A new-age streaming platform
Digital streaming TVs have cut across the internet in the world today thereby you don’t necessarily have to be in the cinema to watch a movie and you don’t even need VCDs either. HBO max being one of these streaming services was launched to the public a few years back with a great quality content library and over 10,000 hours of movies and TV shows. The wonderful streaming line-ups and large catalogs of HBO max have given the service a reputable stand today.Let’s know more about HBO Max Reviews.
HBO max is an American streaming service owned by Warners Bro Discovery and made up of clusters of related services like HBO Now and HBO Go. It has a co-production agreement with several studios and workshops. Of course, these partnerships and upgrades on other services enabled this large library of contents HBO max is known for. A few assessments and reviews of this streaming service will give it’s users more insights on it.
The streaming service is still region-locked as of now and is only available in the US and a few other countries like Spain, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Andorra. However, users who can’t access the service because of the region lock can make use of a Virtual Private Network (VPN). Users in the UK, France, and Germany can’t access the service without a VPN even when they made use of it while they were in the countries it was available.
HBO max offers varieties of TV shows and movies produced in other languages. The ‘Latino’ category is where you can see movies filmed in Spanish. ‘International movies’ will play in their original audio and have English subtitles. You can choose different languages by clicking ‘display language’ and enabling any of your choices. You can also toggle the language if the movie is available in two languages e.g. Japanese/English. The app however is still in English but very much will put additional languages in the future.
There is a list of things to look at in HBO max for proper knowledge to make use of the service:
• Pros and cons.
• User interface.
• Subscription and ads.
• Movies and Tv shows.
• Parental control.
Pros and cons of HBO max
Pros
1. Extensive content directory.
2. Immediate access to newly released Warners Bros movies.
3. Customizable rating settings; especially for children.
Cons
1. It is not an independent streaming network.
2. Manipulative: the subscriptions have benefits that make you want to choose the most expensive.
User interface
The most reason for complaint among users of streaming platforms is the user interface and HBO max isn’t an exception. Even with an interesting and large library of movies and TV shows, the user interface seems worse enough to limit how satisfactory it should be. It doesn’t effectively rewind, and neither does it play/pause content without having to glitch. Sometimes the app crashes suddenly and you have to log out and log back in to get it working. A lot of reviews on the user interface and user experience have made it known that ‘nothing is invented and perfected at the same time.
Subscription and ads
The service made two options for subscription available but definitely with different benefits.
| Subscription type | Monthly subscription cost | Yearly subscription cost |
| Ad-supported | $9.99 | $99.99 |
| Ad-free | $14.99 | $149.99 |
The ad-free gives offline downloads and 4k streaming while the ad-supported does not do that. Nonetheless, Users prefer to subscribe to the ad-free since no one wants ads popping up on their screen all the time and the difference is just a small amount.
Movies and Tv shows
Personally, I was drawn to HBO max through their YouTube channel, and saw a few trailers of their movies and TV series. Not only do they have interesting movies and series like ‘the sex lives of college girls’ ‘free guy’ and ‘game of thrones’ but they also feature anime collections, DC ‘superhero’ movies, and series of different genre. Old classical movies dating back to the 40s like ‘Adam’s rib’ ‘The adventure of robin hood’ are also accessible to the users.
Parental control
The great part of this service is the fact that kids can see what they want without having to avoid anything. Yes, you can log in to your HBO max on about 3 devices. Parents can control what their kids and teens watch by adjusting the rating settings. Now the interesting thing is you can lock your kids on their logged service so they don’t have access to your account.
Is HBO Max worth subscribing to?
From a movie geek like me, I would say HBO max is a great streaming service but needs more work and upgrades. HBO max has competitive energy with other streaming networks like Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Hulu among others.
For what it’s worth, HBO max provides the value for your money but they can do better, and fix their UI/UX and bugs.
Frequently Asked Questions.
- Why can’t I watch my HBO max with a cellular connection?
You can change the original setting of ‘stream over Wi-Fi only’ and ‘download over Wi-Fi only’ by disabling the toggles.
- Why is my HBO max app not working?
I recommend you uninstall the app and download it again.
