Kindle Unlimited, Amazon Prime, Or Neither?

[stumped]

Ps the free books for prime members is called Amazon first reads
Each month they send a list of 6 -8 books, a month before they go on sale ,and you can buy for free one, sometimes two, from the list. They are books that then usually get added to kindle unlimited the following month or sell of £3 - £4
I would struggle to highly recommend anything I have acquired from that scheme mostly they just clutter my purchased books list
Prime lending is like a subset of kindle unlimited, it is free but you can borrow a max of one book per month for as long as you like. Often they put volume 1 of a series into prime lending but not the subsequent ones. Again, it's mostly poor quality.

[stumped]

Prime video. In 2 months since getting a 4k TV I have watched all that appealed on the 4k section. There is not a lot of it!
And beware that stuff gets removed from prime ,back into buy or rent which can be annoying if you are part way through a series

On the p!us side. Bezos is a fan of the Expanse and saved that from oblivion when syfy dropped it after 3 seasons. Amazon have 4 seasons in prime and a 5th is in production.

I Rewatched all of man in the high castle on a big screen in 4k

I just had a 3 month free trial of Amazon hd music. Liked it but will return to Spotify rather than pay 2 music subscriptions

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by stumped

Same here. Main benefits are free shipping and prime video. Other perks, like one or two free new release kindle books each month are minimal, those books are mostly crap.

They did their 1st delivery of premier League football very well. I hope they buy more as I will not pay silly prices at sky sports or bt sport for that when there are many free websites, but it's nice to use a reliable legit service.

They dropped the old, generous family scheme where you could nominate 4 people to all get free shipping but my son still gets that perk on my account. I cannot add anyone else though.
Amazon implementation of 4k video is poor. Many shows are listed twice ,once for hd and once for 4k so you have to carefully pick the correct one. Then if you watch partly on hd tablet but partly on 4k TV, the resume watching and start next episode can go awry. With man in the high castle there is a glitch that means a 4k fire TV stick always plays the not 4k version.i had to find the 4k and watchlist it using the Samsung TV app, as a workaround.
I also found that the much vaunted asap intelligent prebuffer is useless for 4k. The Samsung TV smart app, wired, starts immediately in UHD, but the fire TV stick, with fast WiFi, will take up to a minute to work up from 720 to 1080 to 4k, as displayed in footer.
I sold off 2 X 4k sticks because the smart TV does it better, with less adverising. TV app also has X ray.

I agree that it's rather stupid to have an HD version and a separate UHD version. But I don't have a problem with resuming. We have two UHD TVs so I can resume on either TV no problem. I don't have a fire stick. I use the LG Amazon Prime apps. They work rather well.

So the only gripe I have to Amazon Prime is the double versions for HD/UHD. I cannot gripe about the Fire Stick as I have no need for one as my TVs have all the apps I need.

[stumped]

The resume problem is this
I start watching something on tablet, so not in4k, do not finish so next day i want to resume in 4k on the big TV. But Amazon know that I have not watched any of the 4k version so the only offered option is from the beginning. Or resume in the non 4k version.
I struggle with spot the difference anyway. I think 4k with my eyesight makes not a lot of difference, compared with full hd. Samsung TV seems to upscale very well which further hides the difference so videos I have in Plex look very good even if they are only 720p

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by stumped

The resume problem is this
I start watching something on tablet, so not in4k, do not finish so next day i want to resume in 4k on the big TV. But Amazon know that I have not watched any of the 4k version so the only offered option is from the beginning. Or resume in the non 4k version.
I struggle with spot the difference anyway. I think 4k with my eyesight makes not a lot of difference, compared with full hd. Samsung TV seems to upscale very well which further hides the difference so videos I have in Plex look very good even if they are only 720p

What makes 4K so much better is HDR. That's where 4K gets a boost.

[Junket]

Your opinions are inevitably inflexible, so I'm not going to spend a lot of time making a nuanced review that you will summarily reject before the ink is dry.

A few quick observations. Less quality content compared to other providers? Check. Realgood counted the number of shows rated 8 or higher on IMDB:

Hulu: 213
Netflix: 203
Prime Video: 142

Hmm. How about live TV? Two thirds less channels than a premium Directv package? Check. And obscenely expensive to add on several dozen specialty channels, which still wouldn't bridge the gap but would make Amazon a lot more expensive than a premium Directv package after the addons. Check.

