WHSmith DVD Rental Reviews

Editor's Star Ratings:

Costs:

No joining fee, but a choice of 3 packages:

• Unlimited DVDs, 3 at a time for £15.99 per month
• Unlimited DVDs, 2 at a time for £12.99 per month
• Unlimited DVDs, 1 at a time for £9.99 per month

30 day free trial available.

Features:

• Powered by LOVEFiLM
• Wide range
• 30 day free trial (the longest around)
• Free first class postage
• Keep the DVDs as long as you want
• Safe, secure server
• DVD gift packs available
• No cancellation fees

Editor's Verdict:

Reliable, reassuring and a firmly a part of British culture for as long as your granny can remember, WHSmith has long been the BBC of the High Street. And now, with the surprisingly dynamically named "WHSmith Movies Direct" its coming through your letterbox as well. WHSmith Movies Direct (surely a name in need to a dramatic exclamation mark) offers accessible, reasonably priced DVD rental with no fuss and no over elaborate website to make it all look unnecessarily flash. This is no-nonsense ,meat- and-two-veg DVD rental for the great British consumer, pure and simple.

The service works much like many of the other DVD rental sites listed in this category. You create a list of DVDs you want and however many DVDs your package allows you to have at once are sent to you by post. When you're done watching them, you just pop them in the pre-paid return envelope. As soon as they receive your returned DVDs they'll mail you your next batch of DVDs from your list.

Whilst most list-based DVD rental services can sometimes suffer from variable turnaround times and difficulty in getting hold of enough of the most popular titles, WHSmith Movies Direct prides itself on fast turnaround times and sending you the right DVDs in the right order. And what you pay for is what you get: what you pay is pound for pound equivalent to our other top picks and what you get is a choice of 3 unlimited rental packages offering 1,2 or 3 discs at a time. They also offer a 30 day free trial, twice as long as that of other leading competitors.

The website itself offers access to all the views, reviews and film chat contained in the main WHSmith website and is clearly laid out, accessible and easy to use. If anything, the layout makes it TOO easy to join; it's hard to navigate the website without tripping over yet another "sign up" click box. One slight black mark is that the FAQ makes it unclear whether the 30 day free trial is available on all 3 packages or just the 3 disc package (one same web page makes both, contradictory, claims). This aside, WHSmith Movies Direct offers a service comparable to our other top picks, which isn't surprising seeing as they are all run in conjunction with our number one choice, LOVEFilm, with adequate, but not exceptional, extras.

Click the button below to check out WHSmith.co.uk for yourself...