Unlike a traditional photo frame that requires you to have a paper-based print made of your favorite image before you can display it, a digital photo frame allows you to transfer images directly from your smartphone, digital camera or computer and then display them—either one at a time or as part of an animated slideshow. The best digital picture frames come in a wide range of sizes, but best of all, most now come with their own email address and connect to your home’s Wi-Fi network for easy sharing.
This makes it possible to send images to the frame—from anywhere in the world—via email. As a result, these frames make a great gift for non-tech-savvy people who are not active on social media, but still want to see photos of family and friends. Using one of these 12 best digital photo frame options in 2022 offers you an easy way to showcase your favorite photos at an affordable price.
- Best Digital Picture Frame Overall: Pix-Star Digital Photo Frame
- Best Wi-Fi Digital Photo Frame: Skylight Digital Frame
- Best Digital Picture Frame With Google Assistant: Google Hub (2nd Generation)
- Best Digital Picture Frame With A Smart Home Hub: Amazon Echo Show 15
- Best Digital Picture Frame For Multiple Photos: Nixplay Smart Photo Frame
- Best Digital Picture Frame for Slideshows: Meural Smart Digital Photo Frame
- Best Digital Picture Frame On Amazon: Aura Carver Digital Picture Frame
- Best Fine Art Digital Picture Frame: Meural Canvas II
- Best Large Digital Picture Frame: Samsung’s The Frame
- Best Digital Picture Frame For Grandparents: Monster Smart Photo Frame
Best Digital Picture Frame Overall
Display Your Digital Photos On Any Flat Surface (Or Wall)
- Frame Size: 15 Inches
- Display Resolution: 1024 x 768 pixels
One of the most versatile and full-featured photo frames you can buy, the Pix-Star, offers just about every imaginable way to share photos and connect with friends and family.
For example, using Wi-Fi, it connects to online photo sources, including Facebook, Instagram, Dropbox, OneDrive, Flickr, Google Drive, and Google Photos. However, it also has 8GB of internal memory, along with slots for USB flash drives and SD memory cards, so you can load it up with a photo collection for offline viewing.
Another great feature is that you can easily email photos directly to the frame, which means family members can send photos that within a minute or so simply appear on the frame with no extra steps.
You can also easily share photos you’re viewing on the frame with friends and family (via the Internet) with a few on-screen taps.
Best Wi-Fi Digital Photo Frame
Email Images To This Frame And They’ll Display Almost Instantly
- Frame Size: 10 Inches
- Display Resolution: 1280 x 800 pixels
The operation of this 10-inch digital photo frame could not be easier. Simply plug it into any electrical outlet and link it with your home’s Wi-Fi. Then, using the frame’s own unique email address, start sending it photos to display as an animated slideshow from your own computers and mobile devices.
The great thing about this frame is that you can share its email address within specific friends and family, so they can send pictures to the frame as well. So, if you have an elderly parent or grandparent who is not tech-savvy and who is not active on social media, you can set up the Skylight frame in their home and then send photos to it from anywhere in the world via email. All the person who owns the frame needs to do is look at it to see the new images that are shared by others.
The Skylight also has its own proprietary mobile app that allows you to customize how the frame displays images and manage the images stored within the frame’s internal 8GB of storage.
Thanks to its low price, nice appearance and ease of use, the Skylight is one of the best deals when it comes to photo frames that are suitable for any home or office.
Best Digital Picture Frame with Google Assistant
The Google Nest Hub Responds To Commands And Displays Photos
- Frame Size: 7 Inches
- Display Resolution: 1024 x 600 pixels
The Google Nest Hub is designed to be a versatile smart home assistant with a seven-inch touchscreen display and built-in Google Assistant. You can verbally ask the Nest Hub questions, control smart devices within your home, have the hub display steaming video content, stream music on-demand, plus handle a wide range of other tasks.
As its screensaver (when it’s not being used for other tasks), the Nest Hub can also access your favorite photos that are stored online within a Google Photos folder, and display them as a customized animated slideshow.
At just $100, it makes sense to set up these hubs in multiple rooms within your home. However, if you want to see your images displayed on a larger, 10-inch display, consider the Nest Hub Max ($229).
Best Digital Picture Frame With A Smart Home Hub
Hang The Amazon Echo 15 On Any Wall To Showcase Your Photos
- Frame Size: 15.6 Inches
- Display Resolution: 1920 x 1080 pixels
Amazon continues to be a pioneer in voice-controlled digital assistants with its smart speakers, home hubs and smart devices that support Alexa. The Amazon Echo Show 15 is designed to be a versatile smart home hub with a stunning 15.6-inch touchscreen display that gets hung on a wall.
With its built in 5MP camera, you can use this smart hub for video calling. It can also stream video and music from a wide range of online sources, serve as an interactive calendar and scheduling tool for the entire family, and respond to verbal commands and questions.
