos to several Pix-Star digital frames at the same time with the mobile app. You can send video & audio messages from anywhere in the world too. The web dashboard lets you import photos from social media, photo-sharing, and online-storage sites. You can also import photo albums directly from your computer to your frame’s internal storage.
When you consider the Pix-Star frames are cheaper than most other premium digital frames – and that there are no extra recurring or hidden fees – it’s hard to ignore their value. While there is no perfect digital frame, Pix-Star’s versatile and robust feature set – along with great usability and longevity – makes them one of the best choices on the market for families, homes, and users that aren’t very tech-savvy.
How do photo frames with electronic slideshows work?
Photo frames with electronic slideshow use a combination of internal storage space, USB/SD card support, and Wi-Fi/cloud-enabled features to source and display photos within slideshows. With Pix-Star’s frames, you get plenty of slideshow customizations that let you adjust the play order, frequency, style, and speed of slideshows.
Additionally, some digital frames like the Pix-Star let you include videos in slideshows, along with the ability to play audio files or web music/radio stations over the same slideshow. Videos can be set to play muted or with their accompanying sound when included in slideshows.
With some of the best photo frames with electronic displays, slideshows can be started remotely. This is usually done through the web dashboard (with Pix-Star frames), but mobile apps are used in some cases. With Pix-Star’s frames, you can start slideshows from specific files or folders, or remotely from different sources (e.g., Facebook photos) from anywhere in the world.
Do photo frames with electronic displays run on batteries?
Very few good-quality photo frames with electronic displays run on batteries. There are multiple limitations such as reduced battery life & longevity, poor feature sets, and limited ability to run background processes. The result is that many battery-run electronic photo frames don’t include essential features like Wi-Fi or cloud functionality, big displays (10-inch or larger), versatile slideshow settings, and the ability to import photos wirelessly.
The vast majority of battery-run digital frames only let you load photos to the frame by USB/SD card – which feels rather outdated in the modern home or family. You can’t remotely control these frames, and they often don’t have much internal storage space – meaning the USB/SD card needs to be left inserted at all times.
You also don’t have much control over slideshows and the play order/frequency of photos being displayed. This makes it hard to create customized slideshows to suit the room, situation, or occasion. It’s one of the main reasons we suggest getting a reliable non-battery digital frame like the Pix-Star 10-inch frame.
Can I play videos on a photo frame with an electronic display?
Many of the best photo frames with electronic displays can play videos – but there are almost always limits on either the video file size or length. With Pix-Star’s electronic frames, you can play 2-minute video clips (which is more than almost all other premium digital frames. With other top frames like the Skylight or Nixplay, you need to pay an additional subscription fee to unlock or extend video support.
To send video clips to Pix-Star’s frames, you can use the Pix-Star Snap mobile app (select and send videos from your frame’s gallery) or USB/SD cards. Insert the USB/SD card into the frame’s port and copy the video files to the frame’s internal storage. Alternatively, Pix-Star supports a plug & play feature that lets you play media directly off the connected USB/SD card.
Can photo frames with electronic displays save photos to the cloud?
Pix-Star’s photo frames with electronic displays let you save all of your photos, videos, and audio messages to the cloud. Pix-Star’s takes this free feature to new heights by offering free-for-life cloud storage and automatic backups. You don’t need to manually save or sync new photos. This is excellent for families and modern homes that often don’t have the time to manage all the cloud backups for every frame or family member.
Pix-Star’s frames can also import photos from social media, photo-sharing, and online cloud-storage platforms directly to your frame’s internal storage. These are known as web albums. Once a web album has been linked to your Pix-Star frame, it can be set to automatically update any newly added photos – automating much of the photo-sharing process – and saving you a whole lot of time and frustration. It’s also a great feature for elderly users or for sharing photos with a loved one that’s not very tech-savvy.
