Sainsbury

INTRODUCTION

I joined Sainsbury's DVD rental service following a link in a freestuff site, being lured by their "free 30-day trial" offer. I haven't left them since although I must admit that I'm looking around for "free trials".

HOW IT WORKS

The process is quite straightforward: You sign up and order the films online, which are dispatched by first class mail. You receive and watch them (you are also allowed to keep them as long as you like - the more of course you keep them, the less movies you watch within each month of your subscription), Then you place the disc back in its pre-paid return envelope and post it back to them. As simple as that.

TARIFFS

As most major online DVD rental shops, Sainsbury's offer 4 packages: a) Unlimited 1 disc service for £7.97, b) Unlimited 2 discs service for £11.47, c) Unlimited 3 discs service for £13.97 and finally d) Unlimited 4 discs service for £19.99.
They also offer a combination package where you can mix games and films for £12.97, £16.97 and £19.97 for 1,2 and 3 discs per month respectively.
Their prices don't vary much from their rivals. So, why you should choose them instead of others? Just read the next section of this review.

SERVICES

Sainsbury's being lucky enough to use Lovefilm claim to have 44,500 different titles available. Of course this number is a bit plasmatic since many of them aren't readily available (which unfortunately they will never tell you - you will have to figure out that yourself), however there is a vast choice of all shorts of titles divided according to genre (including animation, action, comedy, bollywood, children, documentary, family, drama, foreign language, fantasy, futuristic, gay/lesbian, general interest, horror, living world, martial arts, miscellaneous, mystery, music, romantic comedy, science fiction, sports, television, thriller, war and western movies), letter and decade.

When you subscribe you are able to add titles to your list - you can rearrange the titles according to which ones you want to watch first. My experience says that each shipment will have at least one of your top picks, which is good since you will always have something nice to watch. You won't have to watch all of them and then send them together away: I would suggest that each time you are finished with a film you send it back - this will ensure that you will always have something available, although I must admit that their service is very prompt: As soon as they received a title back they will send a new one out and they will notify you via e-mail as well.

It is very important to say here that they are very professional: They won't treat you differently if you are on a trial-basis, which doesn't happen with other online rental shops.

WEBSITE

The website is very functional using drop-down menus and search boxes. It also features a number of frames which present "quick picks", "editor's choice", "new releases", a "you will love" choice of movies, a number of editorials, the new releases in cinemas, information on film festivals and a number of film choices which are made according to your previous choices.

The "Your account" section of the site is very functional since it allows you to check which movies you have rent up to the moment, which are left in your selection list, when is your next payment due and most importantly it allows you to freeze your membership for a short-time if you feel you aren't going to use their services for a certain period of time.

My favourite function is their search box which allows you to search for something by genre, title, description, language, studio, actor and director.

EXTRAS

Sainsbury's following the sign of times offer also gift packages. Therefore you can buy a 5 or 10 dvd rental service for your beloved ones which are valid for 5 and 10 weeks respectively. They are also offering you a small amount of money (credited to your account) for each person you refer - which can obviously be quite handy when you start recommending it...

Finally, I will have to mention that you can cancel anytime - you won't be billed further. If you decide to do that make sure that you have sent them back all the films you have received from them and that you haven't just passed your billing date (they won't give any refunds).

SUMMARY

In overall, I think that they providing a high-quality service, which is certainly worth trying. The 30-day trial can come quite handy.