Winkflash Reviewer's Comments

We really wanted Winkflash to do well in this review. We like their site, their service and loved the standard $.99 shipping for all 4 x 6 prints. Unfortunately, the thing holding this site back is their print quality. Overall, we found their photos to be darker than most of the other services.

Winkflash Screenshots. Click for more
       


Ease of Use - Ordering Process:  

The ordering process for Winkflash is really very simple; just follow the steps and you're on your way. Also, to use this service, you will be instructed to download a program that will be used for uploading your images to their website.

We found that although Winkflash is easy to upload your images to you are still required to take a few extra steps compared to many other photo printing services.

Quality of Prints:  

All of the prints we received back from Winkflash, although nice looking, two of the three we used in this review appeared darker than we expected. We sent the exact same digital photos to each of the online photo printing services.

• Sunset: Compared to many of our other services, Winkflash produced one of the darkest sunset photos.
• Black and White: Similarly, our black and white picture was also dark. It included a hint of red that we believe contributed to it’s dark contrast.
• Aerial: Unlike the sunset and b&w photo, the aerial print Winkflash produced was close to perfect. They cleaned up the overcast in the sky, and unlike some other companies, there was no hint of yellow in the buildings. If only the other two photos looked this good, Winkflash would have been in our top three.

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:  

Winkflash’s prices are neck and neck with the competition. Although not the cheapest service we reviewed, there really isn’t much to complain about in the pricing department. However, compared to the other services we reviewed, they had the best price for 5x7 prints.

Service and Site Features:  

Winkflash services include the ability to upload photos from your camera phone, free album sharing and no account expiration. You can upload all your digital photos to Winkflash and never buy another thing from them, and they will never delete your albums. This is one of the few services we evaluated that truly had limitless online storage. One cute feature that Winkflash includes is the ability to print messages on the back of your pictures.

Before ordering your prints the service has a print quality meter that evaluates the quality of your photographs and determines which printing size your pictures are ideal for. For example, some pictures may be too dark or blurry and would become distorted in an 8 x 10, but would appear just fine as a 4 x 6. We also liked Winkflash’s uploader application, “The Transporter.” It was easy-to-use and it uploaded our images without any problems.

Although Winkflash offers photo gifts, their selection was not as extensive as some of the other services we reviewed. However, they do include the basics like calendars, mugs, mouse pads, t-shirts and more.

Shipping Costs/ Turn Around Time:  

Winkflash has a great fixed shipping rate. To ship your 4 x 6 inch prints, whether you're ordering one or fifty-one, the shipping price is just $.99. This shipping rate is in line with the shipping rates of our top picks.

In our case, for four 4 x 6 inch prints, we were charged $.99. With their packaging it cost Winkflash $1.14 to send us our photos using standard USPS First Class postage. This means Winkflash actually spend an extra .$15 just to send you your pictures.

We gave each photo developing service from 1 to 6 business days to get us our prints to receive a high turnaround score; Winkflash met that requirement. We received our pictures in about three business days.

Winkflash will also ship to all U.S. armed forces bases.

Summary:  

Winkflash provides its consumers with simple, photo-uploading and ordering processes, low shipping costs, great printing rates and fast shipping times. But Winkflash's failure to offer a well-rounded set of services, along with the medium prints, kept this service from reaching any higher.