A photo book & photo slate review with Asda Photo | AD

A few summers ago, I made it my mission to print off as many photos as I could. Photographs that I had taken over the years and put them into albums. My main reason for this was to have something for the children to look back on in years to come. And also something for us to come across now and again and enjoy looking back over as we remember, laugh and enjoy them. That’s how photos should be – enjoyed, looked over and smiled at. Not sat on a USB stick or an SD card in a dark drawer somewhere. Gosh, I even have thousands of seriously old photos on CD’s that I made from in-store kiosks! Do you remember doing that!?

I worked with the lovely people at Asda Photo for my Christmas Gift Guide last year and they got in touch again to see if I’d like to collaborate. So, for this post I will be sharing with you the photo book I made, what I think of the quality and process you go through to make them etc and also their Photo slate gift option as well.

Photo Slate from Asda Photo

First of all, I’m going to say – I’ve never seen a photo slate as a gift option before. It looks like quite a unique piece, in my opinion, and I was curious how they would look and feel. I ordered one with a recent photo that I took of me and my two youngest on the beach and I was excited for it to arrive.

The sizes available for the Photo Slate are 19x14cm, 19x19cm & 23x12cm. For this review, I went for the 19x19cm option. This allowed me to use one of my much-loved square cropped photos. It arrived very well packaged and felt quite heavy. Hello, it’s a slate! But once I opened it, I was not disappointed.

It was really lovely. It also comes with a pair of plastic hooks to allow you to stand it up wherever you like and the quality of the image on the slate was gorgeous. Overall, it is a really lovely and unique photo option and would make for a nice gift idea.

The Asda Photo Slate ranges from £11 to £14 {depending on the size you opt for} and for the level of quality you get in not only the photo but the overall product? I think that is a bargain.

Photobook styles & options

I have quite the collection of photobooks, which I doubt will ease up anytime soon! So I was interested to see how Asda Photo held up against the other photo books I have in my collection. Asda Photo has a nice collection of different styles of photo book to choose from. With Ringbound, Softcover, Hardcover and Layflat photo books to choose from.

Not forgetting if you’d prefer your photo book in a landscape or portrait style, too. For this review, I opted for a portrait style Hardcover lay-flat photobook in size 8″x 11″. Which is an A4 sized photobook.

This is my first lay-flat style photo book, so I was keen to see that in person. Because I am a hater of having photos cut off by the spine of a photobook, so having this lay-flat option was a turning point for me.

Like all website programs, putting together your photobook is relatively easy. You can upload photos directly from your computer, Facebook, Instagram, Google photos and more. Asda photo is no different in that respect. They’ve made it easy for you to locate your favourite photos from everywhere possible.

The photo layout options for each page are decent enough for a basic layout. It would have been nice to see more imaginative layout options available to be able to add your creative flair to your photobook. The same applies when it came to designing the cover. Again, quite basic options and not much room to be creative, sadly. So the cover of my photobook, as good as the quality is, just doesn’t excite me.

Overall thoughts?

Overall, the quality of the photobook is really lovely. The photos are great quality and each leaf of the photo book is on 2-ply, 200msg matte laminated photo paper. Which makes the pages of this photo book super durable and nice and smooth to the touch as well. The lay-flat option is without a doubt a winner in my eyes. Having that seamless look throughout the book is a game-changer for me.

My only strike against the photobook experience was the lack of having more stylish options for the cover of the photobook. More stylish options for the inside of the photobook too would be lovely, but having them available for the cover was a main point for me.

This style of photobook comes with 26 pages {including the front and back covers} and would cost you £32. You can add additional pages at £1.60 each if you wish. The lack of layout designs aside, this photobook, overall, really is a lovely product. Made with really good quality materials and it will fit in nicely with my collection.

Disclosure: This is a collaboration with Asda Photo. Both of these products were sent to me in return for an honest review. All thoughts, photos and opinions are my own.