Aura’s new Aspen looks even more like a traditional photo frame
The Aspen is Aura’s newest digital photo frame, featuring a 4:3 aspect ratio and an antiglare screen. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge
Digital picture frame company Aura’s newest product, the Aspen, displays your digital photos in analog style. With a 12-inch antiglare display, a 4:3 aspect ratio, and a super slim bezel, the $229 frame improves on the company’s 10-inch Carver frame ($149) while retaining Aura’s core photo-sharing feature. It also brings two new features to the table: text captions and people search.
The Aspen is designed to sit on a desk or shelf and comes with an adjustable stand that works in horizontal or portrait mode. It features a paper-textured matte, a 1600 x 1200 resolution HD LCD display, and a bezel that’s just 0.5 inches thick. It shares several features with the company’s wall-mountable 15-inch Walden ($299) — both have high-resolution, antiglare displays and a 4:3 aspect ratio, but the Walden is larger and thicker than the Aspen.
Aura sent me an Aspen ahead of the launch this week, and I’ve had a few days to play with it. The first thing that struck me was how much more it looks like a traditional photo frame than the Carver. Its slim design and lightweight build are a nice change from the chunkier style of the earlier model. Its new antiglare screen better mimics a …