What are the best digital picture frames for Christmas gifts?
Pix-Star’s frames are arguably the best digital picture frames for Christmas gifts for your home & family. They offer free-for-life cloud storage, the ability to send & receive photos from anywhere in the world, access to both a mobile app & web dashboard, the ability to be remotely controlled from anywhere in the world, support video & audio playback, and let you import web albums (photos saved on social media & photo-sharing platforms).
Pix-Star’s digital picture frames offer what’s probably the most robust and user-friendly feature set on the market. You can manage & control up to 25 connected Pix-Star frames from a single user account. This lets you make sure that all the frames in the family get access to the latest photos & slideshows – ensuring your loved ones never miss another important moment.
They’re easy to use, offer excellent value for money, don’t charge any extra subscription or hidden fees, and have an immersive display. You can even manually adjust the brightness & color settings of the display, control the play order & frequency of slideshows, and much more. Pix-Star’s digital picture frames are available as a 10-inch digital frame or a larger 15-inch digital photo display!
What to look for in the best digital picture frames for Christmas?
The best digital picture frames for Christmas need to be either family-focused or elderly-focused in their feature set, design, and user experience. You don’t want an isolated frame and cannot be interconnected with other frames, receive photos wirelessly, or be remotely controlled. While these aren’t hard and fast rules, they go a long way to ensure that you get the right frame for a Christmas gift – something that pulls the family together and helps you stay connected.
It’s for these reasons that Wi-Fi capabilities should be the number one priority. This lets you send & receive photos wirelessly, connect to the frame via a mobile app, link photos from social media & photo-sharing platforms, and much more. With some top digital picture frames like the Pix-Star, you can even remotely control a connected Pix-Star frame to change its settings, start slideshows, manage local & cloud storage, and much more.
The next key feature is cloud support & backups. These backups should be automatic and free-for-life. Some premium frames like the Skylight or Nixplay frames charge optional recurring annual subscription fees to unlock cloud storage, use of the mobile app or web dashboard, etc. These are seldom worth it when you consider the overall cost incurred over the frame’s effective lifespan.
Finally, a 4:3 aspect ratio is essential. Since most of the photos sent to the frame will be from smartphones (most shoot in 4:3) or cameras (most shoot in 3:2), digital frames with 4:3 aspect ratios are going to offer the most immersive viewing experience. While 16:9 frames are better for videos, they’re not good for displaying photos. Almost every photo will be surrounded by black pillar bars or zoomed/distorted/cropped.
How to set up the best digital picture frames for Christmas?
When you’re setting up the best digital picture frames for Christmas, there are a couple of important aspects to consider. You want to set up the frame so that photos are loaded and slideshows are ready for unwrapping on Christmas morning. With top digital picture frames like the Pix-Star, this can be done by loading photos to the frame via a USB/SD card. Alternatively, you can connect to Wi-Fi, register the frame, and send photos via the Pix-Star Snap mobile app or through the web interface.
The next consideration is where you’re going to put the frame. If you’re buying a digital frame for an elderly user, you should probably avoid mounting the frame on the wall as it would mean that they’d need to stand up and move to the frame to use it. Many grandparents prefer to sit on their favorite chairs and browse through slideshows with the frame right in front of them.
You should do as much of the setup process (including the settings, slideshow preferences, etc.) for digital frames bought as a gift. With some of the best frames like the Pix-Star, you can remotely control the frame through the supported web dashboard to change settings, start slideshows, etc. It’s a very versatile feature for elderly users and makes the setup process much easier – especially if you live in different parts of the country/state.
Can the best digital picture frames for Christmas work without Wi-Fi?
Many of the best digital picture frames for Christmas can work offline without a Wi-Fi connection. This is an essential feature over Christmas as you may be on holiday with the family and won’t have consistent access to Wi-Fi. It’s also an essential feature for family members that don’t live with constant Wi-Fi in their home but still want to view saved photos that have been previously sent.
For example, Pix-Star’s digital picture frames have 8GB of internal storage that can save up to 30,000 photos to be viewed while the frame is offline. It also has a plug-and-play feature that lets you connect a USB/SD card that’s filled with photos & videos – and play slideshows directly off the connected storage device (without needing to copy the content to the frame’s internal storage first). There’s also no size limit on the maximum storage capacity of a connected USB/SD card.
On the other hand, top digital picture frames like the Aura frame series require a constant connection with the company cloud servers to receive photos. You can’t load photos directly to the frame and this makes it tricky to view them without being connected to the internet.
Can the best digital picture frames for Christmas take pictures?
The best digital picture frames for Christmas are designed to showcase and share your favorite memories and moments in your home or for the people you care about most. They aren’t designed to replace your laptop or smartphone and as such, can’t take pictures or record videos. While you may be able to find the odd budget or mid-range frame that includes a video or picture-taking function, they rarely work as intended.
For a digital picture frame to be effective at what it does – and in the real world – it needs to have a great display, versatile slideshows, ease of use, and should be able to receive photos wirelessly. Adding relatively useless features like a low-resolution camera adds a lot to the cost of the frame. This results in cuts having to be made in other areas of the frame’s performance or feature set to keep its price competitive.
