Snapfish photo book

Thanks to a promotion by Golden, which makes pancakes and other products, I was able to get a free photo book from Snapfish. After buying 3 of Golden's products, I only had to pay for postage. I used this photo book to print photos of my recent holiday. I don't think Snapfish really cares if you buy the pancakes. They just ask you to enter the bar codes and receipt numbers, but don't require you to post the receipts or wrappers or anything. They're probably just using this for advertising.

Ordered on 19 Jul 10. Received on 26 Jul 10. Original cost of photo book: $39.95. Postage: $4.95.

Ordering:
Designing a photo book is time-consuming, since there are so many choices. Snapfish simplifies this by reducing the number of choices. I think it's an acceptable compromise between convenience and flexibility. Designing my photo book took about 1 hour.
Large number of layouts - from 1 to 9 photos per page.
Good uploading tools - use photos from albums or upload photos while designing the photo book, upload multiple photos
Needs option to "decrop" or zoom out, such as print a whole 4:3 image in a square box.
Not obvious from the layouts, but there are 3 different kinds of photo boxes - square, portrait and landscape.

Packaging:

The book arrived in a simple brown corrugated cardboard wrapper, enough to protect it from bending. The wrapper is made from a single piece of cardboard and folded so the book is held in an inner sanctum, in total protected by 2 layers of cardboard. This design looks like it was custom made for the photo book.

The book itself was shrink-wrapped in plastic (removed in this picture), which will protect it from moisture during transit. The bad thing about the plastic is it's hard to remove, so users who are not careful may damage the book while removing it. A better wrapper would be those for CDs/cigarettes, which have a strip to pull and can be cleanly removed without tools.
Packaging has to make a trade-off between design and environmentally friendliness, and this leans more towards the latter. It's not a bad thing, I'm very satisfied with this packaging. Included were offers for more products, I'm happy to receive those too.

The product itself:
My first impression was this is much smaller and thinner than expected. Then again, 20 pages is only 10 sheets of paper. It looks like those children's books.
The cover is printed on glossy photo paper. It's quite durable. When I found there was some adhesive on it, I was able to wipe it off with tissue paper without causing damage.
The printing inside is not photo quality. It's more like newspaper print, where you can see the dots on close inspection.

For signing up, I got 20 free prints which I ordered at the same time. They posted the 2 orders separately, since the photo book usually takes longer to print. Mine was printed faster than expected, and both orders were posted on the same day. I received the photo book in the morning, with the parcel mail, and the photos later, with the normal mail. This gave me the opportunity to compare the 2.

They allow you to choose either glossy or matt for the free photos, which is nice since some places charge more for matt photos. The photos are printed on Fujicolor Crystal Archive paper and are high quality, just like you'd expect from photos printed at a shop.

Oh and if you're planning to sign up with Snapfish please let me know, so I can refer you and get 20 free prints.