Netflix www.netflix.com Review

Overall Rating

After dealing with the limited inventory of local video rental stores, the selection at Netflix alone is well worth a membership. We love the option of instant viewing and use up our hours for that within a week of our month. The prices and packages are very reasonable for what we get and it affords us a marvelous way to check out movies we are considering buying before we buy. The customer services is great and the movies always arrive on time or earlier than expected. We are then able to watch the movies as many times as we want for as long as we want and send them back in a pre-paid envelope without another thought. Our next movie is sent to us automatically when the first movie arrives at Netflix. There are several packages to choose from varying from 1 movie at a time to 8 at a time with pricing from $4.99 per month to $47.99 per month. The selection is very nearly limitless and you can use the search to find a specific title that you want in much less time than you would at the video store and you save the gas and time driving to the store and back. Each movie comes in its own envelope with its own postage paid return envelope so that if you want to keep one longer than another, you can. We love this service!

The limit of hours for instant viewing is one hour per dollar that your monthly plan costs. In other words, the $4.99 plan only lets you have around 5 hours of instant viewing online. Also the instant viewing is poor if you don't have the higher speed DSL on your computer. We had to upgrade our DSL and recommend at least the mid-range speed DSL internet connection if you are going to use their instant viewing option at all. We are currently on the 3 movies at a time level and that affords us only 17 hours instant viewing per month. Also, the instant viewing doesn't carry the large selection that the main library carries. The biggest problem with Netflix is that it is only available through a monthly autopay on a credit card. If you don't have a credit card or can't deal with autopay, this is not available to you.

The ease of use is amazing. Changing your monthly plan is a snap. We use our PayPal check card for the payment method and I just have to make sure that the money is in my account when due date is coming up. You have the option of suspending your account or closing it and re-opening it from month to month which is wonderful since we tend to have months when we simply cannot afford to pay the fees. There is just so much freedom of movement within Netflix. The only thing they lack is some sort of incentive for referring friends to the service. I'd like to see some kind of free hours added to your instant viewing in exchange for referrals. Other than that, I really do like the service.