HBO Max review: A solid streaming service with serious holes
Our Verdict
HBO Max has all the makings of a keen streaming service, but feels half-baked at launch.
For
- Wide variety of content
- Blockbuster movies
- Excellent HBO shows
- Piece of cake to encounter upcoming shows
- Same toll as HBO Now
Confronting
- Buggy
- 4K HDR only available for select titles
- Glaring gaps in library
Tom's Guide Verdict
HBO Max has all the makings of a great streaming service, simply feels half-baked at launch.
Pros
- +
Wide variety of content
- +
Blockbuster movies
- +
First-class HBO shows
- +
Easy to see upcoming shows
- +
Same price as HBO At present
Cons
- -
Buggy
- -
4K HDR only bachelor for select titles
- -
Glaring gaps in library
HBO Max specs
Library: 10,000 hours of shows and movies
Price: $14.99 per calendar month
Devices: Android, Apple TV, iOS, iPadOS, PlayStation four, Xbox One, Chromecast, Fire Television, Roku
Simultaneous streams: Upward to 3 at once
Streaming quality: Hard disk drive (select films to offer 4K, HDR)
Parental controls: Yes
User profiles: upwards to 5
HBO Max is finally here, but it arrived with a bit of defoliation. This HBO Max review looks to clear things upwards that question, only also articulate up any confusion every bit to how it differs from HBO Go, and what happened to HBO Now. And most importantly: should you lot subscribe if you don't already have an account?
At first glance, HBO Max appears to accept enough content to steal optics away from the likes of Netflix and Disney Plus and become one of the all-time streaming services. But right now, its early on hiccups prevent us from lavishing much praise, as contract negotiations take prevented the service from actually landing on two of the nigh important streaming platforms.
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As this HBO Max review first explained, the service had a crude go of it at first, but its availability issues are sorted every bit HBO Max is now on Roku, and Burn down Tv set too. That being said, we still hope to see them set up some omissions in its library, equally HBO Max may feel more than incomplete than Max'd out.
HBO Max pricing and availability
HBO Max costs $fourteen.99 per month, with a vii-solar day free trial to test it out. Many (if not all) existing HBO Now and HBO Go subscribers also get HBO Max. Farther, HBO Now, has been sunset across devices, every bit its app turned into HBO Max.
To admission the service, download the HBO Max app and sign in with your existing login credentials (be they from HBO or TV provider).
I HBO Max subscription allows for up to three simultaneous streams, which is one fewer than Disney Plus (4 streams at once). Netflix offers dissimilar amounts of simultaneous streams, based on which package you subscribe (1 at $9, 2 at $14 and 4 at $18).
HBO Max is U.South. merely, with planned international expansion, while Netflix and Disney Plus are bachelor internationally.
- Hither'south how to watch HBO Max from any country
HBO Max supported devices
Originally, this was our biggest with HBO Max, and thankfully it was fixed. HBO Max launched on an incomplete list of devices, with apps on Android, Apple tree Television, iOS, iPadOS, PlayStation 4 and Xbox 1, besides as Chromecast support. That left out the biggest platform in streaming media: Roku (as well as Fire TV).
Unfortunately, right now the latest HBO Max app bug has hitting iPhones and iPads, so maybe stick to your bigger screens and Androids.
Fortunately, that skirmish ended in December 2020, in time for the release of Wonder Woman 1984, which will hit the streaming service the aforementioned solar day as U.South. theaters. HBO Max is now bachelor on a wide enough assortment of devices for u.s. to silence our complpaints.
HBO Max movies
Arguably the biggest slice of news surrounding HBO Max is how it'south getting major blockbuster movies during 2021 (which began with Wonder Woman 1984 at the stop of 2020). The likes of Matrix iv, Dune, Godzilla vs Kong and many more will be arriving on HBO Max, in 4K HDR to boot.
This is a huge gain for the service, every bit it's at present perhaps going to brand a proper name for itself as the place for big movies. Netflix has its own original films, but they don't e'er seem every bit big or newsworthy.
These big HBO Max movies won't exist at that place forever. They each take a thirty-twenty-four hours window when they'll be available to stream, earlier disappearing.
- How to get HBO Max client service
HBO Max content library
No streaming library impresses me as much every bit HBO Max's — just it besides confuses me like none other. It starts with the already inimitable lineup of HBO original programming, and and so yous throw in the Warner Bros. Studios film annal (many of which were in HBO already, such as the Harry Potter movies). On top of that, you've got selections from the DCEU movies, and big batches of films from Turner Classic Movies and the Criterion Collection.
In raw numbers, the HBO Max library includes more than than 10,000 hours of content (according to HBO). Netflix doesn't promote a similar number for its library, but it's believed to be around 36,000 hours — a number that'southward likely constantly shifting with each month's new and removed content. Disney Plus was reported to exist around 4,000 hours of content at launch, terminal November, before additional originals arrived in the following months.
Frustratingly, though, it doesn't have all of the DC movies — and it's missing some of the best. Not only is it missing all of the Christopher Reeve Superman movies, but the entire Christopher Nolan Batman trilogy is missing as well. Sure, the service has Joker, and information technology's getting the Justice League Snyder Cut in 2021, simply even the greatest detective himself might scratch his head at these absences.
Just as chiefly (though quite controversially with directors), HBO Max volition be getting major theatrical releases on the same day every bit U.Southward. theaters. That includes Wonder Woman 1984, Dune and In The Heights. These movies will be on HBO Max for no extra charge, for 30-mean solar day windows.