When the screen is not being used for other tasks, it’s able to display your favorite collection of digital photos as an animated slideshow. The Amazon Echo Show will pull images from your Amazon Photos albums or Facebook, for example.
What sets the Echo Show 15 apart from other Amazon hubs is the size of its display. The Echo Show 5 (with a 5.5 inch display), Echo Show 8 (with an eight inch display), and Echo Show 10 (with a 10.1 inch display) are also available from Amazon, and all can serve as a digital photo frame.
Best Digital Picture Frame For Multiple Photos
The Nixplay Smart Frame Creates A Slideshow With Your Images
- Frame Size: 9.7 Inches
- Display Resolution: 2048 x 1536 pixels
Nixplay’s family of digital photo frames stands out for a number of reasons, not the least of which is its sharp screen. The 9.7-inch Nixplay has a 2K resolution (2048x1536 pixel) display. Unlike many other frames, it’s wall-mountable, so you don’t have to display it on a shelf, desk or nightstand. It also has a remote control that cleverly snaps to the back of the frame with a magnet. A motion sensor tells the screen to go dark when nobody is around, preserving the display and saving power.
The frame comes with 8GB of on-board storage, but using Wi-Fi, the frame can easily pull images from cloud services. You can also send photos to the frame via email, plus control the frame with voice commands via the built in Alexa digital assistant.
Nixplay offers an optional Nixplay Plus subscription service, ideal for families that have more than one frame (or if you also manage a frame for your parents, for example). For about $5 per month, you’re able to control up to 10 frames from the same mobile app, get 50GB of shared online storage for all the frames, plus receive discounts if you choose to have traditional prints made from selected images.
Best Digital Picture Frame For Slideshows
Decide What Photos Are Shown and When Using This Frame
- Frame Size: 15.6 Inches
- Display Resolution: 1920 x 1080p pixels
Netgear’s Meural line of photo frames has a fun feature you don’t see in a lot of other frames—hands-free gesture control. Most digital photo frames run their slideshows at a fixed speed, but with this Meural frame, you can pass your hand in front of its sensor to scroll forward and backwards faster. This is handy—and much better than a touchscreen—because you don’t wind up getting fingerprints all over the photo display.
The 15.6-inch display is full HD resolution and it comes with a kickstand, although the frame itself can also be wall-mounted. It has 8GB of internal storage, and you can send photos to the frame from its proprietary mobile app from your phone or via cloud-based photo sharing services. The app is especially versatile in that you can curate photo playlists and schedule them to play at specific times of day or on special occasions.
Best Digital Picture Frame On Amazon
Digital Photo Frames Don’t Need To Cost A Fortune
- Frame Size: 10.1 Inches
- Display Resolution: 1920 x 1200 pixels
Aura Carver is a simple photo frame that, while it doesn’t offer a lot of capabilities, is a budget-priced option that might make a good gift for someone who doesn’t need a lot from a digital photo frame.Unlike most other frames, its 10.1-inch full HD display is limited to a landscape orientation, so you can’t stand it vertically. It does, however, connect to cloud services, like Google Photos via Wi-Fi, so you can send photos to the frame using a mobile app. Unfortunately, the frame offers no on-board storage or memory card slots. You’ll need a reliable and always-on Wi-Fi connection for it to work.
Best Fine Art Digital Picture Frame
Images Look Like Art When Viewed On This High-Resolution Display
- Frame Size: 21.5 Inches
- Display Resolution: 1920 x 1080 pixels
The Meural Canvas II is unlike most any other digital photo frame; while you certainly can use it to display your personal photo collection, that’s not its main purpose. The Canvas II is designed to display digital art. It works best with a subscription to Meural’s art membership service, which gives you access to more than 30,000 pieces of fine art that you can turn into slideshows to display within your home, making your living room feel like an art gallery. In fact, when you’re standing a few feet from the display, you won't be able to tell that you’re looking at digital reproductions of famous paintings or illustrations, for example.
Of course, if you have a favorite piece of artwork, you can display it continuously, or select different pieces to display at specific times during the day or evening. One awesome feature of the frame is that with a single finger, it can rotate on the wall, so you can switch between a portrait and landscape perspective and have the selected image take up the entire display.
Between its larger size display and high resolution, the Meural is rather pricey. You’ll pay around $600 for the frame plus about $70 per year for the art subscription. But few other devices give you quite the same access to so much fine art in your home so easily. You also get up to 20GB of personal cloud storage to add and then display your own digital photos (or digital versions of your child’s artwork), and you’re able to invite friends and family to add images to your frame as well.
The Canvas II frame is available in two sizes—16 by 24 inches and 19 by 29 inches. Both are full HD, color-accurate displays which you can control from a mobile app or using motion gestures in front of the screen. The display is designed to be hung on a wall and replicate a framed piece of artwork.
