All Streaming App... (8+)
Amazon Prime Vidoe is an online video streaming platform where you can watch plenty of popular and original content. These include originals, famous movies, and TV shows. As a member of Prime, you are allowed to download the content and watch it whenever you can where ever you can.
It provides you with a vast library of TV shows and movies and some additional premium content available for rentals and paid purchases.
Amazon Prime has perfectly managed all the inclusive digital experiences and is providing them at an affordable price. After becoming a member of Amazon Prime, you won’t only get free video streaming. Still, you will also get Prime Kindle, Prime Delivery, Prime Music, Prime Photos, and Prime Early Access.
Before we go into the depth of review about Amazon Prime Video, we would like to tell you how we got connected to Amazon Prime Video. We bought its subscription because of its 2-day free delivery feature. We didn’t know much about its streaming features and were not expecting that much from it.
After a few months, we are now obsessed with Amazon Prime Video and Prime membership, and it’s one of the best decisions we made in the last few months. We love Amazon Prime Video’s vast library of TV Shows, movie collections, music, and mainly its originals, which are the heart of this streaming site. Its effort to keep itself on top of the pyramid in its every venture is outstanding.
Amazon Prime is not only giving a tough time to Netflix in online streaming, but it is also giving a tough time to leaders in music streaming, data storage, multi-media industries, and logistics.
History
Amazon Prime was launched 17 years back, in 2005. It was launched in the US, and after its promising start here, it expanded its roots from the US to Europe in 2007 primarily as a free shipping scheme. But this e-commerce giant has changed in the past decade.
Prime Network has transformed after including a host of free services and opportunities in a simple subscription plan. But we won’t talk about the other services here. We are only concerned about its streaming services, which we will discuss here.
Design
This might be an odd or unpopular opinion, but we don’t like Amazon Prime’s overall website design. It feels like we are on a shopping website while we stream a movie. The design is confusing, and the content is not well sorted either. So, in our opinion, we found the home page unattractive with no eye-catching things.
If you have visited Amazon Prime Video, it will also allow you to click on amazon.com. Both of these websites have shallow visual appeal. While you are on a page of Amazon Prime Video, you will get options such as Popular Movies, Prime Originals, Popular TV, Prime Comedy TV, and Prime Documentaries, along with the relevant content.
Under the main horizontal slideshow, you get additional menu items such as Your Videos, Channels, All Videos, Included with Prime, and finally, Rent or Buy option. Among all these sections, we like the “Your Videos” section because it helps you start your stream from where you left off last time.
Although the landing page is not bad enough, when you compare it with Hulu, Netflix, and Stan, you will feel the insufficiency of an exemplary user interface. The design is simple and old, based on the colour scheme of two primary colours, blue and orange. One shows trust, and the other represents e-commerce. Rest, the banners, the menus, and the content representation look old-fashioned.
Amazon Prime Video takes the lead here from all of its video streaming competitors in that its optimised interface feature does vary based on the device. It’s not easy to navigate, but no doubt it’s pretty intuitive and quick.
The credit from the design is that there’s consistency. You can watch it on any device without any problem; it works fine on Roku, Smart TV, mobile phone, laptop, Fire device, Chromecast, or tablet.
Key Features
A Vast Library of Content
Offers its members a vast library of originals, movies, and TV shows. It has content available in different categories, which include action, drama, sci-fi, comedy, kids, anime, entertainment, horror, and many more.
Quality Audio and Video
Offers brilliant audio and video quality. It’s from those top streaming websites which offer their viewers 4K and HDR. Amazon Prime Video works perfectly on every device. If you want to experience the best output of Amazon Prime Video’s picture and sound quality, use it on Amazon’s Fire TV.
Multi-device Support
It supports multiple devices. You can use it on mobile phones, desktops, smart TV, tablet, and more.
Offline Download
It allows its members to download the stream and watch it when they are free.
Ad-free Streaming
Like other subscription-based streaming sites, Amazon Prime Video is also an ad-free streaming website, so you can enjoy your stream without disrupting the ad.
Multiple Platforms
It is available on almost all platforms, including iOS, Android, and the web. That’s how it makes it easy for its members to watch their favourite content without any barrier of device you are using.
Your Videos Option
It’s a very interesting feature of Amazon Prime, which allows its members to continue watching from where they left off.
Music Streaming
It offers its members free music streaming, in which you can enjoy the music of all singers around the globe.
Kindle Access
You get free access to Amazon Kindle when you are a member of Amazon Prime Video; through Kindle, you can read premium or paid books for free.
Play Games
It offers free games to its members. You can enjoy it by playing games or streaming; it’s up to you.
Plans and Pricing
Amazon Prime Video is similar to the other streaming platforms and runs on a subscription model. The cost varies based on your plan, the basic plan, and add-ons. The basic prime package costs around $139/year and $14.99/month.
