With the holidays looming, many of us are already thinking about gift giving. A fantastic option for your family and friends is a photo book, helping to record your most treasured moments and celebrate memories you’ve shared. And with Black Friday deals already rolling in from eager retailers, it’s worth considering which services will offer you the finest results and the best bargains.
Having overseen TechRadar’s photo book testing, I’ve personally compared the results of every photo book we’ve reviewed. That means I’m perfectly positioned to help you decide on which service can offer you the best gift, as well as helping you track down the best bargains. For most people, I’d say it’s worth considering one of three services: Mixbook, Printique and Cewe.
While we’re not into the actual week of Black Friday yet, there are already some decent deals out there. As I explore below, Mixbook is offering a range of discounts, including 50% off 12 x 12-inch photo books, while Printique is offering 20% off for new customers. Cewe doesn’t yet have any offers but it is still super affordable – it offers books from as little as £8.99 – and we could still see discounts once Black Friday is fully underway.
So which of these three is the best photo book service for gift giving? And which of them is set to offer you the best Black Friday pricing? Well, pull up a pew and let me drop some advice on you.
Ease of use
If you were to ask me which photo book service has the flat-out best design tools, I’d likely opt for Printique. When whipping up my photo book, I found its tools offer so many options, allowing you to set precise values for everything from color selection to object dimensions positions. Adding and customizing various shapes and flourishes is also super-easy, making it really easy to recreate the exact format of my dream photo book.
But I recognize not everybody wants an endless array of options. For anyone who sits in this camp, I’d put my money on Mixbook being the best service for you. It offers an enormous range of preset layouts, themes, stickers and backgrounds, while still allowing you to adapt colors and positioning to your needs. On top of this, it makes working together a breeze – you can easily share a photo book in progress with another collaborator or just send a completed product with a loved one so they can order a copy.
Print quality
Perhaps the biggest question on your lips right now is simply: ‘which service offers the best finished photo books?’ That’s a knotty one to answer, particularly as I’d say the answer depends on what your priority is.
The Mixbook photo book service offered great printing, with a crispness that rivals any of the best photo books I’ve tested. Its colors also offer a serious punch – while I didn’t think its hues were quite as accurate as some of the other books we’ve reviewed, it's hard to knock it when it comes to sheer vibrancy. Unfortunately though, I could see plenty of printer’s marks on our finished book, blowing its chance at the top spot in my eyes.
Between the two big dogs though, there’s much less light. If you’re wanting pure print quality, I’d recommend Cewe’s photo book service. Colors pop and look gorgeously rich, while exhibiting none of the color banding that some of the weaker books I tested exhibited. Meanwhile, all of our sample photos look staggeringly sharp – its printing process renders images with unerring precision, without a hint of noise or ghosting making the edges of images indistinct.
But my personal pick if you’re looking for quality construction? It has to be Printique. Sheer tactility gives it the edge here, with the weight of the pages feeling fantastic between your fingers, while the paper stock is sufficient quality to show off your prints in the absolute best light. It delivers unabashedly premium-feeling photo books, albeit at a premium price.
Which brings me to…
Value
OK, I might have already dropped some spoilers here. Out of these three photo book services, Printique will usually set you back the most – my 28-page, 12 x 12-inch testing photo book would set you back $133.89 (roughly £105), which is not cheap. Conversely, the same book from Mixbook has a list price of $109.71 / £82.91, while Cewe’s was a super economical $65 / £47.98. So if we’re talking list prices, Cewe takes the trophy here.
But there’s an elephant in the room, stomping all over our expectations around price: Black Friday. With many retailers already launching their first volleys of value pricing, we’re already getting bombarded with bargains.
For example, Printique is currently offering 20% off for all new customers, which would bring the photo book we ordered above down to $107.22 (roughly £80); meanwhile Mixbook is offering 50% off the 12 x 12 inch photo book we ordered above, bringing it down to $54.85 / £49.98. Cewe also offers 10% off for new customers in the UK who sign up for its newsletter, bringing that price above down to £43.18 – while there's no discount in the US, it's still remarkably cheap, only narrowly being edged out by the reduced Mixbook.
Ultimately, I’m still going to give Cewe the win here. Even without a US discount on its seriously affordable photo books, it gives you great prices. And once you factor in just how gorgeous its printed books are, there’s no contest in terms of value. Mixbook can’t touch it in terms of quality, while Printique will cost you much more, even while on sale.
Best photo book Black Friday deals
Rather buy the best photo book for those on a budget? Or do you just wanna have a bunch of fun putting it together? Discover which is perfect for your gift-giving with our best photo book service guide.
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