Show off all your vacation and family photos with one of these big photo frames. The extra size is great for details, and the colors are amazing. You’ll really enjoy having one of our top pick digital frames on your desk, wall or in a bookcase. We review Nixplay 17-inch, SSA 21.5-inch and Pix-Star with Wi-Fi.
If you are looking for something smaller (7- , 8- , 9- or 10-inches) at a lower price, jump over to our review of Best 9 Digital Photo Picture Frames Under $50
At the other end of the scale, in size (50-inches, wow!) and price, you can read about the Top Large Digital Frames For Art And Photos
Top Pick – Nixplay 17-Inch
The Nixplay NIX Advance 17-Inch Widescreen Digital Photo Frame X17B. Displays Digital Photo and Video in Full HD. The Frame has built-in Motion Sensor, Auto Rotate, Slideshow and Calendar Function. Load images on either USB or SD Card Slots , about $180
We like the NIX Advance 17-inch digital photo frame for the high-quality images and the wide-screen format.
The screen is an IPS display with Full HD resolution (1920×1080). The 16:9 aspect ratio means you can show off all your photos, even the panoramic shots without cropping. Nixplay frames also features automatic adjustment of portrait pictures to display the entire image.
Image brightness at 300 cd/m^2 is good even in a lighted room. BTW, the “cd/m^2″ stands for ” Candela per meter squared ” and it’s a brightness measurement. Others also use ” nits ” , which are basically the same. Higher numbers are better, and above 200 is good from these types of digital photo frames.
Many people also like to show vacation videos, which is where the wide-screen really shines. All the standard video formats are supported, including the most common MPEG-4. With 17-inch Full HD, videos look great.
The audio quality is also pretty good with built-in stereo speakers (2 x 2W). There is also a standard 3.5mm audio out jack, for headphones or external speakers.
Content loads automatically from either a USB Flash Drive or SD/SDCH memory card. You get a number of options on how to show the files: sequential by date, sequential by file name or our favorite – random / shuffle. When all the files have played, NIX restarts from the beginning for an endless loop.
There a also a number of transition effects you can experiment with.
In addition to a desk stand, this frame is also wall mountable (but you’ll still need to run the power cord some place).
Another feature we like from Nixplay is the energy saving “Hu-Motion” (e.g., human motion) Infrared Sensor which automatically turns the frame on when people are detected. Without motion, the frame will go into sleep mode after a programmed time period.
You can also set it for the Calendar / Clock functions, which is a nice low-power option to the pictures.
The frame also comes with a remote control.
We’ve been happy with the support from the Customer Service team. They are available to help with any questions or set up.
Note that this is NOT a Wi-Fi connected frame, like some others from Nixplay. This means you can’t store your files in the cloud for downloading / viewing, nor can you wirelessly share with other people. Not including Wi-Fi is one way that Nixplay was able to keep the price at $180 for a Full HD 17-inch Widescreen frame.
For more information, details or ordering though Amazon – Nixplay NIX Advance 17-Inch .
Best Price – Nixplay 15-Inch
The Nixplay NIX Advance 15-Inch Digital Photo Frame has all the great features of the NIX 17-inch, but at a lower price, about $140
The main difference is the size of the frame. The NIX Advance 15-inch is a 4:3 aspect ratio (“full-screen”) rather than the 16:9 aspect ratio (“wide-screen”) on the 17-inch. If you don’t plan on showing a lot of videos or panoramic / landscape-orientation pictures, this 4:3 should work very well for you.
With a smaller display, the 15-inch doesn’t need to be Full HD. It’s LCD is XGA (1024 x 768) which is more fitting for this frame. However, it’s still the same brightness at 300 cd/m^2.
You still get the 2 x 2W built-in stereo speakers and 3.5mm audio jack. And the remote.
All the other features are the same as well – Hu-Motion Sensor, Built-in Clock and Calendar, Slideshow Transitions, Image Selection (date, name, shuffle) and USB Stick or SD/SDHC Memory Card.
As with the NIX Advance 17-inch, this model also doesn’t come with Wi-Fi capabilities.
It’s great for a smaller space, measuring 14.06 x 11.34 x 1.30 inches (without stand), or 14.06 x 11.34 x 4.53 inches (with stand).
Check out more customer reviews or order through Amazon – Nixplay NIX Advance 15-Inch .
Wi-Fi Enabled – Pix-Star 15-Inch
The Pix-Star 15-Inch is our only Wi-Fi Cloud Digital Photo Frame in this review, about $200 .
