Ease of Use - Ordering Process:  

Using the same interface and upload technology as our top three services, Wal-Mart makes the upload and ordering process easy and familiar. However, it can be kind of confusing. Wal-Mart offers 1-hour in-store pick-up, in-store delivery and home delivery. Prices for each method are clearly displayed through the entire check-out process you just need to pay a tad closer attention while checking out.

We did like that Wal-Mart suggested we change our print size to retain the natural aspect ratio of digital pictures.

Quality of Prints:  

To test for quality, we sent the same digital photos to all of the online photo developers we reviewed. None of the companies reviewed lived up to all our expectations.

Unlike most companies, Wal-Mart’s photos are defaulted to print using a Luster finish not Glossy.

• Sunset: Many services we reviewed were able to enhance the color of our sunset and our models. The print from Wal-Mart was very dark. Click here to see a comparison.

• Black and White: With regard to color and hue it was unexpected to find that Wal-Mart produced truest best black and white prints or the bunch. However, since it was printed using a luster finish the photo did feel a bit noisy. Click here to see a comparison .

• Aerial: The aerial picture turned out well. Not perfect, but well. We liked how Wal-Mart cleaned up the foggy London skyline without using too much yellow. Click here to see a comparison.

Note: To check quality, we took each set of prints received from the online photo developer and laid them down side-by-side for comparison.

Pricing:  

Usually a low-price leader, Wal-Mart's photo printing service prices were very competitive compared to the other services we reviewed. Although their standard 4 x 6 prints were not the cheapest, they do have better prices than most for larger prints like 5 x 7 and 8 x 10. This is especially true if you use their in-store delivery, which does not charge for shipping, but the per-print cost is more.

Service and Site Features:  

We found that one of Wal-Mart’s best assets is their photo organizer download. With this additional application you can manage you photographs on your hard drive without any worries of deletion. However, if you choose to solely use Wal-Mart’s online services albums will be deleted after one year of inactivity. Which means you have to buy at least one print, once a year.

Wal-Mart offers a huge selection of personalized gift options including aprons, keychains, magnets, mugs, playing cards, t-shirts and more. And most are the same price for in-store and home delivery.

They also offer a mobile device option which allows you to upload the photographs from your cell phone or PDA and they will print them.

Shipping Costs/ Turnaround Time:  

Wal-Mart's costs to ship us four 4 x 6 inch prints was $1.12. As the actual postage for USPS First Class to ship to us was $ .99, this means Wal-Mart kept $.13 for handling. It’s not the best price we found, but it is reasonable. However, if you have your prints delivered to your local store shipping is free.

This service shipped our prints in a paper sleeve, which is then placed inside a lightweight cardboard envelope. You can also save your shipping costs by arranging to pick up your prints from your local Wal-Mart store.

Each photo printing service we reviewed was given 1 to 6 business days, from the time we ordered them to get our prints back to us. Wal-Mart’s photos arrived in 4 days with most of the other companies.

We were impressed that a company that is so diversified, with so many different products and services can produce half-way decent photographs and well-rounded set of features. Additionally, we like their free desktop organizer. Please see our top 3 products: Snapfish, York Photo and Clark Color.