Apete's Reviews: Chatbooks Instagram Series

Ever wish you could have hard-copies of your pictures but can't figure out what to do with them once they're printed? You can have photo-books printed from several places but it takes time to arrange your layout and the books can be pretty expensive. My wife and I recently tried the service Chatbooks offers and we're already thinking about getting some more.

There are several options when creating books but we tried the Instagram subscription which has to be the easiest way ever to get your memories printed. Don't want to use Instagram? No problem, there is a custom book too. Setup is simple: Create an Instagram account and link it to a Chatbooks Instagram subscription. Every time you add a new picture to Instagram, it's automatically added to a new book and once you hit sixty pages your book is printed and mailed out to you. Don't worry though; if there are some pictures you shared that you don't really want in a book they provide a nice app to aid in building the perfect series.

The books themselves are made of nice heavy paper and even a little heavier for the cover. The pages have a satin coating so are neither a boring/flat nor overly glossy. I of course can't prove this but the ink is purported to be high quality stuff that will resist fading for 200 years. Detail is decent and I mean that in a good way. It's not like looking at the original digital image but it's plenty clear and you aren't left wondering what you're looking at. Check out my pictures for examples.

Now that you're this far you're probably thinking "Sure it's easy and convenient, but it must be expensive". Its not though! Each book is $6. Less than 10 bucks for any photo-book is a good deal and this is almost half that. Less than a monthly Netflix subscription and you get to keep something hard and real. Get a coffee every morning? Skip it for 2 days and you can have one of these every month.

There's really no argument against these when you just want an easy way to save memories. Easy and convenient, great value, and no time commitment for setting them up. If you're not sure if it's for you I'd recommend just trying one book and seeing if you'd like more. Unlike other subscriptions this one is completely dependent on the pictures you add so you don't even have to worry about forgetting to cancel anything. Still not convinced? How about a coupon for a free book? I'm giving one away each to two people who take the easy steps in the giveaway below.