Happy Monday! I am currently out of town judging at a county fair after a fun-filled, incredibly busy birthday weekend. I'll be sharing photos from Trevor's
Star Wars party later in the week. In the meantime, I thought I'd do a review of the
Groovebook that arrived too late for me to use during
Scrapbook Improv at
Lain Ehmann's Creative Live workshop.
As you might recall, those of us in the studio audience were given a free code to order a 100-photo Groovebook for use in Lain's workshop. Once my photos were on the Groovebook app, ordering my first Groovebook was a piece of cake. I waited for it to arrive. And waited. And waited. I didn't start worrying until 15 days had passed. Why was it taking so long?! When I learned that Groovebook ships out of Los Angeles, I was even more confused. Shouldn't it take 2-3 days, a week tops, for something to get from the Los Angeles area to the San Francisco area? I read somewhere that they ship via USPS Media Mail (which keeps costs low and delivery times potentially long) but that doesn't make sense, as photographs and photo albums are specifically mentioned as
items that cannot ship via Media Mail.
The Groovebook did eventually arrive, 21 days after I'd ordered it. It arrived in good condition, despite the outer covering looking really beat-up. The pages were thinner than I'd expected, but still a decent quality. I loved that the date and other metadata was right there with the photo.
Overall, the print quality was ok. Some pictures turned out well...
... while others were downright terrible. The worst one had a big pink streak through the photo, a weird orangish tone, and a dullness to it. I scanned it, then made a collage with the original to show the difference.
I'm just now starting to take phone photos, so we'll have to see whether Groovebook is something that I might eventually want to use in the future. In the meantime, I'm much happier ordering slightly more expensive photos with a much better print quality and significantly faster delivery time.
If you'd like to check out Groovebook for yourself, feel free to use the handy coupon that was in the back of mine.
I'd love to hear about your experience with Groovebook! Love it? Hate it? Somewhere in between? Let me know!
Haven't worked with them ... but a little leery after the problems you had :(
ReplyDeleteThank you for this review!! I'd mentioned that my SIL loves getting her Groovebook each month, and she keeps telling me how great it would be for me. But like you, I would have to load pictures ONTO my phone from the computer in order to get them printed. So ... I also think I'll stick with my higher priced, better quality photos.
ReplyDeleteI agree w/ Julie!
ReplyDeleteAlso, as many pictures as I take, I can't see having 100 pictures to upload every month!
The concept sounds great though.
21 days delivery time within the same country is pretty ridiculous...I think you should stick to fewer but higher quality photos.
ReplyDeleteI didn't have anything nice to say about Groovebook until mine finally arrived, AFTER Lain's workshop! I like it, though. I love the metadata being right with the photo. I love being able to flip through and scrapbook with a picture and not have to wait until I've collected enough digital photos to upload to CVS. I didn't think I would come up with 100 photos a month, but so far I've exceeded that. I no longer have to pick and choose what to print because I can print as many as I want, up to 100 of course. Quality is just OK. If I need better quality, then I will upload that picture to CVS. For the most part, it's just really nice to have the photos off of my phone and in a book that my family can enjoy (and I don't have to stop and put photos away in expensive albums).
ReplyDeleteDespite my growing fondness for Groovebook, my 2nd order was placed on May 29th. It took them until June 10th to process it. That is already 5 days later than the last order. sigh.
Despite
This product was on Sharktank. I have not ordered it, but I did see the episode and heard the owner/inventor being interviewed on the radio. While I prefer to spend time really fine tuning my photos to create nice photobooks, the advantage of Groovebook is that it only costs $2.99 per month (that INCLUDES shipping) for a book of up to 100 photos. You can order it directly from your phone, so for all the crappy phone photos you take and will likely never see again, you can easily make it into a book and have a hard copy of. At worst, you're out $2.99 for 100 mediocre photos. I probably wouldn't use this as my main way of making a keepsake but it might be something I would try for the price.
ReplyDeleteAdam makes a good point! ^^
ReplyDeleteI spend about $20 dollars even w/ a coupon to order the approximately the same amount of pictures from an online service (most of it because of shipping), but still concerned about the need to have 100 photos... :0/
It's an interesting concept... hope they are able to work out the bugs and deliver the product in a more timely manner. I don't plan on using anything like this, but I am not your average user and I kinda doubt that us crafty types are their ideal demographic! ;)
ReplyDeleteI just ordered my first one with your free coupon and am anxious to see how it goes. I'm guessing, like Amanda said, crafty/scrapbookers probably aren't their main customer base, but I figured for free I'd give it a try. I also can't see printing 100 per month, but maybe if I combine with a friend or two, we'd use that many up. For $2.99 you really can't go wrong if you actually want that many prints. I also have to move photos from my computer to my phone but that wasn't too difficult. I take some phone photos but not a ton. I just saved all the ones I wanted to a folder on my computer, then deleted all other photos off my phone (after backing them up, of course) so that I wouldn't have to wade through tons of photos to make my choice of 100. I did have a problem getting some of them to be recognized by the Groovebook app. I copied exactly 100 photos to my phone but when I went to select them in the app it only found 93 of them.
ReplyDeleteLet me know how you like it!
DeleteI love my Groovebook. I've gotten 4 already. Yes the paper is thinner but I found that my scrapbook pages aren't as bulky. I don't worry about the archival issue as hey everythings digital also. As for the quality, at the price of 2 1/2 cents a photo who cares? I have ordered 10 of the same photo multiple times so that I may make 10 albums for my rowing team. I have given out all of my coupons and bragged on Groovebook lots. I consider myself a snapshotist not a photographer. one thing Groovebook has made me do is take many many, many photos of random things so that I have that 100 I need each month. lol
ReplyDelete