Should you replace your old photo albums with a digital frame?

Although photo albums have their own nostalgic charm, they have pretty much become museum exhibits or attic items, stored with all your other things you’re not using anymore. Sure, your grandma might still pick them up from time to time to remember her golden years, but few are those who still go for printed photos anymore. Most of us keep our gigabytes of photos stored on our smartphones, laptops or in the cloud.

Digital photo frames have replaced the old family photo albums. Here are a few reasons why:

• Digital frames are more environmentally friendly, because they don’t use any paper
• They are smart gadgets packed with various useful features
• A lot of them can be connected to the Internet, which gives you so much more options, because you can update your albums online, from anywhere in the world, directly on your frame
• You can customize the images on them in countless ways: you can create slideshows, make transitions, use effects, you can set timers so that your digital frame only displays images and slideshows at a specific time, hour, etc., you can organize all your images into themed albums, or according to events, date, who appears in the photos and so on. If you just want to display your wedding photos because it’s your anniversary, or just pictures with your child, because it’s his birthday, you can do just that. Picture frames let you display what you want, whenever you want and you’ve got all the control at your fingertip
• You can also play music with your photos or make videos, because most of the digital picture frames today come with built-in speakers
• You don’t have to flip through the images all the time, because the frame does that for you. You can set the frame to change images after a specific number of seconds/minutes
• If your frame has WiFi connection, you can send images from all your social media websites such as Facebook, Instagram, Flickr and so on, directly to your digital frame. You can also share photos with your friends, send them and exchange photos through email and more
• Because digital frames come with plenty of storage space (GB) you can keep all your albums on the frame, so you don’t have to buy and make separate photo albums for every special occasion in your life. You also don’t have to fill all the walls of your house with picture frames that only hold a single photo. Most of these digital picture frames also have external storage (memory cards) and some even offer free GB of cloud storage for your images
• Your pictures won’t deteriorate in time as it is the case with printed photos. Your memories will always have the same vivid, clear, detailed quality
• Because they have such a great display quality, zooming options and so on, they can be useful and appreciated by the elderly, too. Your grandma and grandpa don’t even have to do anything but enjoy the photos, because you can set the frames up and program them yourself, so they won’t have to deal with all the tech-stuff

Of course there are some disadvantages too, when it comes to digital photo frames. One of them is their price, as they can get pretty expensive, especially if they have WiFi capabilities or other complex features. Another disadvantage is the fact that you have to plug them in or use batteries in order for them to work, which is not the case with traditional photo frames or photo albums. And of course there’s still the risk of malfunctioning, being hacked, or getting a virus, especially if you have a digital frame with WiFi connectivity. In some worst-case scenarios this may lead to having all your data/photos lost.