Amazon Prime review

Amazon Prime is a consistently brilliant service with so much choice

An image of the Amazon Fire TV. Image Credit: Amazon

(Image: © Amazon)

It's impossible to ignore Amazon. It's the dominant force in online shopping with so many different services under the same umbrella.  Most of us have changed how we buy things because of it. 

As a free shopping program, Amazon Prime debuted in the United States in 2005 and in Europe in 2007. But since then, Amazon has added a great many of new features to Prime, creating a true must-have service.

Most notably, it provides a selection of free and lightning-fast delivery options based on your postcode or ZIP code. You can, for instance, get Prime Now delivery, which delivers a large number of items to your door in just two hours, or same-day delivery in certain regions of the United Kingdom. 

There's also a whole selection of other benefits, including music streaming and access to a vast catalogue of movies and TV shows, including Prime originals like The Boys and forthcoming Lord of the Rings TV show, The Rings Of Power, all available via Amazon Prime Instant Video. 

For everything Prime offers you have to pay just $14.99 per month in the US or £7.99 per month in the UK.  In the United States, the annual fee is $139, while in the United Kingdom, it is £79. You can also pay for the entire year in one payment for a lower monthly fee. There is still the option to try Prime for free for a month. If you've had Prime or a Prime trial in the last year you'll miss out, but Amazon tends to reset this so if you've been away long enough you can get back in with a free month.

If that wasn't enough to convince you, every July Amazon holds Amazon Prime day, which is a day of deals available exclusively to Amazon Prime members.  It's good for us because we get good deals, and it's good for Amazon as it's able to drive Prime sign-ups.

Amazon Prime subscription options:

Plan for 1 month—no monthly fee—(no total cost) 

Amazon Prime offers a free 30-day trial in the United States and the United Kingdom. 

Prime is an innovative concept that virtually no other retailer has attempted to duplicate. Netflix does stream movies and television shows, but it costs more than Prime and cannot deliver packages to your home in less than 24 hours. Although Prime does not provide a solely video service, it does provide a very good one.

We've tested Amazon Prime Instant Video thoroughly here, but in this review, we'll go over most of the important points once more. This streaming service has had more names than Cordozar Calvin Broadus, Jr. over the years, and it forms an important part of what Amazon Prime offers.

Similar to Netflix, it is essentially a streaming service that is included in your annual (or monthly) Prime subscription. The value is truly remarkable. 

A number of apps are available for the service on all kinds of smart devices. The Amazon Prime Video app is probably already installed on any television, Blu-ray player, or other media player that was manufactured within the last few years. Custom apps are also available for iOS and Android. Desktop is the only real omission; in order to use Prime Video on a computer, you have to use the main Amazon website, which isn't really a great user experience. There is no Windows 10 app and no modern UI like you get with Netflix.

Downloading shows to your phone or tablet

You can also download shows to your devices from Amazon, just like Netflix does. 

This means that you can watch The Marvelous Mrs.  Maisel on the plane, or off the grid, without anyone knowing.  One big limitation of this is that you can only have 25 items downloaded at once.  That is not a device restriction but rather an account limitation. Therefore, you will only be able to sync 25 items between two tablets. I hit this limit, and I'm not entirely sure what else I had downloaded. 

Regarding downloads, we recommend selecting the "best" quality. On an iPad Pro the medium setting didn't have anywhere near enough detail for our tastes.

Sound and picture quality Additionally

Amazon provides 4K and HDR video, and the library of movies and television shows is extensive and expanding. Amazon does a lot of deals with international broadcasters to bring their shows to Prime while also investing plenty in its own content.  

Overall, the picture and sound quality are excellent. The best Amazon player is, weirdly, the Amazon Fire TV.  Get a Fire TV if Amazon is going to be a big part of your home video. It does Netflix brilliantly too as well as broadcast TV catchup apps.

The Kindle Lending Library of Amazon Prime 

Although the Kindle Lending Library does not provide a great deal, it is still a welcome bonus. You can borrow one book from the Kindle store each month with your Amazon Prime membership. 

