As a fairly new member of Amazon Prime, I felt compelled to put this quick page together for you to help end any confusion that you may be having about deciding to try it out or not.

 

 

At first glance, Amazon Prime appears to be a bit pricey. (well at least it did for me) at $79 a year.  Broken down that is only  about $6.60 a month, but if you are used to paying for things monthly vs yearly, this amount may seem high.  Fortunately, they allow you to take a 30 day test drive of Prime before paying the yearly fee, which is what swayed me into signing up.

 

There are a few reasons that I decided to keep my Prime membership after the 30 day trial. (There are lots and lots of other great things about this service, but from my personal experience, the following two features have been worth their weight in gold for me and my family)

 

1.  Over 40,000 videos you can watch on your tv, computer, or Kindle.  – The main reason I signed up to begin with.

2.  Free unlimited shipping on millions of items with no minimum order.  – This feature has saved me tons of money!

 

Let me further explain what I mean about these 2 features:

As I mentioned earlier, my main interest in joining Prime was to watch videos.  I was trying to replace Netlix with something that had more of a selection.  I was pleased to discover that Amazon Prime instant video runs similar to Netflix, so I decided to try it out. 

 

Just like Netflix, you add a device to your account and enter a code from your device and presto! your device is synced to your account.  You can add several devices to one account and you can watch videos, music, recorded tv shows etc whenever you want.

 

 

Amazon Prime claims to have over 40,000 instant videos in their library and although I have definately not taken the time to count them, this number seems to be accurate.  They have programs from all genres including comedy, drama, action, childrens, etc.  Their lineup seems quite extensive and I am very pleased with the amount of options that I can access for the one time yearly fee.

 

The Prime video gives you the ability to watch tons of things for free.  It also allows you to purchase newer movies directly to your device with the push of a button.  (Don’t worry though- you do need to enter a pin number any time you wish to make a purchase, so this should keep your device safe from kids accidentally purchasing anything)

 

Newer released movies are in the section of Prime titled “New Releases” and free ones are in the section titled “Prime Video”  If you are not at all interested in purchasing anything, you can strictly always search for programs within the Prime section and you will be fine.  That is what I do 🙂

 

When playing the videos, they seem to upload quickly and the playback looks great on my device.  I use a PS3 exclusively and have had absolutely no problems with it playing any of the Amazon Prime selections.

 

 

My second favorite feature of Amazon Prime has quickly become the free 2 day shipping on select items.  Although it says “select items” the amount of select items is so vast that it seems like almost all items are eligible for this feature. 

 

Its not only free 2 day (which is very fast) but there is NO minimum amount of items per order!  This really got me fired up because I purchase a lot of items from Amazon and I used to wait until I had at least a minimum order of $25 because they have alot of items that are eligible for free shipping if your order totals at least $25.  I often would wait to purchase things until I had enough qualifying purchases in my cart to equal the $25 minimum.  Now I don’t have to do that.  With Amazon Prime, I can order a $3 product – have it delivered in 2 days for free.  Very appealing feature!

 

I figured that with the holiday season coming up, the free 2 day shipping feature will end up making the entire Amazon Prime membership pay for itself over and over again and will be saving me a lot of money in the long run.  

 

If either the instant video or the free 2 day shipping appeals to you, you can take a look at Amazon Prime for yourself.  The  banner below will take you directly to the info page.  This is the same page I went to when I signed up for the free 30 day trial.