Atatat Digital Photo Frame review

The Atatat Digital Photo Frame is an 8-inch remote controlled device that facilitates viewing static images, slideshows with a variety of transitions, and video clips — with a headphone jack for audio. The frame, unconnected and with no internal storage, accepts images only via SD card or USB thumb drive. 

If you read our full Atatat Digital Photo Frame review, you will find that the image quality is superb on its wide screen with realistic color and an extra wide viewing angle. Numerous settings allow for good user control in terms of screen brightness, transitions, and built-in utilities like a calendar and clock. The frame is nicely styled with an elegant narrow black bezel, and works well, as long as you adhere to the recommended component specifications.

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Atatat Digital Photo Frame review: Price and availability

The Atatat Digital Photo Frame is a budget model available in black with a subtle carved design. Priced at just $59.99 on Amazon, it’s stuffed with great features. It was originally priced at $65.99, which makes it even more of a bargain. 

With its addition features such as playing music (with an earphone jack no less), a calendar, both SD and USB inputs, and a clock, minus the hassle of setting up Wi-Fi, it's a great investment. 

The Atatat Digital Photo Frame is available on Amazon and on Atatat.com.  

Atatat Digital Photo Frame review: Design

The Atatat Digital Photo Frame comes in black or white with elegant carving on its thin bezel. While it’s nothing fancy, it manages to stay unobtrusive without clashing with anything else in the room. At the eight-inch size, it is compact and will fit easily on a desk, nightstand, or living room end table. The three-foot cord is rather short, so unless you’re using an extension cord, you’ll have to be near an outlet. There is a small indent in the back for wall hanging, but because of its diminutive size we suspect it will be used mostly on the tabletop.

Sitting on the tabletop is best done horizontally. While vertical photos adapt to the landscape orientation, the black bars on the sides can only be removed with radical cropping — a universal setting that will not be suitable for every picture. The frame comes with a puny peg for standing, which is steady enough in landscape position, but does not hold up at all in portrait orientation.

Atatat Digital Photo Frame review: Image Quality

Image quality is the standout feature of the Atatat frame. If you’re taking pictures with an iPhone or Android smartphone, you can be certain the images will show up looking crisp and clear behind the frame’s IPS 1920 x 1080p matte glass. The frame supports 178-degree wide viewing angle and 15 levels of adjustable brightness so that your images are visible from most places in the room. 

For movies, the tiny speakers sound respectable enough. You can also play music over a photographic slideshow, which is a very nice effect and works well. While photos and videos do not play in slideshows together,that shouldn’t be considered a drawback.

Atatat Digital Photo Frame review: Interface

The frame has an extensive setup pane that gives you lots of flexibility in your photo presentation. You can set the brightness, various slide show transitions, speeds, effects, and repeat mode. A breakpoint play mode picks up at the photo or video where you left off. The frame automatically adjusts the direction of the photo, which you can hang on the wall or place on a table. You can adjust the photos to better fit the 16:9 aspect ratio, options including cropping, stretching, auto, and original are available. I found I got the best results with the original setting, even if there was some blacked out space around the edges.

An auto on/off function where you can set a timer helps you save power. The frame takes just a couple of minutes to set up: there’s no software or helper app. Just turn it on and insert a memory card or USB drive (available separately) and the frame will instantly start cycling through your pictures.

The remote control worked as expected most of the time, but sometimes it was unresponsive, and mostly it was slow, taking a few seconds to execute commands. If you don’t want to use the remote exclusively, a set of controls on the back of the frame lets you switch it on or off and here you can also access and adjust the settings. However, to switch modes from photo to movie, or SD to USB on the fly, you’ll need to use the remote. Having a clock and calendar adds convenience and sophistication to the frame.

Atatat has no online connectivity or networking capability. You can’t set up an email account to add photos to your frame or have friends or family contribute to it, unless you all live under one roof or nearby. The only way to get photos and movies onto this frame is via an SD card or a USB thumb drive, but even those must meet strict specifications -— you can’t just pick up any thumb drive or SD card you may have lying around. The SD card must be 128GB or under and the thumb drive must be 32GB formatted to FAT32, or your media will not play. Given those parameters, it would be nice if those helper items were included in the box. The site advertises an included SD card, but my review unit did not include one, and it was not listed on the packing list.

Atatat Digital Photo Frame review: Verdict

The Atatat Digital Photo Frame is one of the best out there when it comes to visual quality. It’s pure HD on matte glass makes your photos look vibrant without a flashy effect or artificially punched up colors. The images look fine grained with no noise or artifacts, maintaining the true color of the shot. The widescreen format, even on a small screen, gives the impression of being larger, and the extreme wide viewing angle enhances the visual effect. The Atatat is more expensive than the low-tech Aluratek 8-inch LCD Digital Photo Frame, which appeals to the same audience. However, the Atatat is well worth the extra money for its visual quality, photo and calendar utilities, remote and hands-on controls, not to mention the ability to play sound and video.