Nixplay's Iris has both inner and outer beauty, with three gorgeous finishes and high-quality screen. And this frame is smart. It dims or brightens its screen depending on the level of ambient light so you can view each photo to its best advantage. This digital photo frame also senses sound, so it starts exhibiting the most recent photos when someone is in the room and turns itself off if everything gets quiet.
This is one of the easiest frames to use since you don’t have to rely on USB thumb drives or SD cards to add photos to your device. In fact, you won’t find a slot for any storage devices. Nixplay Iris is a Wi-Fi enabled frame, which means that you can add images to it simply by using a phone app. Download the app on your smartphone and you can connect the frame to as many as five frames. A Nixplay Cloud account gives you 10GB of free online storage so you don’t have to worry about running out of space for a while. Take new pictures or search your phone for old ones and send them to the frames you choose. This is a great gift for parents and grandparents, especially for those in different states. They’ll be surprised with new pictures of their loved ones without doing anything on their end.
This is noticeably pricier than most the digital photo frames we review. It is also not the most versatile, especially compared to frames that display videos in addition to photos, but it does an admirable job of the main task of a digital photo frame – displaying photos. The automatic brightness adjustment is a very cool feature. We looked at pictures on this frame in different types of lighting and watched it adjust itself if we suddenly switched a light on or off. The Nixplay Iris W08E is a fine digital photo frame, but since it does not offer videos, any video lover should take a look at the NIX Advance frame.
Our test photos looked great on this frame, in every different kind of lighting. Colors were true to life. Images were crisp, and we could see them from different vantage points around the room. Only one other frame in our review had this impresssive of a display. You get a lot of internal storage with this digital picture frame. The frame can store 8GB of your photos, so you can keep your favorites all in one place. Depending on how large each photo file is, that should give you room for about 40,000 images. And this frame gives those photos a permanent place of honor, a place that can even match your decor, in its metallic silver, copper or bronze finish.
This frame is pretty easy to use, though the stiff cord that also acts as the stand is sort of difficult to position correctly. It makes the frame feel less sturdy at times than the models with kickstands that attach at the back. This frame is not a good one to hang on a wall. The cord-as-kickstand makes that impossible. And while there is a lot of internal storage on this frame, it is still nice to have the option to plug in an SD card or jump drive. You can't do that with this frame.
You do have a lot of control over how your photos display with the Iris. There are 16 different ways to transition from photo to photo, and you can have each photo display for as little as five seconds or as long as one hour.
The Nixplay Iris doesn't have all the flexibility that can be nice from a photo frame. It doesn't play video, hang on a wall or display photos from physical storage. It is very good at the most important thing, though. In our tests, it tied for the very best display, making each photo look wonderful in any lighting, from any viewing angle. It also looks sleek itself. The Wi-Fi connection makes it easier for you to share images with your loved ones without needing to toy around with storage devices. While most frames are plain black plastic, this one adds a little flair to your home with its color selection.
