Our photo collection is perhaps the most valuable asset we store on our computers. Because of the advent of digital photography and the recent improvement in smartphone cameras, it’s becoming increasingly uncommon to actually print out photos anymore.
Unlike other media we might have, like music digitized from our CD collection, it wouldn’t be possible to restore this information if it was lost. This is why companies like Google, who recently announced a revamp to its photo storage service at its recent I/O conference, are targeting the problem, but how does it compare to the competition?
Google
Simply called Google Photos, this new service promises to store your entire photo library. That’s an unlimited amount of storage, up to 16 megapixels (MP) in quality for photos and 1080P for videos, for free. For those who want higher fidelity than 16 MP, such as professional photographers, there are additional payment options as part of Google Drive. For the vast majority of us, though, 16 MP is more than enough.
Amazon
Amazon has been offering unlimited photo storage to its Prime members since last year. The company says that all of the photos stored to its Cloud Drive service are kept in their full, original version, meaning the images aren’t compressed and no quality is lost. For those who aren’t Prime subscribers, Amazon currently offers 5 GB of storage for free. It also offers a specific plan for $11.99 a year that stores an unlimited amount of photos.
Apple
Apple updated its iCloud storage price tiers at last year’s WWDC and released its new Photos app for Mac OS X in April of this year. Apple stores photos in their original quality, though it only offers its users 5 GB of data for free, with pricing for further storage ranging from 20 GB ($0.99 per month), 200 GB ($3.99 p/m), 500 GB ($9.99 p/m), and 1 TB ($19.99 p/m). These plans include storage for all of your files, as the company does not currently offer a plan specific to photos.
Though most of us know the dangers of failing to properly back up our data, an inordinate amount of us still do so. This makes the kind of automatic back up solutions offered by these companies extremely appealing, but is it safe to trust your data in the cloud? Let us know what you think in the comments below.
One thought on “How Does Google Photos Compare to the Competition?”
I think key to this is not so much the backup space (although that’s clearly important too). More important is what you can do with the photos when they are uploaded, e.g. how easy is it to search, to share. to download etc.
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I think key to this is not so much the backup space (although that’s clearly important too). More important is what you can do with the photos when they are uploaded, e.g. how easy is it to search, to share. to download etc.