Less original content than Netflix? Check. Not going to see new shows as fast as you will on Hulu? Check. Can't get ESPN, Disney+, Apple TV or a lot other popular content? Check.

[stumped]

Hdr. Yes if your TV has enough brightness in reserve. I found a couple of shows on my cheapish 4k bedroom TV were too dark and much googling taught me a lot more about nits and max brightness levels. Proper hdr delivery needs much more brightness range than cheap led sets can deliver. So I paid double for the lounge TV for a highly rated qled which has much more brightness in reserve. The new Amazon canary? Row had some too dark to see what's happening sections

[stumped]

In the UK we are somewhat starved of video streaming options. There is no Hulu, no Disney, no hbo. So without geo cheating, not having prime video removes quite a chunk
You can game the system for Amazon video channels. I have had several free for 30 days offers and in 30 days you can binge the best of any channel, then cancel
As at a few days ago several were on 99p for first month.
Same with kindle unimited. Cumulatively I must have had a years worth of free trials by now. All legit. They offer, I say yes please...

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by Junket

I thought his assessment of Prime video was generous. The prime video selection is terrible. Yes there is quite a bit of content but the gaps and obvious omissions make this a poor choice compared to.. well just about anyone else.

Prime music is a little more even but it also suffers badly when compared to Deezer, Spotify, Pandora or most other vendors.

Not recommended.

Prime Music is included with Prime, and doesn’t have ads. That is the selling point.

Amazon Music (now with ‘HD’ streaming option) is as good as any other paid service in in terms of selection, and there’s a discounted rate for Prime members. It now has a ‘free’ tier with ads that appears to be what you get with Prime without ads. That said I would go with Spotify or Apple Music if you are going to pay for it. I don’t think Amazon does very much active ‘curation’ of playlists and their iOS app doesn’t get much attention (it took them months to fix iOS 13 crashes, which appeared in the earliest betas and IIRC persisted several weeks after it released - it was the only app I had iOS 13 issues with). Both of those integrate very will with Echo if that’s in your home.

The original content on Prime Video is pretty good for the most part, some Emmy and Golden Globe and Oscar worthy. But you have to be a Prime member to view it (do they rent or sell to non Prime Amazon customers?). Netflix must have 20x more original content, and increasingly that is more of what is worth watching there. The third party content comes and goes on both and Netflix is much deeper with worthy content. But again Prime Video is bundled with Prime. If it were unbundled for $5/month, would it be worth it? Probably not, except for binge-and-cancel.

[JSWolf]

I have found a lot of things on Amazon Prime that want to watch. Doesn't matter if Netflx has more content or more original content. It matters that there is something I want to watch and for me, there is on Prime Video plenty to watch.

[BookCat]

Just thought I'd update to say that I've decided not to use either Prime or KU based on the information supplied. Thanks.

[booklover6]

My two cents: KU is cheap and well worth it. 90% of my reading is done in KU at the moment.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by haertig

I do not read fast enough for a normal price K.U. subscription to benefit me. I would lose money compared to just buying the books outright.

Originally Posted by booklover6

My two cents: KU is cheap and well worth it. 90% of my reading is done in KU at the moment.

I am in a similar boat to haertig. I do not read fast enough to not lose money at the regular fee. So far, I have also not gone to the bother of signing up for a trial offer.

As to free shipping, I get free shipping by being willing to wait a few days, and sometimes things arrive just as soon anyway.

[issybird]

My issue with KU is that it's about 99% dross and that it would be way too time-consuming to mine it for the occasional gem. I've already got plenty to read and when I go looking for a book to borrow or purchase, it's a specific book. Occasionally a title I search on shows as free in KU; most recently, it was a poetry book that costs $9.99 to buy. But even at that, KU wouldn't pay for me.

I suppose what I should do is keep a separate wishlist of KU titles that interest me and eventually sign up for a promotional month or two and bomb through them - except that's not how I like to read, which is whatever I feel like at the time. Still, I can see the value in that approach. (After all, I'm not shelling out ten bucks for that poetry book, ever.)

[Barbara1955]

Prime Only lets you the Borrow 1 ebook per month.
Unlimited lets you borrow ALL you can read in a month....but only 10 at a time Read>Return> Borrow another 10>Repeat