Is the Pix-Star the best digital photo frame for the money?
Pix-Star has cemented itself as being one of the top picks for the best digital photo frame on the market. Considering the price point and the absence of any recurring costs, subscriptions, or hidden fees, the Pix-Star digital photo frame offers massive value. Through a combination of Wi-Fi & cloud capabilities, a smart and intuitive interface, and an ecosystem of frames with plenty of control and customizations delivers you an astounding digital frame.
Pix-Star’s frames are renowned for their feature-rich functionality and ease of use. It strikes just the right balance point to cater to both elderly users and the rest of the family at the same time. It’s very common to find many capable digital photo frames that are too complicated to set up to be practical for large families and elderly users.
Sending pictures to the Pix-Star digital photo frame is simple through the Pix-Star Snap mobile app. You can send to multiple frames at the same time and it’s an excellent way to share your favorite memories with your loved ones. The web interface further enhances the frame’s versatility through the ability to remote control your frame, manage cloud storage, and import photos from popular social media and photo-sharing platforms like Google Photos, Instagram, Facebook, and more.
Free-for-life & unlimited cloud storage, along with video playback support, and a mobile app, are all offered for free. Several other top digital photo frames charge recurring subscription fees to unlock these features. Pix-Star’s 10-inch frame is priced slightly cheaper than most other premium digital photo frames, giving you even better value for money. Overall, it’s a well-balanced frame with great versatility and enough features to cater to even the biggest and busiest families.
How to find the best digital photo frame for me?
The first feature you should look for is Wi-Fi connectivity. This is essential if you want to send photos to your digital frame from your phone, computer, or anywhere in the world. Non-Wi-Fi frames can often only receive photos by USB/SD card and by displaying what’s been saved to internal storage. Wi-Fi enables features like cloud storage, controlling your frame remotely, and managing your storage remotely.
Cloud storage is another key feature – especially if you have a big family as your frame can quickly fill up. Cloud storage – in some cases (as with the Pix-Star) can be remotely managed and changed. You can link web albums to multiple frames from social media and photo-sharing sites’ profiles. It’s a fantastic feature for families that want to share photos automatically, but don’t want to go through all the hassle involved. Pix-Star’s web album feature is a great example of this functionality.
We usually recommend going to a higher-end digital photo frame as the price increase pales in comparison with the massive boost in versatility and features. It’s worth saving up a little longer and getting an established premium frame like the Pix-Star.
You need to think about the size you’ll get too. The most common size of premium digital frames is 10-inches, with some brands like the Pix-Star offering a larger 15-inch frame. Bear in mind the available space for the frame, and whether you’re mounting it on the wall or not. This influences how and where you’re willing to spend most of your budget.
What are the best digital photo frame features for families?
Wi-Fi and free cloud storage are two of the most important features for families looking into digital photo frames. Brands like Pix-Star offer free-for-life cloud storage and make full use of their Wi-Fi connectivity. You get features like remotely controlling and managing up to 25 connected frames from a single user account, full use of the mobile app to send photos from anywhere in the world, and much more.
Slideshows and storage management need to be straightforward for a family digital photo frame. You should be able to start slideshows remotely and choose which folders/albums they’re to play from. There should of course be a randomized feature that includes all the photos on the frame.
For a frame to be well-suited for family use, you should be able to control the play order and frequency of photos. This is especially important if you send a lot of photos and don’t want the new ones to get lost in the mix.
Can the best digital photo frames play videos?
Many of the best digital photo frames offer video playback – though it’s something you won’t commonly find with a low-mid-range digital frame. That being said, even among the premium digital photo frames that offer video support, there are almost always limits (video format, size, and length). To add to this, many top digital photo frames require an active subscription fee to unlock to extend video support.
For example, some frames allow videos no longer than 15-seconds to be played for free. If you want to extend that limit to a maximum of 1-minutes, you need to subscribe to the annual “plus” subscription fee.
In other cases, you need an active subscription to unlock sending videos via the mobile app. It varies from frame to frame. There are exceptions like the Pix-Star frame that offers free video and audio support without charging any extra fees. Videos can be sent through the mobile app or via USB/SD card.
What is the best digital photo frame size?
If you’re going to rest the digital photo frame on a flat surface like a tabletop or mantelpiece, an 8-10-inch display is fantastic. 10-inch digital frames are the most common size and offer an excellent balance between price, performance, and immersion. If you’re looking to wall-mount a digital photo frame, go for a larger 12-15-inch display size. This offers a broader viewing angle and increases the effective viewing distance.
In terms of the display resolution, 10-inch frames should be above 800×600 pixels, and larger 12 & 15-inch frames should be 1024×768 for the best viewing experience. Aspect ratio is another key consideration and should match the photos you send to the frame. This helps to avoid wasting time manually editing and cropping every photo before sending it to the frame.
4:3 is arguably the best and most versatile aspect ratio as it matches most of the aspect ratios of photos taken on most smartphones and point-and-shoot cameras. Both Pix-Star’s 10 & 15-inch digital photo frames use 4:3 aspect ratios.
