Aura’s next color E Ink photo frame is smaller, cheaper, sharper, and more colorful
The new 10-inch version of the Aura Ink can display three new colors that help skin tones look more natural.
The new 10-inch version of the Aura Ink can display three new colors that help skin tones look more natural.
by Andrew LiszewskiNov 10, 2026, 2:00 PM UTC Andrew Liszewski is a senior reporter who’s been covering and reviewing the latest gadgets and tech since 2006, but has loved all things electronic since he was a kid.
Aura just launched a smaller version of its color E Ink frame with a handful of improvements and a more affordable price. The new Aura Ink frame features a 10-inch E Ink panel that can display more colors at a higher pixel density. It’s also differentiated from the original 13-inch model with a black frame and matching mat board that helps photos stand out.
The Aura Ink 10 is now available in the US for $349, $150 cheaper than the 13-inch version, which still costs $499. The original Ink’s price made it a tough sell over Aura’s other frames that are available with an LCD screen as large as 15 inches for $299. The new 10-inch option makes color E Ink more accessible, and it carries forward one of the Ink’s biggest advantages: a rechargeable battery so the frame can hang on a wall without a dangling power cord.
Although color E Ink displays have been available in e-readers like Kindles and Kobos for a few years, those devices use a color filter over a standard black-and-white e-paper panel with limited color reproduction. The Aura Ink instead uses E Ink’s Spectra 6 technology, which creates patterns of black, white, red, yellow, blue, and green ink droplets to reproduce a much wider color spectrum.
For the new 10-inch version, Aura worked with E Ink to add three custom base colors created by mixing those six inks in new ways: off-white, mustard yellow, and orange. The goal was to improve the company’s proprietary dithering algorithm to produce more natural-looking colors on faces, add detail to textures like grass, and to help smooth gradients so photos of sunsets, for example, look better. The 10-inch panel also has a higher pixel density — 200ppi, up from 150ppi on the 13-inch model — allowing it to produce slightly sharper results.
Both are welcome improvements, but in practice the color reproduction isn’t drastically better than the original. You’d need to compare the same photo on both models side by side to really see a difference, and the upgrades don’t overcome one of the major shortcomings of the Spectra 6 technology. While E Ink estimates it can reproduce around 65,000 different colors — and potentially even more with Aura’s enhancements — LCD displays can produce millions.
That can make it hard to predict how your photos will look on the new Aura Ink. Rich colors — like blue sky, green trees, and bright red flags — really pop, but skin tones can still sometimes look too warm or cold. I sent to the frame a photo of a bright-yellow water taxi photographed on a sunny day and expected it to appear well saturated, but that particular shade of yellow came out disappointingly subdued.
The technology still has its challenges, but the benefits of E Ink’s color displays make the new Aura Ink a tempting alternative to the company’s LCD-based frames, particularly for those who don’t want another glowing screen at home. Photos displayed on the Aura Ink look like a printed photo, even with a subtle front light that automatically adjusts to boost the lighting in a room.
It would fit right in on a wall of printed photos, and Aura estimates you’d need to take it down every three months to charge. But that’s if you update the displayed photo once every night. You can increase the frequency through Aura’s mobile app to up to 12 automatic refreshes per day, or manually change it using a set of buttons hidden on the back if you don’t mind charging the Ink more often. Just be mindful that unlike an e-reader that refreshes a page of text in less than a second, it takes the Ink about 30 seconds to change to a new image after a series of flickering, psychedelic patterns.
I’ve been testing it as a standalone picture frame using a removable support that props the Aura Ink up in landscape or horizontal orientations. Moving it around the house without hunting for an outlet first is a big plus. And as with all of Aura’s digital photo frames, the new 10-inch Ink also benefits from the polished mobile app that has helped make the company’s products so popular. You can send photos to the Ink through a Wi-Fi connection with free, unlimited cloud storage or create shared albums that friends and family can view and contribute to. It also works with Google Photos and Apple Photos. If you don’t have access to the app, you can text or email photos directly to the frame.
If you plan to gift an Aura frame during the holidays, the company’s LCD models are still more budget-friendly, with 10-inch options starting at $149. The new version of the Aura Ink still feels like a device for early adopters who completely understand the tradeoffs of E Ink’s color screens. But if you prefer the look of printed photos over a glowing LCD, the smaller Aura Ink is now one of the most affordable ways to try out this tech.
Photography by Andrew Liszewski / The Verge
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