Pixelpaint.co.nz A3 Photobook Review Part 2

Some Context:

What follows is the summary of experiences related to 4 similar but not quite identical photobooks ordered from an emerging company during their first Christmas Rush. Lessons have almost certainly been learnt and all interactions with customer service people were fantastic. While I may have been able to get things moving a bit quicker by making more noise I was sympathetic to the stresses they were likely to be under at this time of year so I avoided  being difficult.

Overall:

The products and the people were great. Delivery times and clarity around the construction process provide areas for improvement. Sadly patience and understanding seem to have been a necessary component of completing the ordering process during the pre-Christmas period. While I assume this was a freak occurence I cannot yet be sure. I will re-update with future orders.

Would I order again?

I would, my wife wouldn't, and the people we gave the gifts to already have. I would as I believe that this is a valuable service that will improve overtime. My wife wouldn't as she found the uncertainty and failure to deliver our first order by the Christmas deadline unacceptable. The people who received the photobooks as gifts were impressed enough by the quality of the prints to spread the word about the company and use the service themselves.

Materials:

Cover:
The cover material is very nice and differentiates itself from the book's interior. The cover seems to be printed on a light fabric or canvas. The texture is nice to the touch and also to the eye.

Construction:
The books feel secure when vieiwing them on the table but a little wobbly when carrying them open. The books are generally uniform in this regard but there are slight variations in the gluing of some elements.

Pages:
The pages have a nice feel to them. They are 170gsm with a slight glossiness to them. The whites are also nice and clean. They do become translucent while turning (you can see through them a bit) but are perfectly opaque under normal viewing conditions (lying flat).

Ink:
The colours are vibrant and strong. In the imperfect book some of the black and white shots appeared to have a minor green tinge to them. In the reprinted book and the other books the ink goes in the other direction in some places (a magenta tint). The contrast in the new books also isn't as strong as it was in the earlier version. The cover of the new books is noticeably lighter and shows a wider range of tones. This was an improvement over the initial print.

Print Resolution:
The print resolution is solid. Some of our shots came up with a resolution warning, we suspected that these warnings were on the conservative side - aimed more at printing from point-and-shoot cameras than cameras and lenses with a higher image quality (dSLRs and the like) - and it looks like we were right. All of our images look great resolution wise but it should be noted that the quality of their printers will not make up for poor quality images, cameras, or lenses.

Service:

Pros
Their Zealous service came through in their detection of imperfections in our photobook. As a result they took the initiative and reprinted our book before we asked them to. As an added bonus they sent through the imperfect book so we had something to look at in the meantime. They were also easily contacted and very polite in all our dealings with them. The customer service focus of this company is a great strength. Unfortunately the cons also make it a necessary one.


Cons
When the books were first listed the turnaround time was listed as 15 days. In fact the turnaround time is 15 working days. This lead to a bit of dissappointment in that the book didn't arrive when we expected it to. That being said I have been in touch with the pixelpaint team and this error should be fixed soon.

The information in the my orders section still leaves a lot to be desired. While it does indicate whether your photobook order has been placed or is printing these labels don't seem to mean much. In fact your book will be in the printing phase from the moment your order is officially processed. As such it can be 'printing' for 15 working days. Furthermore our book needed to be reprinted - this was not indicated in the my orders section.


Surprisingly our reprinted book was the last book of our batch to be completed. This seems odd given that the order was placed first and they decided to reprint it before our additional orders were placed. It is also strange that, when we contacted pixelpaint to follow up on the progress of this book, we were told it was almost ready to be shipped a full 2 weeks before it was shipped and this book was rushed through an additional reprint when it turned out it was never dispatched.


It seems that the processes (the behind the scenes elements of the business) would benefit from some love and attention.