Pinoy in Singapore

I was introduced to Photofrenz.com through one of those regular IT fairs at Suntec last year when we bought a wireless router from Linksys. It came with free credits if you sign up for Photofrenz.

I used my credits to create a Travel book for our recent trip to Italy. Here’s what I think about their service.

Let me start with the things that I didn’t like.  

One difference I noticed right away from other photobook printers is that you have to be online to do your photobook unlike other printers that let you download a software so you can work on your photobook offline and just upload it when you’re done.

Another turn off for me is that their software only works with Internet Explorer which I don’t use. I didn’t use it when I was using PC and now that I’ve recently switched to Mac, I don’t really like the idea of having to download IE just to do my photobook when I already have Safari and Firefox.

I also didn’t like that fact that there’s a Photofrenz logo at the back of the photobook. It kind of makes me feel like it’s taking credit for the pictures I took. Plus I don’t quite get the point of putting the logo in the photobook when I did pay for the service.  (Well, technically my first photobook was free.)

Now that the turn offs are out of the way, let me tell you what I liked about Photofrenz. What probably trumps everything else is how my photobook turned out which is obviously the critical point that would determine whether they gain a repeat customer out of me or not. And I must say, I am very satisfied with how my photobook turned out. My point of comparison would be a previous photobook that I printed with Blurb.com.  My photobook with Blurb.com turned out below my expectations.  I was expecting something like book quality printing and in my opinion, the  photobook looked like I printed it myself on some consumer type printer.  

My photobook with Photofrenz however, turned out great!  The paper used is of a higher quality and the print quality was much better than Blurb.  Everyone who’ve seen both my photobooks agree that the photobook I printed using Photofrenz is so much better and much more impressive.  

Upon checkout, you get to choose from a number of pick up locations which is also good.   You can also have prints delivered to you if you want to.

Overall, I would say that Photofrenz’s services is a must try.  I would definitely have more photobooks printed with them.  I’m not sure if they already support it, but I would like to be able to print books using my own template/layout in the future.   

They also have other interesting products that I’d like to try out like “printing” my pictures on chocolates.