My fiancée and I recently had a seven day Disney+ UK trial and I decided to write a review.
Introduction
I’m used to using on demand internet movie and TV services such as Amazon Prime, Netflix, NowTV and others. I wanted to watch The Mandalorian and some Marvel movies and so we signed up for the trial.
How we watched the content
We primarily used an old PC running Windows 10 connected to a television in the lounge, but also we used an old Samsung Galaxy S5 G900F mobile running Android 6.0.1. At the time of writing this review I wasn’t able to install the Android app on my G900T phone which has the custom rom LineageOS Android 9 installed.
On the Windows 10 PC, we used the Chrome web browser and it was easy to use Disney’s web interface, but I currently prefer Netflix’s interface.
When I added an item to a watchlist on the PC, it was easy to use the same watchlist on a mobile phone. I really liked this feature as on the mobile, I just wanted to spend minimum time searching on the phone and I think Disney have done an excellent job with their mobile app.
On the mobile device I was able to download individual episodes, whole seasons and movies to the phone. The phone has an external microSD card, which via the Disney+ settings, I was able to choose the external memory. This was ideal as the mobile phone didn’t have much internal memory spare.
I didn’t use the mobile application away from my home and I didn’t test the download feature that much and I’ve not researched it, so I’m unsure of any limitations. I’m sorry I’m not providing more information about this feature.
What did I like?
I didn’t experience any streaming issues or error messages either via my PC using a wired connection or the mobile phone using my own WiFi connection.
I discovered Gravity Falls which I hadn’t watched before and started to binge watch the show, which if you like Rick & Morty and Venture Bros (both not on Disney), you mike like Gravity Falls. I briefly watched the Tron Uprising series as I’m a fan of the Tron movies.
I also watched some Marvel movies which I had previously watched at cinemas and on NowTV. I also took the opportunity to venture down memory lane and watch some old movies and TV shows from my youth.
I was only using the trial, but I do think the pricing and viewing options are competitive and well thought out. There is quite a bit of content already and I found it easy to find and watch.
What didn’t I like?
It was a shame the whole of The Mandalorian series wasn’t available when I used the trial, with episodes being released weekly with the UK service being behind the American service.
On a side note I though The Mandalorian episodes I watched were very good with excellent production quality.
There wasn’t much I didn’t like about using the service at home. I hope over the coming months various tweaks and improvements occur to the web interface.
Conclusion
It’s early days of the service and despite the massive amount of content, there wasn’t enough of interest to me to want to watch beyond the trial.
If my fiancée and I had a child, we might have used the service after the trial. At the moment my fiancée and I are thinking about subscribing again when there is more fresh content for older people, such as more Star Wars and Marvel shows and movies. We will likely consider subscribing at Christmas.
I am not sure how the coronavirus situation will affect new content being placed online, but I think Disney+ UK has launched an excellent service. I look forward to seeing what they put on the channel over the coming months and years.