Aura Carver vs. Skylight: Which Digital Photo Frame Is Better

The Aura Carver is known for its minimalistic look and high-resolution photo quality support. The setup process is easy, and the frame is compatible with several photo services. Another popular digital picture frame is the Skylight digital picture frame. Like its competitor, it’s known for its high-quality picture support and chic design. Plus, they are ‘almost’ in the same price bracket.

Hence, this brings us to an important question—is the Aura Carver better than the Skylight photo frame? Are the features of the Skylight photo frame enough to justify its price tag? Or is it the other way around? Well, that’s what we will find in this post, as we compare the Skylight with Aura Carver to see which digital photo frame is better.

Design & Resolution

The Aura Carver is known for its sleek and minimalistic look. These two factors make it easy to place the frame anywhere, and the odds are high that it will blend seamlessly into any place. Its back has a pyramid-like design, making it easy to prop up, minus any kickstand. However, this feature also ensures you can only use the Aura Carver in landscape mode.

The screen lacks touchscreen support. Instead, it packs a sleek touch-sensitive strip at the top. At the same time, there’s no physical button or power switch. That said, the strip is convenient to use, and we had no issues with it during our time with it. The lack of a touchscreen has its upsides. For example, you won’t have a smudge-ridden digital photo frame.

The Aura Carver has a resolution of 1920 x 1200 pixels, and the 10.1-inch screen is wide enough to let you view your memories clearly. Note that the photos are displayed edge-to-edge. It relies completely on cloud storage, and there is no port for any USB drive.

On the other hand, the Skylight digital picture frame has a 1280 x 800 pixel resolution. Unlike the one above, it doesn’t need a continuous Wi-Fi connection and can also display photos when the Wi-Fi acts wonky. Thanks to its sleek design, it looks every bit like a modern photo frame.

However, the feature that sets it apart from its counterpart is the matte board on the sides. The mat ensures that the photo frame blends well with other conventional photo frames in your house. And did we tell you that the nifty kickstand at the back lets you prop it up?

Unlike the Carver, the Skylight digital picture frame is a touchscreen photo frame, and you can swipe on the photos to change them. Interestingly, you can ‘Like” a photo on both Wi-Fi digital frames. Moreover, the touchscreen lets you zoom in on the image to view it in all its glory.

Interestingly, the Skylight frame doesn’t have USB ports. To power it up, you just need to connect it to a power source.

Storage

Gone are the days when digital photo frames used to run on USB flash drives and memory cards. ‘Tis the age of cloud storage, and the Aura Carver is no different. It displays nicely as long as it’s connected to your home Wi-Fi and you have uploaded the photos.

As mentioned earlier, it doesn’t support external devices like memory cards, camera cards, or USB drives. You’ll need to upload photos using the Aura app or the web interface. The photo frame saves all the uploaded photos in the cloud. Aura claims that the cloud service is safe and secure. Using the app is easy, and you can also create a network of frames or add family members to the frame.

Apart from the app, it supports Google Photos, your phone’s gallery, and smart assistants like Alexa and Google Assistant.

On the other hand, the Skylight digital photo frame takes a slightly different approach. When setting up the frame, you create a unique email ID, and you’ll need to send your selected photos to this email address. The photos will appear after some time. The good news is that if you forget to upload any photos for some time, the frame will remind you to add some.

You can share the email address with your close friends and family to let them email their photos directly to the frame. Other than that, you will have to subscribe to the paid Skylight Plus plan to unlock all the features, like sending and playing videos, adding captions, or creating photo albums.

The subscription starts at $3.35 a month, which will add to the cost in the long run. You also get the advantage of a companion app. Naturally, uploading an image via the app is much more convenient than email. Lastly, there’s no Google Photos or Apple Photos support. Plus, it does not support Alexa or Google Assistant.

Photos, Videos & Image Quality

Let’s talk about an essential function of a photo frame—Image Quality.

The Aura Carver’s HD display delivers colorful, bright, and true-to-life photos. As long as the images are sharp and clear, it’ll do its best to display them at their best. The brightness automatically adjusts as per the ambient lighting, and there is no additional option to change the color or the brightness. Hence, you must take utmost care to upload your best photos. Moreover, the viewing angle is broad, and you can see the photos from the sides.

Interestingly, there isn’t any limit on the number of photos you can upload. The best part is that the built-in algorithm also plays a big role in displaying the images. For one, it will group all the similar images. Secondly, it will remove any duplicate images. Thirdly, it will transform any two vertical photos side-by-side so that no screen real estate gets wasted.

But at the end of the day, you can use the Aura Carver frame only in landscape mode. As such, all your vertical photos will be paired with a similar vertical photo.

As opposed to the algorithm-backed vertical image feature of the Aura Carver, the Skylight frame adds bands to the sides of vertical photos. While the feature in itself doesn’t look bad, it means that you end up wasting some precious screen space. For the record, it can only display photos in a 16:9 aspect ratio.

Aside from that, the Skylight digital picture frame delivers clear, crisp, and vivid photos. There is no significant pixelation. As long as the uploaded photos are sharp, you should see them as such. And yes, it doesn’t let you set the brightness levels. But it has a cool setting that enables you to adjust the timing of individual photos from a 5-second to 240-second delay. Plus, you can place it either vertically or horizontally.

Ease of Use

How do the Aura Carver and the Skylight photo frame measure up regarding ease of use? Thankfully, both photo frames are extremely easy to use. The setup process is easy and simple. All you need to connect the frames to a power source and your home Wi-Fi, and they will walk through the rest of the setup process.

That said, if the photo dump is huge, the frames will take time to sort through the dump. This is especially true in the case of the Aura Carver frame and when you connect it to photo services like Google Photos.

Aura Carver vs. Skylight

So, which digital photo frame should you choose? If you want a simple photo frame that quickly displays photos, you can check out the Skylight photo frame. A simple email will do the trick of uploading the images. Plus, the picture quality is pretty decent.

However, if you want app support, a high-resolution display, and frills like grouping vertical photos, you should go for the Aura Carver frame. The images appear sharp, and there are no added costs. Win-win, right? You can also set it up remotely, thus making it a great gift for parents and seniors.