Here we show you everything you need to know about the Insignia 10-inch digital photo frame. It’s probably a digital photo frame name you’ve never heard of – and for good reason. We show you how these frames work, what their key features are, and if they’re worth the money. Let’s get started!
Is the Insignia 10-inch digital photo frame worth your money?
The now-discontinued Insignia, a 10-inch digital photo frame was designed to be a low-mid-range digital frame. This was evidenced by its lack of essential features like Wi-Fi capabilities, cloud storage, and a mobile app/web interface.
These frames are very limited in what they can do and how they can be used. The only way to send photos to the Insignia frame is with a supported USB/SD card. Try to avoid using a card or drive with more than 16GB to avoid common compatibility issues. There’s very limited onboard storage, so you’ll most likely need to view the photos directly from the USB/SD card.
Unfortunately, this method leaves you with very little control over slideshows and the play order of photos. You can’t adjust the frequency or order of photos and have limited control over slideshow style, speed, and transition types. You can’t select specific folders to play photos from as the frame doesn’t have a native file browser. All the photos on the USB/SD card will be played in the slideshow.
The randomize function doesn’t work well at all – meaning you’re likely to see the same photos over and over again – with others seldom showing up. The ratings for the frame online are very poor. Support and warranties have also been discontinued along with the frame’s discontinuation, so you’re taking quite a big risk buying this frame.
When you consider the relatively high price for this low-end digital photo frame, it’s hard to justify choosing it over almost all other frames. Your money is probably better spent on a more premium digital frame that has more versatile features like Wi-Fi, cloud storage, and a mobile app/web interface.
Is the Pix-Star frame better than the Insignia 10-inch digital photo frame?
Pix-Star’s digital photo frame is hands down one of the best digital photo frames on the market at the moment. It boxes in a different weight class to the Insignia 10-inch digital photo frame – besting it is every area except price. The massive boost in functionality and versatility you get from the Pix-Star is well-worth the price increase – giving you big value and a frame that’s well-suited to families, elderly users, and individual users.
Pix-Star’s digital frames come in either a 10-inch or an impressive 15-inch model. Both of these frames use a sharp and color-accurate 1024×768 display and versatile 4:3 aspect ratio. Photos sent to the frame from most smartphones match the display aspect ratio perfectly; there’s no need for cropping and black pillar bars to fill in the unused space.
Perhaps Pix-Star’s strongest area is how easy it is to send photos to the frame. You have a multitude of choices including emailing photos, using the mobile app to send pictures, videos & audio, a web interface to import photos, and it even supports USB/SD cards.
8GB of internal storage gives you more than enough space for all of your photos and other media. Free-for-life unlimited cloud storage keeps all the family’s photos safe and accessible through the web interface. Here you can manage all connected frames, start slideshows, make changes to internal storage, adjust settings, and much more. It’s also where cloud storage is managed and edited from.
Web album support is one of Pix-Star’s more unique features. It lets you link photo albums from your favorite social media, photo-sharing, and cloud storage platforms. You can select the albums you want to link and sync to your frame. This is all done through the web interface. You can link multiple albums to the same frame, or link one album to multiple frames. Any linked albums will be automatically updated when you add new photos to ensure everybody is kept up to date without needing to lift a finger!
In summary, Pix-Star digital frame offers an enormous leap in functionality, features, and performance for a not-so-big price jump. It offers much better value for money and is a frame that anybody in the family can use to stay connected with their loved ones.
How good is the Insignia digital photo frame’s viewing experience?
The Insignia 10-inch digital photo frame uses a 16:9 aspect ratio and a very low 640×480 display. Most photos will be visibly pixelated and grainy. 16:9 displays aren’t great on digital photo frames as they don’t match most of the photos taken on our smartphones. This results in cropping, zooming, distorting, or black bars that box in your photos. This makes the already small display even less viewer-friendly and immersive.
Slideshows don’t offer many options or controls that let you manage the play order and frequency in which photos are played. There’s no video or audio support and the frame is quite slow to load photos directly from the USB/SD card (the only way to view photos on the frame).
Can the Insignia digital photo frame connect to Wi-Fi or the cloud?
The Insignia 10-inch digital photo frame is an offline frame. There are no Wi-Fi or cloud capabilities. This is typical of most low-end digital frames and isn’t something you should expect. This is in stark contrast to the extensive Wi-Fi and cloud features offered by premium digital photo frames like the Pix-Star – which in this case doesn’t cost a whole lot more than the Insignia frame.
Insignia frames have also been discontinued, so any chance of a Wi-Fi-capable frame coming from this manufacturer in the future is non-existent. There is no support or post-sale service either.
How to send photos to the Insignia digital photo frame?
Since the Insignia digital photo frame is an offline frame with no Wi-Fi or cloud capabilities, the only way to send photos to it is via USB/SD card. You have to manually load the photos (in JPEG) to the card or drive and insert it into the frame’s relevant ports.
Note that you have to view the photos directly off the drive or card as internal storage is very limited. Additionally, you can’t control which photos from which folders are played (when done directly from the USB/SD card). You should only load the photos to the card that you want to view in slideshows as they’ll all be displayed when the card/drive is inserted.
