Disney Plus review: How does it stack up?

19 Dec 2019

The hype in the lead-up Disney+ arriving in Australia was very real and easily the most anticipated streaming service launch in recent memory.

One month in, the reception for Disney+ has been largely positive and it’s safe to say the streaming service has lived up to the pre-launch expectations.

Disney+ ticks all the boxes you expect from a modern-day streaming service, serving up a ridiculous content library that’s filled with Disney classics, Pixar movies, and content from Marvel, Star Wars and National Geographic. Not to mention it boasts twenty-nine blimmin seasons of The Simpsons.

Arguably the only shortcoming is the lack of mature, original content however Baby Yoda memes and the strength of the Mandalorian has certainly helped ease this concern.

Regardless, there’s still an incredibly healthy amount of launch content, with close to 800 pieces of content to sink your teeth into, with the vast majority of these shows and movies being of a very high standard.

Given the fact you can stream in 4K Ultra-HD and have up to seven user profiles on a single account, the price point for Disney+ is outstanding at just $8.99 (AUD)/month and is well and truly worth giving a shot.

If you’re still on the fence, start with the free 7-day trial to see if Disney+ is worthy of your hard-earned moolah.

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A standout feature and something you can’t ignore is the value offered with the standard (and only) available Disney+ subscription.

Coming in at $8.99/month, the price in conjunction with its feature list and content library is refreshing and makes Disney+ stand out against Netflix's premium plan and other Australian streaming services such as Stan and Foxtel Go

If you're in it for the long haul and are looking to snag even greater value, you can grab Disney+ for $89.99 for an entire year, bringing the cost down to $7.49/month.

Bravo on this one Disney!

• Unlimited downloads - You’ll be able to download shows/movies on up to 10 devices, with no restrictions on the number of times a title can be saved
• Glorious 4K video - 4K Ultra-HD video streaming will be available with a standard Disney+ subscription
• Custom profiles - You’ll be able to add up to seven profiles, with custom avatars based on your favourite Disney characters
• Multi-screen viewing - Multiple profiles means you’ll be able to simultaneously stream content on up to four registered devices at any given ti

For its extensive list of Disney classics, Pixar movies, Marvel Star Wars, and content from National Geographic and 20th Century Fox (which Disney purchased earlier in the year), the breadth of content on Disney+ makes it feel like one of the first real global competitors of Netflix.

With Disney also owning the rights to entertainment heavyweights Hulu and ESPN. Users in the US now have access to a special bundle that includes Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+ for just $12.99/month (USD), and it will be interesting to see if a bundle of this nature that combines Disney+ and ESPN eventually makes it way down under.

For now, what exactly do you get access to in Australia? Well for starters you’ll get all the major Disney and Pixar films. Plus content that spans across the Star Wars, Marvel and National Geographic entities. The cherry on top is originally produced content that's set to spearhead Disney's strategy to eventually surpass Netflix.

The original content for launch is headlined by Star Wars series; The Mandalorian. Set in the Star Wars universe, the series takes place five years after the events of Return of the Jedi and follows a Mandalorian bounty hunter beyond the reaches of the New Republic. It's high-quality stuff and essential viewing for any Star Wars fans.

Other Star Wars original content expected to arrive within the first year of the service being birthed, include an Obi-Wan Kenobi led series starring Ewan McGregor and 12 new episodes of the much loved animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars.

For the Marvel fans out there, you’ll be eventually spoiled for choice, with a string of new series to arrive focusing on the characters of Loki, Hawkeye Marvel, The Falcon & The Winter Soldier.

There will also be a new series that centres around additional Marvel characters in the form of Ms Marvel, Moon Knight and She-Hulk.

Disney Plus also includes 29/30 seasons of The Simpsons, which hopefully indicates Disney will look to leverage Fox's gigantic content library to help fill out the Disney+ library even more as we move into 2020.- Multiple profiles means you’ll be able to simultaneously stream content on up to four registered devices at any given time.

Disney+ doesn’t reinvent the wheel with its design and for the most part, the interface and experience is similar to what you can expect to see across other streaming platforms such as Netflix or Amazon Prime.

The logos representing five of Disney's biggest brands (Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars and Nat Geo) headline a banner that greets you at the top of the screen, with featured content then taking up the top real estate.

From there, it's essentially row after row of content that can be sorted through an array of different filters - as you scroll down the main page, you'll find more categories that have been curated by Disney, which is something I've found to be very useful so far.

If that doesn't do the trick, then you still have the option to perform a good old fashioned search to find exactly what you're looking for.

All-in-all, while we wouldn't call the design of the platform ground-breaking, it's very easy to navigate and certainly does the job.

Disney+ is an extremely affordable streaming service for what it offers and is founded on the backbone of Disney's insane collection of archival content which dates all the way back to the 1930's.

While the original content is a bit slender in its current form, based on what we know is in store over the next few years, the depth of original content will continue to grow and gain momentum as we head into 2020 and beyond.

Whether having a Disney+ account means you can afford to cut off your other streaming subscriptions is still up for debate, however, we're loving the offering thus far and view Disney+ as a tremendous complimentary piece to other, existing streaming services and are excited to see how the platform evolves moving forward.

At the very least you should consider giving the free-7 day trial a crack to start things off and see how you fare.

Happy streaming!

#disney    #streaming