From Desktop to Door Step (photobox.co.uk)

Member Name: topsyturvy

Product:	photobox.co.uk
Date:	01/05/09 (148 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: great quality, cheap!

Disadvantages: -

I love technology in the sense that digital cameras have developed meaning now we can take up to thousands of photos but in a way I do miss the days of waiting to collect my film and the excitement of what photos turned out. Also back then people were less snap happy but now everyone takes photos for their Facebook profile pictures and I can't deny that I'm not guilty but the amount of photos I have is unreal. The reason I bring this up is that I'm still sifting through photos from my summer holiday last year and have hundreds to print off but the cost is expensive, even at Asda and places the amount of time it would take me to print the instant photos would take a good few hours

One of my friends then mentioned to me a website that they had heard of from a friend that prints photos for you and sends them out to you by post. I had never thought of using the internet before, I've heard of things when you send film away in the post and they send back your photos for cheaper but didn't really know any websites did it. Photobox is a website which lets you upload your photo files onto their system, by the hundreds even so that you can pick exactly what photos you want and they send them right to your door.

They have a joining promotion that basically when you sign up to the website you get 40 free prints which is actually not too bad at all. They also claim that they print photos from as little as 5p a print which sounds too good to be true but it has its terms. Also, if you recommend friends to the website you can in fact receive free prints which is another good way of getting photos done as if they join and print photos which who doesn't need to print photos these days you'll get yourself another 50 free prints, they just need to place an order.

Today is the last day that they are doing the offer on free UK delivery when you spend £10 or over which if you have a lot of photos, a backlog such as myself then this can easily be achieved. I think it is useful this website because on online networking sites like Facebook, Bebo etc if you are tagged in photos from friends and don't have access to their memory card you can save the photo from your profile and then print it off and it will still turn out ok.

You have many print options on this website, you can do enlargement prints and get any photos you like blown up a little bit bigger. You can then get bulk print deals where if you buy 200 photos for example you will save a few pounds by entering an offer code which is again saving more money if you have a lot to print. If you only have a few photos to be printed off then you can still do this as well you can get sizes 5"x3.75", 6.4" or 6x4.5", they also have deals where the more you print the cheaper it is per print e.g. 1-149 photos is 10p a print whereas 300-499 is 7p a print and 500+ is 5p a print.

You can also choose frames for photos if there is a special photo you need to get printed. You can also buy print credits if you want in multiples of 100 too.

If you love a photo you have taken so much you can even get it turned into a poster for your wall, they give you the option of poster sizes so that you can measure yourself and select, making it really personal. They start from as low as £4.99 and then get higher from there according to sizes.

It doesn't end there Photobox also let you get photos printed onto t-shirts, bags, caps, aprons, baby bibs, caps you name it. Not only items of clothing but also mugs, placemats, coasters, cushions, mouse mats. Then if you want an even more unusual way to capture a photo memory then you can have it transferred onto etched glass which really is quite special, or made into a photo jigsaw if you want to piece your images back together, or there are photo stickers and fridge magnets as well.

I think sometimes merchandise can get a bit carried away but one idea I do think I might do in the future is getting calendars and diaries personalised with photos taken by me. If you have gone on a nice picturesque holiday then creating a year calendar with your own photos would be a nice way to remember each month.

So, enough about the service provided by Photobox and more about my personal experience with the site and how good they really are. I wanted to order a smaller quantity to begin with on this website, just to test them out and see how well they printed because if they weren't good I didn't want to be left with hundreds of bad quality photos.

I uploaded 140 photos from a file, it is best to save images you want printed into one folder and then just upload a whole photo, if you have edited which you want and don't want, as it makes uploading quicker and much faster. It is very easy to do, you install their add-on and then it is pretty much all done for you. I had my 40 free photos on my first order as well so it reduced the cost severely. It worked out that I had to pay £12 but this was including delivery which to me really wasn't that bad.

They do deliver worldwide which is good, in the UK they charge £1.35 for 1-500g, then it is 501-1000g which is £3.59 and lastly 1001-2000g is £4.49. Europe Airmail delivery prices starts from £1.79 and the rest of the world start from £3.15. If you are in a hurry to get prints on time you can do special and next day delivery but this costs something like £8.99.

Photobox claim that if you order prints before 4pm they will send them out same day making a delivery time of about 1-3 days, in the UK. For orders like calendars, etched glass and so on production time is much longer so therefore it will require a longer wait sometimes up to a few weeks.

All prints are sent first class, I paid for my photos and they sent a confirmation email, I then got told when they had been sent so they were good at keeping me informed. I then awaited my photo's arriving. I finally got my photos, excitedly I saw a silver packet with a Photobox label on it and knew that was them, it took a few days as I ordered after 4pm but the packaging was very secure which made me a lot happier. They then come in a metallic box once the silver wrapper is torn off. The box keeps them all neat, they were in the order I'd uploaded them and were of a very high quality. I chose glossy and every single photo was there, it was a fuss free order. For what I paid it was a great service, they arrived on time, perfectly.

My only issue was that I chose 6x4" prints but they did seem slightly too long for my album so I had to cut each of my 140 prints down a little which was time consuming but they still look good in my album now and it must have been a mistake on my part.

I have had friends order from this site since and all agree that they are a brilliant website. They have printed photos saved from Facebook which I was curious to see the quality of as they are lower in pixels but still they turned out just fine. I uploaded my photos from a memory card so I knew the quality would be sharp. I've had friends order 500 or more and again
they all arrived packaged perfectly and in great quality.

This website is definitely a great find; I have more photos print off and will now use them from now on with their cheap price. If you have lots of photo files on your computer, slowing it down or slideshows of photos that you are meaning to print, get over to Photobox.co.uk and get printing.

Summary: -