Mixbook photo book: Two-minute review

If you want a slick and seamless process, then Mixbook is a great option and is one of the best photo books available in the US and UK. There are loads of different designs to choose from, handily split into separate categories (including Weddings, Pets, Adoption, Travel, and more). 

I enjoyed scrolling through the wide variety of designs, which included anything from stylish minimalism to more wacky, colorful designs. Usefully, when you hover over each design, you get a preview of what’s inside the book. When you select a design to use, you can then easily choose between landscape, square, and portrait orientations at the top of the page. 

While most aspects of Mixbook’s service are pretty effortless, I did find its pricing a little confusing. With constant discounts available, Mixbook’s ordinary pricing becomes fairly arbitrary and meaningless. The base price for an 11 x 8.5” landscape book is $49.99 / £41.94, but was only $33.49 / £29.36 at the time of writing – obviously, this is ostensibly a great discount, but I’ve never actually seen a Mixbook photo book available at full price! 

One of the most likely areas for a potential hiccup when building a photo book is when it comes time to upload photos. This is because the builder has to sift through and process a large amount of images. However, Mixbook’s image uploader was pleasantly hiccup-free. 

You can add photos from your phone or desktop, or you can import them from Facebook, Instagram, Google Photos, or Smugmug. I uploaded my images from my desktop, which did take a little while but it wasn’t overly painful. One of my favorite aspects of Mixbook is that you’re able to start putting your photo book together as soon as the first photo uploads, which is a great timesaver. 

I found dragging and dropping the photos to be nice and easy. Each page is customizable, with different templates to explore. You can also move either the frame of the photo or enlarge and adjust the photo itself, which means you can get the perfect framing for each image. 

I did have a few glitchy moments where photos didn’t show up properly for a few seconds, but these weren’t overly disruptive to the process as a whole. I particularly liked a feature where you can copy and paste a page design elsewhere into the book, which is another great potential timesaver. 

When I was done with building my photo book, I used the handy Preview function to double-check for mistakes. I found the payment process to be just as seamless as every other part of Mixbook’s service, with options to pay via card, gift card or PayPal. 

After paying, Mixbook gives you the option to email your fully designed book to other people so that they can order it for themselves. I love this feature and can see it being really useful for those creating photo books for weddings, new babies, and other big life events. 

My Mixbook photo book came promptly and in suitably sturdy cardboard packaging. There wasn’t any scuffing or damage to the photo book and there weren’t any printing errors either.  I found the photos to be pretty true to color, albeit a little bit less vibrant than I would have liked. 

When inspected up close (as in, within 25cm of the page), the images are slightly fuzzy – especially the darker photos. However, you wouldn’t notice this at a normal viewing distance. 

Should you buy the Mixbook photo book?

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How I tested the Mixbook photo book

• I built a photo book on Mixbook’s website using my own photos
• I standardized the tests across different websites by choosing products at a similar price point with similar designs and features. 

In my testing process, I used Mixbook’s website and photo book builder to create a photo book with my own photographs. As I was testing multiple photo books at the same time, I made sure to choose books that were at a similar price point so that I could test how much value for money each product gave. I also chose similar designs, shapes, and sizes and used the same batch of photos for each test. 

I compared each book side by side to check for image quality and any color variations. I also inspected the covers and pages of each book to ensure that there were no scuffs, creases, or scratches

First reviewed May 2023

Realistically, the internet is probably one of the last places that a user can expect privacy, as we are constantly surveilled by multiple watchers, such as our browser, the ISP, our email, and the government. From this reality, back in 2014, Proton came out of a meeting of multiple scientists that met at CERN, that perhaps not coincidentally was the birthplace of the World Wide Web back in 1991. 

Proton took the stance that users should not need to hand over so much personal data just to use the internet, and should be able to take back this privacy. Aligning with this goal, Proton indicates that it does not sell its 100 million user’s data, either to advertisers nor to third parties.

In addition to Proton Drive, this company offers other services, including Proton VPN, Proton Mail, and Proton Calendar. It also has an encrypted password manager, currently in beta, Proton Pass.

