Years ago I bought a digital photo frame – it didn’t cost too much and as a consequence, it didn’t really perform that well either. The quality of the images wasn’t great and the frame itself was clunky and it didn’t help having the USB stick hanging out the back. I stopped using it after a while as it didn’t really look that great in the house and it didn’t add to our ‘family photo experience’.
Fast forward ten years or so and I have re-discovered the digital photo frame! This subject came up in a webinar I recently took part in, and spiked my interest. I did some research and realised they have come a long way in recent years. There are many frames on the market which now offer high resolution, great quality image display. Technology also plays a part with the majority of frames being wireless, allowing images to be uploaded without the need of a USB/SD Card. Images can also be emailed directly to the frame. Imagine being a grandparent living away from their family – maybe interstate or overseas – but being able to receive emailed images of their grandchildren directly to their digital photo frame.
Recognising that not everyone wants, or can manage, a completely wireless digital photo frame, there are frames on the market that offer the option of uploading images to internal storage via USB and/or SD card. After hours of research, this is the version that I decided to try out, and I recently purchased the “Dragon Touch Classic 10”. This frame offers both wireless and USB/SD card which was appealing to me. It also has a great quality display, and looks much like a normal photo frame.
Having an organised archive of photos, I was able to easily upload thousands of photos to the frame’s internal storage via a USB. However, I also have the option of uploading via email or FTP server if I want to add more images as I go along.
The frame sits in the kitchen area of our home and is timed to come on at 7.30am. It turns itself off at 10.30pm. I love printed photos, and have many on the wall of my home and in photo books. To me, nothing beats the printed image but when I create photo books, I select only a certain amount of images using the ‘less is more’ theory. Digital photo frames are therefore a great way to display all of those digital images that didn’t quite make it to the photo book, but are still great to see.
The frame is also a great conversation piece amongst out family – sitting down for dinner we might look at the frame and talk about the memories relating to a particular image that happens to come up. It also stops us in our tracks for a few moments whilst we go about our busy day. I have it set to a 10 second rotation, and the images can either be displayed chronologically or randomly – we have it on the random display setting.
Good quality digital photo frames are not exactly cheap, but they are a great way of displaying images that might otherwise be forgotten – sitting on the phone, USB or external hard drive.
If you want to find out more about digital photo frames, a good starting point would be to check out this article which discusses the pros and cons of the top ten digital photo frames for 2021.
In ending, it goes without saying that the more organised your photo collection, the easier it will be to go through the process of uploading images to the frame!