That might look cheap on paper, but if we consider it with Netflix, it’s pretty much close to the entry-level package of it. But here, you will get 4k and HD streaming along with added benefits such as Kindle, Music, Discounts, and Delivery that make it feel pocket friendly.
When you sign-up, you are allowed to access the content of the Amazon library, but it provides you with the option of adding content for a monthly fee. You can add Showtime for $8.99/month, HBO for $14.99/month, CBS, and Cinemax All Access, each for $9.99/month.
Amazon Video Subscribers cannot add these channels. You need an Amazon Prime Video account to access and add these channels. Prime channels that we mentioned above can’t be shared across household profiles.
Before you subscribe to any plan, you should try out Amazon’s 30 days free video streaming trial. Through this trial, you can judge whether it is good for you. If you are a student, you would be glad to know that Amazon Amazon Prime Video also provides a student plan that you can avail of at half the price of a basic subscription plan.
The student plan rate is $7.49/month and $69.49/year. All you need is a .edu email address, which most students already have.
Content
We consider content as the heart of any streaming website. If the content is good, the more viewers you will get if it’s bad, you will lose viewers. So, as we are discussing Amazon Prime Video, it never disappoints its viewers in the content category.
Currently, it has 4500+ titles in its library which are growing day by day and include excellent content such as “Sneaky Pete,” “Red Oaks,” “Electric Dreams,” “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” “Bosch,” and “The Grand Tour.” There’s a lot more to enjoy in this segment.
Though it doesn’t have as many originals as its top competitor Netflix, the ones made by Amazon Prime Video have been doing a great job of retaining and appealing to more viewers. Like Netflix, they are also not coming slow and spending a massive budget towards creating new and organic content.
Their efforts to renew the sci-fi action drama “The Expanse” for its fourth season witness their determination towards this project. Prime is also producing a new series based on the popular franchise “The Lord of the Rings.”
There’s no doubt that ‘Prime Originals’ are the strength of this streaming platform. It also offers popular series on HBO, such as ‘Deadwood,’ ‘The Wire,’ ‘The Sopranos, ‘Boardwalk Empire,’ and ‘OZ.’ It also offers other popular shows such as ‘Justified,’ ‘Hannibal,’ ‘The Americans, ‘And Mr. Robot,’ ‘The X-Files, and ‘Recreation’ within the same package.
Compatibility
We haven’t faced any compatibility issues with the streaming service and never heard from someone regarding this. We tried it on our iOS and Android devices, Fire devices, and Gaming consoles, and it worked perfectly well.
We are sure that it works well on Gaming consoles (Play station, Xbox, and Wii) and set-top boxes (Apple TV 4k, Nividia TV, Google Sheild, and Roku). But there is one problem that we would like to point out is that it doesn’t natively support Chromecast devices.
Amazon Prime Video lets you stream three titles simultaneously from the same account. However, only two users are allowed to watch the particular title at a time, which can be frustrating for users if three of them want to watch the same content simultaneously.
Mobile/Desktop Experience
Amazon Prime Video has an optimised interface feature that varies depending on device. Its interface is different on mobile phones as compared to desktops and other devices.
On mobile phones, the interface is less crowded and more user-friendly than on desktops. On the desktop, you get a variety of titles on the landing page which is sometimes confusing for users to choose what to watch.
Compared to other devices, its works perfectly on mobile phones and desktops. You can use it on the Amazon Prime Video app on mobile phones, and on desktops, you can use it on the website or app.
Suggestions that We Have for Amazon Prime Video
Amazon Prime Video is a very popular online streaming platform that has entertained many viewers for a long time. This streaming platform offers a wide range of content, including originals, TV shows, movies, plays, and more. This streaming platform has become a tough competitor of streaming giant (Netflix) and is also known as a streaming giant in some places.
However, there are some areas where Amazon Prime Video needs improvements so it can provide more facilities to its viewers. Here are some things that Amazon Prime Video can do to improve its service:
Amazon Prime Video should improve its user interface. The current user interface is so crowded and old-fashioned. It should be less crowded and well-sorted according to the genre of content.
Introducing a user rating system would help them recommend content based on the user reviews and ratings they gave after watching the whole movie or series.
Amazon Prime Video currently has one filter separating movies from TV shows. They should create new filters that separate content according to genre, rating, language, etc.
These days, Amazon Prime Video only offers a few sorting features that sort content according to its genre. There should be more sorting features that sort content according to their user ratings, IMBd ratings, languages, year of release, and more.
Conclusion
Amazon Prime Video is giving a tough time to other online streaming platforms because of its fantastic features and benefits to members. With its vast library of content and groundbreaking partnerships growing daily, it’s becoming the first choice of viewers.
Despite its success, there is still some need for user interface and engagement improvements. After the right changes, it can maintain its position in the industry for a long time.
