InkPoster Tela review: a digital frame with a very analogue heart

Digital art displays often promise elegance but end up behaving like miniature televisions; they can be bright, attention-seeking, and oddly distract from the artwork they’re supposed to celebrate.

The InkPoster Tela, a 28.5-inch colour ePaper frame from Swiss outfit InkPoster, is the first display I’ve tested that feels genuinely crafted for art rather than entertainment. I wrote some of my early thoughts on the InkPoster Tela previously, but after living with it for several weeks, I’m convinced the Tela isn’t trying to be a screen at all. It’s trying to be a picture frame, and succeeds with conviction.

It stands in stark contrast to flat-screen TVs and displays that have adapted existing tech into a picture frame, like the successful Samsung Frame TV, because the InkPoster feels like a picture frame by design, not by compromise.

Design: as close to a real frame as digital gets

The hardware is stunning. The slim black frame has the sort of quiet confidence you’d expect from a modern gallery, while the wide white inner mount gives every artwork room to breathe. It looks purposely minimal, flush to the wall, and utterly unlike a TV disguised as an art frame.

One of my favourite discoveries is the click-and-flip socket cover hiding the charging port. When it’s closed, it disappears into the frame so cleanly you’d never know it was there. This reinforces the central truth of the InkPoster Tela: it’s a picture frame first, a piece of tech second. No cables dangling, no need to engineer your living room around a power outlet. Just hang it, step back, and let it do its job.

Image quality: a digital lithograph machine

The InkPoster Tela’s real magic lies in how it renders images. Instead of firing light at your eyes, it slowly builds the artwork using E Ink Spectra 6, shifting colour pigments into place like a digital lithograph. Watching an image imprint itself has a strangely satisfying, handcrafted quality, as though the frame is ink-rolling the piece directly onto paper.

Once the artwork settles, something remarkable happens: the InkPoster Tela effectively turns off. Zero power. No glow, no flicker, no stark light calling you from the corner of your eye, no faint hum in a quiet room. It behaves exactly like a print hung on a wall. Under daylight, it looks vibrant and textured; at night, it softens beautifully under ambient lamps.

Just as important, it doesn’t demand your attention. This isn’t a bright Art TV lighting up the corner of your living room or office. It’s calm, contemplative, and visually silent. One thing to note, if you're uploading personal art, you may want to edit and experiment with colour adjustments to fit the InkPoster matt display. Personally, I like the realistic tones, but I can see some wanting to create a folder of 'InkPoster adjustments'.

Battery life: lean and longlasting

Because the InkPoster Tela uses power only when updating an image, the battery lasts absurdly long. If you set up a slideshow or cycle through collections, you’ll work through the battery faster. But if, like me, you land on one piece you adore and leave it there, the Tela will run for months.

Charging is wonderfully simple: plug it in, recharge, unplug. No fuss, no cable permanently trailing down your wall, no awkward line you’ll spend the rest of your life trying to hide. You can monitor the battery in the Ink app so you know when it's time for a recharge – it will be months after setup.

The app: easy and fully loaded

Speaking of which, the app is refreshingly straightforward. Setup took only minutes, and there's a wealth of free art to send to the frame. You can browse by movement, era, region, and more; the categories are thoughtful rather than algorithmic, and it's easy to get dragged into curating collections for mood, time of the day, seasons, and, well… anything.

The library itself is excellent. Alongside the spectacular Galerie 1 2 3 vintage posters and French PLM travel prints, you get everything from Turner landscapes to Mentone classics. There’s even a curated collection dedicated to Paintbox, featuring early digital artworks by Adrian Wilson from 1985, an unexpected and wonderful nod to digital art history.

Slideshows are supported if you want them, but again, for me, the Tela shines brightest when you treat it like a real art piece and choose one image to live with for a while.

Performance: E-Ink is a welcome boost

The InkPoster Tela uses Sharp IGZO technology to speed up the otherwise slow colour ePaper refresh. It’s still deliberate, by design, but noticeably quicker than typical colour E Ink. The refresh has a personality to it, and will blink and build a painting in layers of shape and colour. It only takes a few seconds.

The frame can be set to portrait or landscape, images can be edited, cropped, flipped and adjusted in size within the app. I had to toy with the settings a little to get my painting to fit, but it's easy and painless.

Equally, mounting the InkPoster Tela to my wall was easy and painless too. The frame comes with a card template to place on the wall with drill holes pre-designed, so no measuring is needed. It also came with fittings for all wall types, including drywall. Four small rubber feet, one in each corner, ensure the frame sits perfectly and evenly flush to the wall.

Price and value: expensive but worth it

At $2,399 / £1,780, the InkPoster Tela is aimed squarely at art lovers, designers, studios, and collectors who care deeply about how art is presented, not just displayed. Compared with the glowing TV rectangles pretending to be art frames, it delivers a fundamentally different experience, one closer to print than screen.

Still, it's not cheap, so go in eyes wide open. There are two other sizes, the portrait InkPoster Affresco 31.5-inch is $1,699, while the more affordable InkPoster Affresco 13.3-inch comes in at $499.

Also consider, a part of the cost is for the art collections that are regularly added to and updated. And remember, this frame runs on a battery that can last a year on one charge, so it's far cheaper to run than have a TV-style display frame always on.

The InkPoster Tela is beautifully built, thoughtfully engineered, and quietly transformative. By mimicking the look and behaviour of print, while adding the flexibility of digital updates, it creates a viewing experience that’s calmer, warmer and more intentional than any backlit 'art TV'.