Amazon Kindle Lending Library. Image Credit: Amazon

The Harry Potter books are among the 600,000 titles that are part of the Library deal. Interestingly some books - Harry Potter included - have compilations, which count as one book.  

Simply search for the item you want to borrow from the library. On your Kindle or Fire tablet, there will be a Prime logo next to the title if it is included. Again, the Kindle Library is one of those benefits that makes Prime even better. It's not enough to get you to part with your money on its own, but when considered in the wider offer it becomes part of an irresistible package. 

There is another service called "Kindle Unlimited" which costs $9.99 in the US and £7.99 per month in the UK and allows you to borrow pretty much any Kindle book.  There is a library of over one million books, and thousands of audiobooks on offer for this fee. 

Amazon Pantry 

Pantry costs extra—in the United States, it costs $5.99 to ship (in the UK, it costs £2.99), but all it gives you is a box that you can fill with various items. It's handy for things like candy, bottled water, and other supplies. 

Free shipping offers are sometimes included, which makes this even more appealing. However, Amazon's grocery and household goods business as a whole is far too complicated. There are at least three different services that offer the same range of things, and all are billed differently.  For instance, Amazon Fresh is an additional monthly subscription in addition to your Prime membership.

Some people might like this one, but it's kind of hidden away. We only found it because we were testing Prime for this review.

Amazon Prime Early Access

Another aspect of Prime's shopping is access to what's called "Early Access". This gives Prime customers a 30-minute head-start on the day's lightning deals. These are price-reduced products that are available in limited numbers for a limited time. On very popular items it's handy to be able to see them before the general public, as you can reserve one and jump the queue. 

In reality Lightning Deals and Early Access are of limited appeal because you have to simply be in the mood to spend money on something, but have no idea what you might actually want or need. It can be handy for Christmas and Birthday presents, where the deals act as inspiration.

Prime Now on Amazon 

I am fortunate to live in an area that is served by Prime Now, a service that delivers some items in an hour. In traditional Amazon style there is some considerable confusion about the various services.

Amazon Fresh is a different service that is exclusively focused on, you guessed it, food. 

Prime Now is also another one of the Amazon services that, for some reason, needs its own app.  You can order from a website in the United States, but the UK does not have one, so you will have to use your phone. This is cumbersome and provides a fairly poor user experience. We asked the Amazon UK team if it was changing this, it told us it had no current announcement to make. 

The app's strength is the extremely precise order tracking, which is where Amazon Prime Now really shines. Amazon drops you a text when the package leaves the depot and from then on you can see the name of your delivery driver and his location. 

This could be very helpful if you're out of town for some reason because it gives you time to get home in time for the delivery. Now offers delivery slots that are either "within the next hour" or slots of two hours after that.  I placed my order around 6 p.m. and was given a time slot from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. You can also pick the next day if you want, but really this is about same day delivery for items you want quickly.

We used Amazon Prime Now to order some fresh fruits and vegetables because even regular supermarkets make mistakes like this. They weren't swollen or bruised when they got here. There is also some considerable promise here. 

You could wake up in the morning and find that you do not have anything for lunch, and within a few hours, you would get a delivery. That's an interesting addition to the home delivery market, and one that could be a nifty bonus for those in eligible areas.

However, there is some strangeness. Amazon, for instance, asks if you would like to tip the delivery driver. But it doesn't do this after the package has been placed in your hands, it does it when you're buying.

Additionally, it is unclear whether the driver is aware that you gave tips.

Verdict

Image Credit: Amazon

Prime is really an incredible service that offers all sorts of benefits.  All of the aforementioned features are included in a relatively inexpensive subscription fee. Even if you only use next day or evening delivery a few times, it's probably worth it because it's cheap and useful. 

Factor in Prime Video, and you find yourself with a proposition that's nearly impossible to turn down.  Over the course of a year, it costs less than Netflix, and you get much more for your money.

US: Amazon Prime free 30-day trial | UK: Amazon Prime free 30-day trial