2 December 2020

REVIEW: Nixplay Seed Wave 13 inch Smart Frame

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Digital frames have been largely replaced in recent years by the likes of smart home devices such as the Google Nest Hub Max. Combining a screen with voice search just makes sense, but there is still a huge audience for what you might consider "traditional" digital frames. However, Nixplay's latest behemoth of a frame is anything but traditional, as we discovered when testing the Seed Wave 13 inch Smart Frame.

Yes, this is a 13 inch frame. So pretty much the same dimension as your laptop screen. In fact, the Nixplay Seed Wave looks more like a large tablet, then a digital frame, with touch-friendly edges and a relatively light weight at 960g. That is, until you flip it over and see some impressive looking copper-coloured speaker grills and a unique flexible power lead that doubles as the stand for both portrait and landscape orientations.

Those rear-mounted speakers are the first things that snag your attention to this being more than a standard digital frame. The Nixplay Seed Wave can display short-length videos, complete with their sound, on that glorious full HD screen. You might not want a video on loop with the rest of your family snaps, but the ability to stream video content from your phone, via the Nixplay app, is a great addition.

Speaking of the app, it's the way you'll fill your frame with content. Drawing either from your phone's gallery, or any connected online album, you can create a playlist of images and send them over WiFi to the Nixplay Seed Wave. In the past, to show some photos on your frame, you'd have to copy them to an SD card then physically slap that into the device, so this is a far more user-friendly development.

WiFi is not on the only shout-worthy development, as the frame features Bluetooth. You can get the most out of those two 5W speakers by connecting your phone to stream music from whatever service you worship this month. Oh, and Spotify fans will take extra note; you can configure your account through the app to stream direct to the Nixplay Seed Wave 13 inch Smart Frame. Nice.

But... we mentioned at the start of the review that there was still a large audience of people who are buying more standard digital frames. Not to mince our words, but these people tend to be older and like to have a cycling display of family images that can be set up for them and left to do it's thing. The Nixplay Seed Wave therefore becomes the perfect gift for someone like that, as the app allows other users to send images to a frame remotely.

That means that the device can be used as a sort of updating social network, where allowed users can fire over new images of what they're up to, or where they are, to those in their private network. As the app also permits captions to be added to photos, this is a great way to keep in touch when video calls might not be possible.

That's the true selling point of the Nixplay Seed Wave 13 inch Smart Frame; that wireless and easy-as-pie connectivity. Meanwhile, the screen is large and crisp, the speakers actually pack a decent punch, and the app is one of the simplest smart device apps we've ever used. Thumbs up here.

£249.99

Visit www.nixplay.co.uk

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