Best Large Digital Picture Frame
Samsung’s The Frame Displays Photos When You’re Not Watching TV
- Frame Size: 32, 43, 50, 55, 65, 75 or 85 Inches
- Display Resolution: 3840 x 2160 pixel
The concept behind the Meural Canvas II has been taken to the next level by Samsung, with its lineup of The Frame smart TVs. Available in sizes between 32 and 85 inches, this QLED 4K resolution smart TV does a lot more than just allow you to watch your favorite TV shows and movies. It also has built-in Google Assistant, Alexa and Bixby smart speaker support.
The reason why The Frame made it onto this list, however, is that the thin TV display is surrounded by your choice of picture frame options, so it can match the decor within your home.
When you subscribe to Samsung’s digital artwork service, The Frame can be set up to display any of more than 1,400 famous works of art whenever the TV is not being used. However, you can also load in your own digital images and have them displayed on the screen as a customizable animated slideshow.
Thanks to its 4K resolution display that offers a wide viewing angle, your digital images will appear vivid, clear, and showcase extreme detail when they’re presented on your wall within The Frame. Oh, and your favorite TV shows and movies will look amazing too.
Best Digital Picture Frame For Grandparents
This Frame Makes A Great Gift For Your Older Parents Or In-Laws
- Frame Size: 10 Inches
- Display Resolution: 1280 x 800 pixels
This digital photo frame from Monster is very similar to the Skylight frame in that they both feature a 10 inch touchscreen display with a 1280 by 800 pixel resolution. Both frames also come with their own email address, so images can be sent directly to the frame from any Internet connected smartphone, tablet or computer.
These features make this frame the ideal gift for someone who is not at all tech savvy—perhaps an older parent, in-law or grandparent—who is not active on social media. Once this frame is set up and connected to a home’s Wi-Fi, anyone with the frame’s unique email address can send photos to the frame from anywhere. The person viewing the frame can just sit back and enjoy the photos.
When setting up the frame (which can be placed on a desk using its built in kickstand or hung on a wall) the speed and transition style used to display the photos is customizable. The frame can also be set up so only specific people can share images with it.
For added convenience, this digital frame has a memory card slot built in and is compatible with both Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant. It conjunction with your images, it’s able to display a digital clock and has an alarm function. The 16GB of internal storage is enough to hold about 4,000 images. Using the cloud, transfering up to 100 images at a time to the frame is simple.
What Should You Look For In A Digital Picture Frame?
As you can see, the newest digital photo frames come in a wide variety of styles, with varying prices. When it comes to choosing which option is best for you (or for the person you’ll be gifting it to) first consider the size of the display and whether it’ll fit on a desk, nightstand, dresser or wherever you intend to place it. Next, consider the frame’s resolution. This will determine how much detail you’ll see within each image, plus impact the clarity and vibrancy of the photo’s colors.
You also want to figure out what additional functionality, if any, the digital photo frame offers. For example, does it also serve as a smart speaker with a built-in digital voice assistant? It’s also important to determine if the frame itself has internal storage for your favorite digital images, and if so, how much? Keep in mind, 8GB of internal storage is enough to hold thousands of digital images or hundreds of short video clips.
If the frame does not have its own internal storage, does it have a memory card slot that allows you to transfer your favorite images to a memory card and then insert it into the frame, or does the frame connect to your home’s Wi-Fi and stream images from Apple iCloud, Google Photos, Microsoft OneDrive, Dropbox or another cloud-based service?
Other nice features to look for include whether or not the frame measures the ambient light in the room and then auto-adjusts its brightness, and whether the frame continuously stays on and allows you to customize the frequency and format used to display your favorite images.
Next, consider the frame’s appearance and determine if it’ll look good within your home or office. Finally, consider the price. The pricing for digital photo frames continues to drop as the technology improves, so for between $100 and $200, you can be confident that you’ll be able to purchase a really good quality digital photo frame that will make your favorite photos look great.
What Are The Advantages Of A Digital Picture Frame?
The biggest advantage to using a digital picture frame is that one frame can hold thousands of images. It can then be set up to continuously display just one of your favorite images, or create and display an animated slideshow to showcase many of your favorite images.
The majority of these frames are designed to be left on all day and night, however, some will automatically adjust their brightness based on the level of ambient light in the room. Others can be setup to turn off at night, so it won't keep you awake if its set up in your bedroom and you’re trying to sleep.
When you load up a digital picture frame with images of your loved ones, pets, friends and memorable moments in your life, throughout your day, looking at the frame will put a smile on your face as you reminisce about who is featured in the photos, as well as when and where each image was taken. Thus, these digital frames are ideal for a living room, TV room, bedroom or home office, for example.
Using a digital picture frame to showcase a collection of images is much more convenient than creating and then having to flip through the pages of traditional photo albums, photo books or scrapbooks, for example.
