InkPoster Tela 28.5 Review: A Luxe Home Digital Frame

Take a look under my spare bed and, aside from the dust, you’ll find a worrying number of cardboard poster tubes, prints, and photographs in envelopes I have failed to get framed and hung. My wife is just as guilty as I, and we even joke—as we buy even more pieces of art—that it will look great under the bed.

One day we will get around to framing them, but for now we’re enjoying the lazy, luxury option of the InkPoster Tela 28.5, the best E Ink display I’ve ever seen and arguably the nicest frame I’ve hung too.

Digital photo frames have been freeing our photos for decades. The ability to display and send pictures to Gran’s digital picture frame (or Alexa/Google smart display) is appealing, but until recently, the screens have always been a bit of a disappointment. Backlit LCD panels in questionable resolutions do a job, but they are rarely mistaken for a proper photograph or art print. This is especially true if you’re looking for anything larger than A4, with the only exceptions being TVs with standby art, like the Samsung Frame Pro TV, which combines a matte screen with a digital art subscription.

Thankfully, however, advances in color E Ink technology mean digital images can now look remarkably similar to high-quality paper stock and actually do justice to a piece of art. More than just an oversized Kindle, the technology is now scalable, meaning frames can be larger without the weight of an LCD panel or TV and, crucially, without the need for a power cable or regular charging.

The InkPoster Tela 28.5 is a perfect example of how technology has moved on and offers something unique for art lovers, rather than people just wanting to display photographs. A side project from Swiss e-reader brand PocketBook, InkPoster also sells the Affresco 13.3-inch ($499) and a larger Affresco 31.5-inch ($1,699), which has a more conventional landscape, while the A1-scale Tela 40.5 ($4,200) is art-gallery-sized. There’s also the Pininfarina-designed Duna 40.5 ($6,000), which is even more luxurious, with bespoke finishes and access to exclusive artwork collections.