Thursday, January 26, 2006

Blockbuster Online vs Netflix

So you've heard about Netflix for a while, and maybe you think that you don't watch that many movies...but with Chicago DVD rentals up to 5 bucks, if you pay for 2 movies a month, you could be getting the cheapest plan from either serrvice. So this column will serve to rate the dvd-by-mail idea and compare the 2 companies. The best analogy I could come up with for this was a baseball game: Netflix is the well established home team with 4 times the fan base, by Blockbuster is a strong road squad with some promising prospects. Both services offer 2-week free trials and Blockbuster was up first:

Both teams have the same prices, but BB offers 2 coupons for free in-store rentals. Also, BB ships on Saturday, while Netflix takes the day off. But Netflix has the possibility of faster shipping.

I tried Blockbuster first but only did 1 disc at a time, and wasn't paying enough attention to shipping speed. It seemed slow, but more on that later.

When I tried Netflix I upped it to 2 at a time. It was nice and seemed faster, but I'm not sure if it's actually faster. The last 3 rentals have all come the day after the email told me they would. Which is even worse than just being slow, because it got my hopes up. In light of this, I have decided to go back to Blockbuster, upping it to 3 at a time.

In Conclusion:
DVD's by mail are addictive; as soon as you get it you can't wait to watch it and return it. My recommendation if for every one to utilize their free trials at the 3-disc plan. You can cancel online easily so by using both services for 2 weeks you could watch about 15-20 free movies. You can compare how many movies you get from both services by having 3 at a time. Beware: you might love dvd's by mail and be interested in keeping it.

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