Aura Carver

We tend to recommend smart displays over dedicated digital photo frames, as they can display photos from the cloud in addition to a number of other genuinely useful features like voice control and web access. Digital photo frames still have some distinct advantages, however, as they tend to be easier to mount on a wall, they can rotate between portrait and landscape orientation, and they often have onboard storage for use when not connected to the internet. The $199 Aura Carver is an attractive digital frame with unlimited cloud storage, but it doesn't have any of those other frame-specific features to make it a compelling alternative to a smart display.

Design

The Carver has a minimalist design, available in black or white, with flat, angular bezels that match a near-pyramid extension on the back that serves as a stand. It measures 7.5 by 10.6 by 2.6 inches (HWD), with a 10.1-inch, 1,920-by-1,200 LCD. A small, touch-sensitive control strip sits on the top edge, marking the only physical controls. The frame doesn’t even have a power button; it automatically turns on when you plug the power adapter into the back.

Because of its pyramid-like design, the Carver is only suited for landscape orientation on a flat surface like a desk or shelf. It can’t be set up vertically, and the extension on the back prevents any sort of wall mounting. Smart displays also share these limitations, but they make up for it with additional functionality. While the frame can’t be used in portrait orientation, if you have multiple portrait-oriented photos, it can display them two at a time, side by side.

App and Setup

To set up the Carver and load photos onto it, you need to download the Aura app for Android or iOS. It’s a fairly simple process to use the app to connect to the frame, then connect the frame to your Wi-Fi network. Once it’s set up, you can load it with photos.

You’ll need to use your own photos; unlike the Meural and some other high-end digital frames, no art or other content is included here. You can invite friends to add their own photos to the frame over the app remotely, though, which is a nice touch.

The Aura app lets you put photos on the Carver from your phone’s own storage, or from Google Photos by linking the Aura app to your Google account. Going through photos on your phone is quick and easy, but if you have thousands of photos backed up on Google, it will require some time. The app took hours to populate my years-old photo library, and browsing the entire feed of photos was too slow to be functional. I eventually went into Google Photos and set up a separate album with photos specifically for the frame. That too took some time to populate from my dozens of different albums, but eventually I could simply display my favorite images from different trips on the frame with a few taps.

The Carver doesn’t have onboard storage for photos, and instead relies on Aura’s unlimited cloud storage. This means you can put as many pictures as you want on the frame, but it also means the frame’s use depends entirely on Aura’s servers running, and on it being connected to Wi-Fi at all times. Some measure of onboard storage for use as an offline frame would have been welcome, as would a USB port or an SD card slot for simply loading your own pictures without the app.

Screen Quality

The good news is that the Carver’s screen is bright, sharp, and colorful, reproducing photos accurately with no noticeable pixelation. The bad news is that you can’t actually adjust the picture. There are no color correction or other picture options, and brightness is controlled entirely through the frame’s light sensor. You’re stuck with however the frame decides to display your photos based on the lighting conditions of the room.

If the room is bright, the screen will get brighter. If the room is dim, the frame will also dim, and it will completely darken when the lights are turned off. You can set a manual sleep schedule that will turn the frame off between certain hours instead of automatically shutting off in the dark, but otherwise you have no control over the brightness.

Not Quite a Masterpiece

The Aura Carver is a handsome photo frame, but it’s far too limited to recommend over a smart display—or even other similarly priced digital frames. You can’t adjust the picture or the brightness of the screen, or even use the frame in portrait orientation or on the wall. It’s strictly a landscape frame designed to be left on a flat surface and connected to the internet at all times. You can get a much more functional smart display of the same size for just $30 more in the form of the Amazon Echo Show 10 or the Google Nest Hub Max, or if you want to save money and don't mind a slightly smaller screen, you can pick up the Amazon Echo Show 8 or the Google Nest Hub for around half the price.