Similar to the NIX 15-inch, this display is a standard format 4:3 aspect ration, XGA (1024 x 768) resolution. Image brightness is good at 250 cd/m^2 .
You can load images with either a USB Flash Drive or SD/SDHC memory cards.
Pix-Star adds in the Wi-Fi connection to use FotoConnect XD with e-mail. Or use the free Pix-Star App ( iOS or Android ) display your social media photos by accessing online photos from Facebook, Instagram, Dropbox, one drive, Flickr, Google Drive, Google Photos, 23Snaps and more.
With the App, you can also send videos and audio messages. You can also manage your frame remotely and connect up to 25 frames from one single online account. Send pictures from your frame to an individual or several email addresses directly from the frame. Friends and family can share photos to and from the Pix-Star Wi-Fi frame from anywhere in the world.
This is similar to what Nixplay was offering, and generally a good way to share.
Note that Pix-Star doesn’t use a cloud service. All the images are stored on the internal 8GB memory, which should hold 15,000 to 30,000 images (depending on the resolution).
Regarding in the Wi-Fi, it’s 2.4 GHz only – 5 GHz network not supported. This shouldn’t be an issue except if you are trying to fully load the the frame all at once, which may take up to 15 minutes.
SSA has a motion sensor to automatically turn on/off the screen when people enter/exit the room.
We like that with the SSA frame, the photos will be rotated to their proper orientation automatically.
In some ways, it’s almost like SSA was trying to come up with a digital photo frame to compete with Amazon’s Alexa Show smart device , about $230.
In addition to the image displays, you can receive daily weather forecasts for countries and cities of your choice. The frame is also an entertainment hub with several hundreds web radio stations, games for the brain and reminders.
It measures 15 x 11 x 1.2 inches (without stand), almost the same as the Nix Advance.
For more information (especially the email features which we didn’t cover in-depth), or ordering on Amazon – Pix-Star 15-Inch .
No Longer Available – Nixplay Original
The “Original” was a top pick from last year, but has recently been dropped from the Nixplay line-up. We thought it worth mentioning just in case they decide to bring it back in an updated mode.
This was an18.5-inch LED Digital Photo Frame, in Full HD widescreen format.
We liked it was fully Wi-Fi enabled and worked with the Nixplay Wi-Fi Cloud.
With a standard Nixplay account, you could store up to 10GB of files in their cloud at no charge (upgrade to the Plus account, the storage allotment triples). It was a great way to share photos with friends and family that have Nixplay Wi-Fi frames.
With no monthly recurring fee, the Cloud-based service let you use a single Nixplay account to manage up to 5 separate frames so perfect for all the family.
For sharing, there is also an app or you can email photos directly to the frame from anywhere.
We are hoping this comes back soon, and will update this review if that happens.
Largest Frame – SSA 21.5-Inch
The SSA 21.5-Inch Large Digital Picture Frame is one of the largest for displaying personal photos, but it also comes with one of the largest price tags, about $340 .
Similar to the NIX 17-inch, this is an IPS display in Full HD (1920 x 1080) in wide-screen 16:9 aspect ratio. We like that the display is LED Backlit.
In addition to USB and SD slots for loading images, the SSA has a standard HDMI input port. You can hook up a DVD player or laptop to play images or videos at 1080P. SSA also includes a 32GB USB Stick with the frame.
Another nice feature is that you can adjust the speed of the slideshow from just a few seconds per image to minutes. It’s nice to have that control, especially if you’ll be using this digital frame for special events, trade-shows or just enjoying your pictures at home.
You’ll get the expected features including Clock / Calendar screens, Hu-Motion Sensor, and Slide Show Transitions. Additionally, you can zoom and rotate images.
It has a built-in speaker and 3.5mm audio jack. And, of course, a remote.
One thing to note, it seems to display all pictures in landscape mode. It may be there is a setting we aren’t aware of on how changing this to an auto-format for standard images.
Since this is an almost-television-sized frame, it does have VESA Wall Mount holes for attaching to a standard bracket or swing arm.
The SSA measures 21.2 x 13 x 1.5 inches, and has a 178-degree wide viewing angle .
For more details or ordering on Amazon, SSA 21.5-Inch .
Summary
We’ve given you a couple of great choices for digital photo frames. Hope you’ll find one that suits your budget and desires. Here are the links again for you convenience to order or get more information:
Top Pick – Nixplay NIX Advance 17-Inch , about $180
Value – Nixplay NIX Advance 15-Inch , about $140
Wi-Fi – Pix-Star 15-Inch , about $200
Largest – SSA 21.5-Inch , about $340