Free vs premium wallpapers: What is the difference?

Imagine this scenario, you just bought you favorite smartphone and you cannot wait to unpack it to try it out. You realize that the default wallpaper outside the package is not your style at all, and you want something that suits your personality. The most obvious choice will be a free downloaded wallpaper from the local theme store on the device, but then you see some wallpapers that are price tagged. This can make anyone, who are not familiar with the topic confused, and that’s why in this blog we will be covering the differences between the free versions wallpaper and the price tagged versions.

Quality vs quantity

There are many reasons why some wallpapers are free to download while others cost money to do so, and the main reason is the quality of the image.

Most free wallpapers are made in a pretty mondaine boring quality compared to the premium ones, where many of them come in a regular resolution like 1920x1080 or 2k. Granted, some premium wallpapers come in a regular resolution too, but they are copyright protected in most cases. This means you cannot copy the image to your device from a platform, even if you find the same wallpaper outside the platform where it is originally. The designs on free wallpapers are also quite simplified, where many are using the same art pattern, and they don’t use a lot of graphical effects to make it stand out.  

The premium ones will most likely be in a 4k resolution, which means brighter colors and a clearer screen at the end. They are also made by professional art makers, that know all the details to make them work on your smartphone like the screen size, color contrast, and lightning. We wrote about this topic earlier on how a wallpaper can actually destroy your device if it is not setup correctly. Another thing that makes premium wallpapers completely stand out from the free versions is that they are very personal, and sometimes they can serve a useful purpose to the people who buy them. Some premium wallpapers can have a meaningful message to the user, where they see them in a whole different perspective compared to the free version. Wallpapers with small uplifting quotes can be mentioned, and some do also have some very attractive aesthetic with attention to detail.

Peace of mind

Something very important often overlooked when selecting wallpapers is the security behind them. As we wrote earlier, free versions does not support any security unless they are published on a verified platform. This means that if you download a “wallpaper” from the google pics for instance, there is no guarantee that the image will work well with the device you are downloading it to. That is where the premium wallpaper has the advantage, because you can be sure when buying a wallpaper that there is some sort of customer support, that will help you if any problems occur.

Conclusion

At the end it is your decision whether to get a free or a premium wallpaper that matters. Some people don’t mind to pay for a wallpaper if they’re into great visuals on their screen, and some are more simple and wants something that works for them without having to cash out. You have to consider your personal preferences, because if you planning too change your wallpapers a lot on the device throughout a big period of time with some new designs but you have a tight budget, then you may consider both versions.