There are plenty of options on the market for digital picture frames, and most can take on their basic functions just fine. You can find screens as small as 7 or 8 inches, and as big as 14 inches and up. You’ll encounter a broad range of display resolutions, storage capacities, and frame styles. Frames today support more advanced technology than ever, with many harnessing Wi-Fi connectivity for wireless uploads and controls. Some even serve as multifunction smart devices, with voice commands, video calls, smart-home integration, and more. We narrowed the options down to frames of the best quality, value, and features—see which of these might be the ideal fit for your home or for giving to loved ones as a thoughtful, practical gift. Turn a Nixplay Smart Photo Frame around and you’ll find advanced design touches there, as well. The brand’s signature honeycomb pattern weaves across the back surface, and you can stick the included magnetic remote to it so you don’t lose it when it’s not in use. Also sticking out from behind the device is a semi-rigid power cord that doubles as a fully adjustable stand that props the frame up in either portrait or landscape mode. It’s an innovative design solution that Nixplay has made quite reliable over the various iterations of its products. The base Portal sports a 10-inch HD display, but there is also a Portal Mini at the 8-inch size, as well as a Portal+ with a 15.6-inch screen that can easily swivel from landscape to portrait orientation. Rounding out the lineup is the Portal TV, which uses your own screen instead of a built-in display. Though it’s on the small side with its 7-inch display and sub-HD 1024x600 resolution, the Nest Hub looks great as a picture frame. This is in large part thanks to automatic brightness and color adjustments that help the display blend into any room. (Google’s higher-end Nest Hub Max has a larger 10-inch screen and other upgrades, but the standard Nest Hub has plenty going for it at a notably lower price.) It displays photos straight from your Google Photos collection, which can include dynamically updated albums of any people and pets. You can also stream music from services like Spotify and Pandora through its small but capable speakers, as well as play video from YouTube and—more recently—Netflix. The Wi-Fi-enabled frame has a companion app, as well as its own email address. It only runs on 2.4GHz, but through the companion app, you can send photos from your photo library or Facebook to the PhotoShare. Friends and family can use the frame’s email address to send you photos, and you can add video clips too. It has a built-in speaker for audio, so you can add background music or hear the audio in video clips. With SD and USB slots, you can locally add content or expand the storage. There’s a keyhole mount for wall mounting, and the package includes a stand as well. The PhotoShare plugs into a wall outlet, and it’s not as portable as a battery-operated frame. But overall, this is a high-quality digital frame you’ll be proud to display in your home. Nixplay designed the Seed Wave with some high-quality hardware, and it doesn’t skimp on the software side, either. Once the frame is connected to your home Wi-Fi network and a Nixplay account, you can upload photos directly from your phone, from cloud storage like Google Photos and Dropbox, or from social media accounts like Facebook and Instagram. The frame itself can hold 8GB of pictures at a time, and a free 10GB of online storage comes with your account. You can also connect and play video files, but it’s limited to 15-second clips. When it comes to transferring photos to the frame’s roomy 16GB of storage, the Dragon Touch Classic offers a variety of methods to suit your preferences and where you store your pictures. Plug in a USB drive or SD card to access offline files. Connect to Wi-Fi and transfer directly from your PC. Use the mobile app to upload from your phone or tablet. Multiple user profiles are supported, and each frame also has its own email address for anyone to send photos to. It may take a bit of effort to get everything set up and loaded properly the first time, but after that, this frame makes for a thoughtful way to share memories even with loved ones who aren’t quite as tech-savvy. On the plus side, the screen quality is outstanding, with 1920x1200 resolution at 224ppi. You get unlimited cloud storage via the Aura network, and you can easily upload and share photos with family and friends using the companion app. The Aura Carver is ideal for someone who wants a digital frame that looks like a regular photo frame but has a few cool tech features. It’s also a good option for someone who wants a device that’s easy to use and operate. It even has Alexa and Google Assistant compatibility, so you can say things like, “Alexa, ask Aura to show a photo from Palm Springs.” However, if you want something with more bells and whistles, and the ability to display videos is important to you, there are better options available. The makers of the Skylight Frame are well aware that digital frames make great gifts, especially for older family members who aren’t up to date on social media or the newest devices. The 10-inch frame is designed to be foolproof for essentially anyone to set up and to use—installation involves just plugging it in and connecting it to Wi-Fi. It doesn’t need to be online to display photos already loaded to its 8GB of internal storage, but it does count on the cloud to receive those photos. Each Skylight device is assigned an email address that friends and family can send pictures to, and the frame’s owner will be able to see them almost immediately. Using the Skylight is meant to be as user-friendly as possible. The touchscreen display lets users navigate their collection much like a social media feed, swiping to browse photos, deleting unwanted ones, and even clicking to send a thank-you notification for any shots they like. The downside is there are minimal settings available to adjust, even if you wanted to. That means no brightness controls, slideshow customization, or power-saving settings. It’s a streamlined product that doesn’t do much more than it needs to, but in that sense, it does its job very well. Many smartphone users take pictures in portrait orientation, so the lack of portrait mode is problematic. As a solution, Aura Carver will place thick borders on the side of portrait photos or pair two portrait photos together using AI software to best pair them, but it would be better if the frame just had a portrait mode. The Carver also lacks audio, and you can’t display videos. You can, however, display Apple “live” photos. On the plus side, the screen quality is outstanding, with 1920x1200 resolution at 224ppi. You get unlimited cloud storage via the Aura network, and you can easily upload and share photos with family and friends using the companion app. The Aura Carver is ideal for someone who wants a digital frame that looks like a regular photo frame but has a few cool tech features. It’s also a good option for someone who wants a device that’s easy to use and operate. It even has Alexa and Google Assistant compatibility, so you can say things like, “Alexa, ask Aura to show a photo from Palm Springs.” However, if you want something with more bells and whistles, and the ability to display videos is important to you, there are better options available. Andy Zahn is a Lifewire writer and reviewer with expertise in all sorts of consumer technology—with the added bonus of photography experience that helped inform his testing of the Google Nest Hub and other digital frames. Erika Rawes has been writing for Lifewire since 2019. Specializing in consumer technology, she’s previously been published on Digital Trends, USA Today, and others. She’s reviewed a number of smart home and lifestyle devices, including several digital photo frames.
What to Look for in a Digital Photo Frame
Display – Display size is likely a personal preference, with models measuring as small as seven inches and as large as 21 inches. This decision is largely based on your interior design and how much room you have for the frame. Resolution, though, is less negotiable. Some of the best frames out there offer 1920x1080 16:9 IPS displays that will be visibly sharper to the naked eye than lower-resolution models. Memory - The more memory a digital photo frame has, the more photos (and even videos) the device can store. Most offer between 4GB to 32GB of storage, with some even offering additional capacity via USB, SD, and SDHC memory cards. Still, 4GB of memory can hold about 20,000 pictures, so that should be ample unless you’re uploading large videos. Cloud features - Higher-end frames today can connect to Wi-Fi and take advantage of a wide assortment of cloud-based functionality. This can include everything from uploading pictures through a computer or mobile device to social media integration and sharing to remote control via a mobile app. Such features can add a lot of convenience and flexibility, but at the same time can make installation and use of the frame much more complicated than some users want to deal with. More advanced digital frames connect to the Internet and let you send photos via e-mail, upload wirelessly from your computer or smartphone, or link directly to your existing photo storage or social media accounts. Many of these web-based frames don’t allow for offline photo transfers, so it’s often a case of one or the other.