What matters more than to me, though, are the classic Japanese animation films from Studio Ghibli. Never before available on a U.South. streaming service, films such as My Neighbor Totoro, Kiki's Delivery Service and Spirited Abroad are must-sentinel pieces of cinematic golden that are ultimately rewatchable. But fifty-fifty the Ghibli drove is missing a selection: 1988'southward Grave of the Fireflies past Isao Takahata is non there, currently streaming at Hulu.
As for the HBO Max Originals, while I liked the Not-Too-Late Show with Elmo, our Love Life review shows that Anna Kendrick's HBO Max series isn't a hit yet. Until an HBO Max Original tin can get the kind of praise and chatter that Disney Plus got from The Mandalorian or Netflix gains from The Witcher, the service may not seem like a must for many.
While y'all're here check out how to watch Euphoria flavor 2 episode four online.
HBO Max blueprint and interface
The 10,000 hours of film and TV history contained inside HBO Max can be hard to sort through due to the service's not-and then-helpful set of menus and screens. Its domicile screen presents a carousel of 7 promoted shows and movies. Below the Continue Watching and My List sections (which Disney Plus didn't have working properly at launch), you get more general promoted content, with rows for movies and shows and Max Originals. After that, you'll see a row for Harry Potter and a row for the "editor's picks" of HBO shows.
Then, 9 hub buttons give you an clue of how big HBO Max gets. From hither, y'all can spring to HBO, DC, Cartoon Network, Sesame Workshop, Developed Swim, Turner Archetype Movies, Crunchyroll (anime), Studio Ghibli and Looney Tunes. Notably absent from this list is the Criterion Drove, which already has a subscription service (Benchmark Channel) that information technology might non want to cannibalize by letting HBO Max highlight its vault.
Further rows include highlight buddy comedies, family-friendly movies and shows and mysteries. There's fifty-fifty a row called The Continued Fight for Civil Rights, which is urgently necessary in this nowadays moment when the Black Lives Matter crusade needs all the back up it can go. There'southward, a row for LGBTQ+ programming, followed by rows for musicals, fantasy, true offense and blockbusters.
A menu from the left side of the screen breaks things out by genre and has categories for Series, Movies and Originals, as well as Just Added, Last Gamble and Coming Soon.
Correct now, what HBO Max actually needs is better editorial guidance. A row for the best movies on HBO Max, that pulls in titles from all of its channels, is then obvious that I'm surprised it's not there already.
HBO Max's Telly shows (including Friends, Rick and Morty, Adjourn Your Enthusiasm, Medico Who and more than) also lack curation. HBO Max's home screen highlights that Fresh Prince of Bel-Air is one of its shows, but doesn't give you lot lists of episodes grouped around categories, then watching from episode 1 is the merely existent option. If yous could get guides to the best glory cameos on Friends, for example, or have all the episodes about Will's relationships on Fresh Prince, these vaults would feel a lot less intimidating.
I've only plant i such helpfully curated list, under the One-act department, where you tin see every Rick and Morty episode that is a spoof of a motion picture. Likewise, director Akira Kurosawa's work is highlighted with a row in the Drama movies section, but these cool lists of picks shouldn't exist subconscious under category pages when they could be promoted on the dwelling page.
HBO Max operation and 4K streaming
Annoyingly, HBO Max launched without 4K streaming. Nor is HDR available at this time. These features are in development, according to AT&T's Tony Goncalves. The omission of 4K and HDR at launch makes it feel like the service was rushed out earlier it was fully broiled.
Starting on Dec. 25, 2020, with Wonder Woman 1984 (and other big movies), HBO Max will stream in 4K HDR.
It's similar to Disney Plus' aspect ratio trouble with The Simpsons, just much worse, as information technology affects far more than 1 prove. Disney Plus, by comparison, launched with 4K HDR on 24-hour interval 1. Netflix has 4K HDR, just it's only for those with Premium subscriptions, which toll $1 more than HBO Max, at $fifteen.99.
HBO Max parental controls
HBO Max allows for v user profiles, which are classified as either Developed or Kid. Kid accounts requite parents the control to limit content a child can picket past the MPAA rating (K to NC-17) and those for TV (Boob tube-Y to Television set-MA).
This is a expert idea, only there'due south a glaring flaw in the system. But the child accounts can be locked by a 4-digit PIN number. If a child tin can kick up HBO Max anywhere around the house, they can log into parent accounts, which accept no regulations or content rating restrictions, without a countersign.
While I'm no parent,t the being of a child account means that parent accounts need the option to be locked behind passwords. I can encounter the assumption that HBO tin't finish kids from opening the apps — some duty must be reserved for parents — merely parents can't exist aware of what their kids are doing during every second of the twenty-four hours.
Disney Plus has no parental controls, while the Netflix parental controls allow you to lock parent accounts.
HBO Max verdict
As this HBO Max review explains, there'due south nary an attribute of HBO Max that feels finished. Its library is good, merely you can drive a Batmobile through its holes in the DC movies category.
That being said, HBO Max is all the same a welcome upgrade for existing HBO subscribers, who just got a lot of actress movies and Television receiver shows without signing up for annihilation new (provided they know that). While Netflix gets viral hits like Tiger King and Hulu stacks upward interesting new series such as Normal People and High Allegiance, HBO Max might exist plenty to convince folks like me to keep their HBO subscription, thanks to prestigious brands such as Studio Ghibli and the Criterion Collection.
We've just upgraded HBO Max's score because it'due south finally added Roku and Fire TV, and information technology's getting select blockbusters in 4K HDR. We hope to see the library patch these holes in the future.
Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/reviews/hbo-max
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