Proton Drive: Features

True to its roots at CERN, Proton remains based out of Switzerland. The benefit of this for worldwide users is that Swiss privacy laws are among the strongest globally, making Proton Drive a stable and secure offering.

Following the raison d'etre for Proton Drive is its robust security measures. Built upon the same foundation as Proton Mail, well known for its end-to-end encryption, Proton Drive ensures that your files remain secure and private. The service employs zero-access encryption, which means that only the user possesses the encryption keys. This ensures that even Proton Mail cannot access your data. With data breaches becoming increasingly common each day, Proton Drive's focus on privacy and security is the major advantage of this storage service compared with other solutions.

Collaboration is yet another advantage of modern cloud storage, with Proton Drive delivering in this area. This allows users to share files and folders with individuals or groups, providing complete and granular control over permissions and access levels. Collaborators can view, edit, or comment on shared files, enabling cooperation that is seamless. Version history and file activity logs further enhance this collaboration. This allows users to track changes and revert to previous versions in case they are needed. These features make Proton Drive suitable as both a personal and a professional tool, facilitating smooth teamwork and efficient file sharing.

Proton Drive has availability on multiple platforms, including web, PC, and mobile devices. This cross-platform compatibility ensures that users can access their files seamlessly from whatever device that they are on. The desktop and mobile applications are thoughtfully designed, offering a consistent user experience across these different platforms. Additionally, Proton Drive integrates well with popular productivity tools such as Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace, further enhancing its versatility and usability.

As would be expected from such a polished application, Proton Drive takes data redundancy seriously to protect your files. It utilizes an advanced storage infrastructure, employing redundant servers, and a variety of data replication techniques. This approach minimizes the risk of data loss and therefore enhances reliability. Moreover, Proton Drive maintains this with regular backups, providing an added layer of protection that safeguards your valuable data.

Proton Drive: Pricing

Proton Drive offers multiple tiers to cover a variety of needs. We appreciate that there is a free tier, and not a time limited trial. The shortcoming of this is that the storage data is limited to 1 GB, which is significantly less than what other cloud providers allow on the free tier, for example Microsoft OneDrive, which has 5 GB.

For those that need more storage, this means that they need to upgrade to a free tier. The free tier functions as the free tier, as there is no dedicated free trial of the paid tiers, although there is a 30-day money back guarantee.

The lower of the paid tiers has an allotment of 200 GB of data. The pricing starts at $4.99/month, which can be discounted to $3.99/month when paid annually, or an even lower $3.49/month when paid for 24 months in advance. It includes the end-to-end encryption, so secure that not even Proton can see it, and also priority support.

There is also a higher paid tier of Proton Drive,  with 500 GB of data. This not only includes the priority support, but also access to the entire Proton ecosystem, with paid versions of Proton Calendar, and Proton Proton VPN and Proton Mail all included. The cost for all of this, does go up to $11.99/month, or $9.99/month for the year, or $7.99/month, which is more than reasonable considering that this is in the neighborhood of what you could pay for just the VPN alone without the additional services.

Proton Drive: Support

Proton does offer support, but the options are limited for direct contact. We did not find a phone, fax, or chat option, which we would have liked to see at least one of them. The option we did find for direct support is a support portal, and there it does at least have a direct email address. It is stated that it is 24/7 support, and Proton does emphasize that privacy is paramount, even with a support query, and indicate how to contact them directly and securely via Proton Mail for a sensitive issue.

The rest of the support is self help, with a searchable database of articles that address concerns.

Proton Drive: Final verdict

Proton Drive is a stand out for its emphasis on security, ease of use, collaboration features, and cross-platform compatibility. With its robust encryption, intuitive interface, free tier and competitive pricing, it stands out in the crowded cloud storage market. 

Whether you are an individual user looking for a secure storage solution or a team seeking efficient collaboration tools, Proton Drive offers a compelling package. As Proton Drive continues to evolve and innovate, it is poised to become a trusted and go-to choice for users prioritizing privacy and security in their cloud storage needs.

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