Dragon Touch Classic 10 Digital Picture Frame review

The Dragon Touch frame’s 10.1-inch, 16:10 touchscreen lets you view everything from static images and slideshows with special effect transitions to 30-second video clips complete with a headphone jack for audio. There’s also multiple ways to input images into the frame, including an SD card, USB thumb drive, WiFi uploading, and FTP. 

What's more, if you're after colors that pop, the image quality is superb with bright detail. You can control screen brightness while a suspended ball quick navigation key can stay on screen (if you choose) to quickly access all settings. However, as you will see in our Dragon Touch Classic 10 Digital Picture Frame review, the quality of the product can be a little hit and miss. 

Dragon Touch Classic 10 Digital Picture Frame review: Price and availability

The Dragon Touch Classic 10 frame is a general, low-key, all purpose digital picture frame with classic lines that blend in with any room style. It’s just right in terms of dimensions without dominating the space or making you squint to see your pictures. 

Moderately priced at just $69 on Amazon, and originally $149, this is great value for all that it offers. It has many advantages, including 16GB of storage, that will make life easier for non-technical users. The Dragon Touch Classic 10 frame is also available on the Dragon Touch website, and if you subscribe, you get 10% off your first purchase. 

Dragon Touch Classic 10 Digital Picture Frame review: Design

The Dragon Touch Classic 10’s physical outer frame is constructed with smooth ABS plastic, available in a black or white finish, with a beveled edge. Inside, a white border simulates traditional picture frame matting. The screen is capacitive touch glass, similar to a smartphone.

The frame casing did not seem especially durable with the first model I tested, as the paint started to chip and peel off the top soon after I started using it — something that is covered by the warranty. Many frames shipped to addresses in the U.S. arrive with European or Asian power connections that do not fit into wall sockets. I received one of those for review, but was able to use it with an adapter that I had on hand. A second frame sent to me had the proper U.S. connector and also maintained its good looks throughout extensive handling.

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The Dragon Touch offers some fun goodies, including video with sound, an alarm, calendar, and local weather. While there is no motion sensor to power down the frame when there’s no one in the room to view it, you can set a schedule for turning the frame on or off. With 16GB of built-in memory, there’s plenty of room for everything. If you need more storage, you can expand capacity with a USB drive or SD card. The Dragon Touch frame’s built-in gyroscope senses rotation, so it displays portrait or landscape images automatically. A mounting hole on the back facilitates wall hanging.

Dragon Touch Classic 10 Digital Picture Frame review: Image quality

There are no complaints about the high-quality 10.1-inch touch screen display, which features 1280 x 800-pixel resolution. Photo quality is stellar both in front of the frame and at extreme angles. Slideshow intervals range from five seconds to five minutes with an assortment of transition effects, which you can access on the frame.

Some viewers may be irked that the slideshow does not mix photos and videos together as some other frames do, though I personally prefer that they be separated as distinct experiences. That said, videos showed up sharp and clear with sound emanating from the frame or from a wired headphone jack you can plug in.

Dragon Touch Classic 10 Digital Picture Frame review: App

Dragon’s OurPhoto companion app for iOS and Android is quite limited in scope, though you must use it to “bind” or pair with your frame to upload images from your camera roll or gallery. The app also lets you add remote users to the frame so friends and family can also upload images via the app. You can also use the frame’s email address to upload images via a registered account. An FTP connection works too, but I found it to be extremely slow. 

Beyond that, the frame’s onscreen controls — screen brightness, sound volume, rotation, date and time, language, auto on-off — are accessible via the frame’s touch screen controls, not on the app. A suspended ball on the upper left corner of the frame, which you can set to view at all times, conveniently lets you access the home screen from any panel.

Pairing the frame involves linking the app to your frame ID, which some users — including myself — reported to be faulty. Tech support is responsive though their communication skills could stand some improvement, and after several tries with no luck, did offer to replace my frame with a new one. A new ID did work in binding the app to the new frame. There is a specific protocol frame owners need to follow in order to successfully bind the frame, which is outlined in the Dragon Touch user guide. I suggest reading it first before you start.

Dragon Touch Classic 10 Digital Picture Frame review: Verdict

The Dragon Touch Classic 10 Digital Picture Frame is a consumer-oriented frame with intriguing and fun features to entertain users as they view photos and videos. What Dragon lacks as a flashy exterior, it makes up for in image and video quality, and a nice white matte mounted finish.

Its versatile mode of operation, huge storage capacity, multiple inputs, and large, bright, clear screen make this an enjoyable product for any home. 

If you do want a splurge buy however, the Pix-Star Wi-Fi Cloud Digital Photo Frame came top on our list for best overall quality and performance.