Aura Ink review: the digital photo frame that doesn't look like a digital photo frame

Aura is the name behind some of the best digital photo frames on the market, known for their top-quality minimalist designs, and backed by the brilliant Aura app that not only enables easy management and uploading of images from multiple people, but also allows frames to be preloaded with images without opening the packaging, making them ideal gifts.

Unlike many competitor frames, Aura's frames have no inbuilt storage or the ability to plug in memory cards, but instead offer unlimited cloud storage, with photos stored on Aura's own servers. But with the company seemingly already having a frame for every sector of the market, from the oversized 15-inch Walden through the midrange Aspen to the 'budget' Carver (not that anything Aura does is particularly cheap), what more can it bring to the table (or bookshelf or wall, for that matter)? Well, its latest offering is a photo frame, but not as you know it…

Aura Ink: Specifications

Aura Ink: Price

Let's get this out of the way. Launching at $499 in the United States (at the time of writing, it's yet to become available in other territories), this is a premium-priced product and is very expensive compared to even Aura's other frames, which already sit at the top end of the market. It leaves the Walden, the company's previously highest-priced product, at $299, looking like a bargain.

But you are getting some absolutely revolutionary tech for your money. Thanks to its e-ink display that reflects rather than emits light, it provides the most natural viewing experience I've ever, well, experienced, and photos really do look like printed pictures. And with a built-in battery powering it for months, it's truly worthy of hanging on your wall, as well as taking pride of place on the mantelpiece.

Aura Ink: Design & Handling

Before turning it on, the Aura Ink looks just like any other Aura frame, with a thin black bezel surrounding a deeper white matte-effect inset. It's unfussy and stylish. There are three buttons tucked around the back of the frame, mainly used to move forward and back through the available photographs, and an Action button. Unlike other Aura frames, there are no touch-sensitive sidebars, nor is the screen touchscreen.

It has the same 1600 x 1200 resolution as Aura's Walden and Aspen displays, this time set within 13.3 inches of screen real estate, putting it midway between the 11.8-inch Aspen and 15-inch Walden. There is a USB-C socket, but this is not for removable media; it is used exclusively to power the device. For within the frame is a battery; this is the first Aura frame to be rechargeable, and the result is that it can be positioned anywhere you like, without needing to be within a cable's length of a power outlet.

Supplied with the frame is some 'hanging hardware' – basically, a hook and a couple of nails. And while many other frames are wall-mountable, the requirement to be plugged into mains power has meant that I've never been tempted to do anything but display them on a shelf, hiding the cable around the back. The Aura Ink is the frame I'd actually want to hang on a wall, as there's no cable to spoil the aesthetic.

Aura Ink: Performance

While it may have the same 1600 x 1200 resolution as many other Aura frames, it uses a completely different 'e-ink' technology to display images. Whereas a traditional LCD screen is formed from a brightly lit arrangement of pixels that can display millions of colors, the e-ink pixels themselves do not emit light but reflect the ambient room lighting, and can display just six colors: white, black, red, yellow, green, and blue. A dithering algorithm is used to create the appearance of photos with millions of colors, each pixel color chosen relative to its neighbors to create the illusion of a full-color photo, at least when viewed from a distance.

Take a closer look, and you can clearly see this dithering pattern with the photograph taking on a distinctly dotty appearance. But that actually adds to its charm; it really does make it look as if the image has been created from a printed process, rather than displayed on a screen. Some images look better than others – and Aura is the first to admit this. But thankfully, the images that work best are nicely lit portraits, rather than moody landscapes; exactly the sort of images of loved ones that most people will use a digital frame to show off.

Speaking of loved ones, images can be easily uploaded by multiple members of a household via the Aura app, which makes it really easy to find, manage, and upload images from a phone's library, with the ability to search for specific people, and crop intelligently to show the most important part of an image. Best of all is the ability to preload images onto a frame without first opening the packaging by scanning a QR code, making it ideal for gifting.

By default, images are changed once per day overnight, chiefly to conserve battery power, but also because it takes about 20 seconds or so to transition from one image to another, during which the screen flashes and flickers throughout the image-changing process; this would certainly be something of a distraction if it were to happen every 10 minutes or so – as you can see in the video below.

But I must confess that I'm not too keen on photo frames changing every few minutes, and the overnight update is further in keeping with the 'real' photo aesthetic. Clearly, video is not possible with a technology that updates from frame to frame in such a way, but again, I suspect most people will avoid displaying moving images on a photo frame, anyway.

You can chose to update images more frequently, should you wish, and you can also change the currently displayed image via the buttons tucked around the back of the frame (which replace the touch-sensitive sidebars found on most of Aura's other frames).

Aura Ink: Verdict

The Aura Ink is quite unlike any other digital photo frame I've seen before, and I've seen quite a few. It doesn't offer the highest-resolution display, nor the biggest, but it does produce the most print-like images. While it's an electronic device, the e-ink technology really does create the overall impression of a printed image, rather than a digital screen. Subtle backlighting that adjusts to suit the ambient light doesn't give the game away, either.

Other frames may come with wall-hanging options, but I've never been tempted to hang them on my wall, largely due to the cable that's needed to power them. By contrast, the Aura Ink has actually taken pride of place among real framed photos and other wall art in my living room.

Alternatives

Aura Walden
For the same Aura functionality (including cloud-based storage and the ability to preload images), the Walden has the same 1600 x 1200 resolution as the Ink but spreads them across 15 inches of screen real estate, for a true showstopper of a frame.

Lexar Pexar 11in photo frame
The Lexar Pexar packs a gloriously high-res 2000 x 1200-pixel 2K display into an 11in frame, and has a 100% Adobe sRGB color gamut. With SD card, USB and wireless connectivity, it supports uploads from multiple users and has inbuilt storage for around 40,000 images.