The joining of Warner and Discovery content, plus a new pricing tier has us Max-ed out
• 4K HDR
Dolby Vision and HDR 10, support on new movies.
Dolby Atmos support too.
• The best of HBO and Warner
Decades of great TV and movie content from HBO and Warner that’s being added to all the time.
• TNT Sports and CNN
Warner Brothers Discovery is bolstering the proposition with Bleacher Report Sports and CNN Max ✔ Unrivalled HBO archive of shows and movies.
✔ Now with live sports and news.
✔ Ads are often very limited.
✔ Excellent app ❌ More expensive for ad-free and 4K.
❌ HBO seems in a bit of a slump.
❌ Discovery addition dilutes line-up.
❌ Terrible branding decision For its excellent content: Max offers truly premium, big-budget TV, an unrivalled archive and some of the biggest movies in the history of the medium, spanning an entire century. The 4K HDR experience is fantastic and there’s so much content from a great variety of recognisable brand names now Discovery properties are in the mix. If you want some live sports, and news without having a Pay TV service, Max provides this. 4K HDR tier is expensive: If you feel $19.99 a month feels offensive for 4K HDR, $15.99 too offensive for HD and $9.99 too offensive for putting up with ads. Or just wish you could have HBO back and its various properties back without paying for reality TV trash from Discovery. I once wrote that “if I had to cancel all my streaming services, HBO Max would probably still be the last one to go” even amid content cuts and price increases. The inclusion of Discovery content has watered down the quality of the service and it even feels like HBO itself could struggle to have another truly great series for a while with Succession and Barry now over, The Last of Us Season 2 ages away and new House of The Dragon a poor relation to GOT. As with most streaming services now, the price either feels too expensive for the premium experience, or the ads too intrusive to make it worth saving a buck. The recent addition of live sports (free for now, but soon to come at a $9.99 a month add-on) helps, as does access to a 24/7 news service. However, there’s usually a great series or movie to watch and the quality of the archive content is second to none, especially with the expanded Warner universe.