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| Content Quantity: |
20/20 |
Content Quality: |
17/20 |
Updates: |
8/10 |
| Entertainment: |
14/15 |
Navigation & Design: |
8/10 |
Download: |
3/5 |
| Value for Money: |
15/15 |
Reviewer's Tilt: |
5/5 |
Total: |
90/100 |
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While the video collection at Aria Giovanni's official site is somewhat lacking, there's a huge amount of photo content (and more coming four times a week) - and not just the usual glamour sets you've seen Aria in many times before, but also equally well stocked amateur, fetish, artistic nudes and candid sections, as well as plenty of softcore girl/girl photosets with Aria and other well known babes.
A significant design overhaul of the member sections is almost complete as I write this, making it a lot easier to find what you're looking for.
If a touch of personal interaction is your thing, Aria also regularly answers questions on the message boards and keeps you updated on her latest ventures with her diary.
I may loose a bit of credibility here as a huge fan, but this site is way better and much larger and more comprehensive than what I would generally expect from a high profile glamour model.
(Read the full review below)
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Hardcore Meters
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Site info help
Site info updated September 26 2009
| Pictures: |
Approx. 1,800+ photosets (Approx. 20-120 per set)
Resolution varies, best is approx. 1100x1500px |
| Video: |
115 videos (Approx. 2-6 minutes each)
Windows Media (wmv) and QuickTime available
Highest quality: wmv 400x300 (occasionally higher), 1500 kbit
No DRM protection |
| Other: |
Diary/blog
Message boards |
| Pricing: |
1 month recurring: $24.95, rebills at $19.95 |
Update, September 26 2009:
A couple of years later and my recurring membership to Aria's official site is still running. Yep, I'm still a fan, even though the gorgeous Aria arguably has been "demoted" to a place behind Eastern European ladies like Jo and Eve Angel - first and foremost because those two, and various others, frequently get ample opportunity to show off their extraordinary lesbian love making skills while Aria Giovanni remains a strictly softcore model.
At 31 she's fortunately still a very active one though, as her site still receives four or five weekly photo updates (with the occasional short video thrown in) in a mix of the genres described in previous updates and the original review. Aside from solo content there is also still occasional softcore girl/girl photos and videos, including several fairly recent sets with Jelena Jensen, Sunny Leone and Ines Cudna.
A number of the glamour sets in recent months have unfortunately suffered from very heavy handed airbrushing - something the amateur photos prove definitely isn't needed - but it looks like they may all be from the same photographer, so hopefully there are still plenty of more natural looking glamour sets coming in the future.
The total number of photoset on the site is now up to approx. 1,800+ (it's a bit of a rough estimate and doesn't take fully into account that many of the glamour and artistic photosets are split in two parts), while the video collection amounts to around 115.
Update, August 10 2007:
My favourite babe of them all? Why that's still Aria of course - and I'm pretty much logging in four days a week, every week possible, to check out her latest glamour, amateur, softcore girl/girl, candid and artistic nudes photosets. She may be turning 30 in a few months (hardly what you would call old, but still a few years past what often passes for a MILF these days), but she just keeps getting more beautiful for every month and year that passes (something that probably can't be said for me, also at 30, but I guess I can always use the "I'm a guy, I'm supposed to look like a filthy caveman" defense).
Aria is still adding four, now often five new photosets and an occasional video to her offical site, which means that by now (if not already at the time of my original review) the photo section definately qualifies for being called huge with more than a thousand small and semi-large photosets from Aria's seven years as a model.
The quality is also pretty impressive on most of the photos from the last year or so, with the resolution often being around 1000x1500 pixels, even on the amateur photos.
The only thing (well, downloadable zips of the photosets would be nice too) that's still lacking is the video section, but as I wrote in my original review, and as most of her fans probably know, Aria Giovanni has never really been much of a "video girl", which isn't exactly uncommon (and probably quite natural) for girls that strictly do softcore - ie. regularly showing pussy but no actual masturbation or real lesbian sex when she's posing with other girls.
If you can live without that Aria's site is still a really good and very large solo girl site.
Original Review
This was one review I just had to write (and it's actually a little late considering my membership is now running on its fifth month) - although given my five or six years of infatuation with Aria Giovanni, it's not entirely unlikely the end result might have come out slightly biased.
The review also ended up rather long - I guess that's what tends to happen when you're dealing with a topic you really like.
Usually I only take a passing interest in any given model, whether a softcore glamour babe like Lady Aria or a hardcore pornstar, but there are a few select exceptions.
Aria Giovanni for instance is sitting heavily on place number one, two and three of my "favourite models" list (yep, I think she's that hot), and the gorgeous redhead Justine Joli (who just happens to have done a fair amount of work with Aria, and makes a few appearances at this site) comes in at a well deserved fourth place, and lately the lovely Eve Angel probably makes for a solid number five.
The rest of the list is really just sort of blurry I think - softcore and hardcore names dropping in and out for short or long periods depending on what I just happen to be in the mood for when it comes to adult entertainment.
Unless this is your first time on this big, confusing internet thingy (or your first time surfing for porn - yeah, right), Aria Giovanni really shouldn't need much of an introduction - her face and body has been plastered all over the net for the last six years.
Just in case some of you really should be entirely clueless here, this raven haired and wonderfully curvy beauty with a natural D cup, first started modelling back in 2000 and was almost immediately offered a spot on the cover of Penthouse. Since then she appears to have been working pretty much non-stop and has been taking the adult business with storm, posing solo or with other girls (softcore only - no penetration) for some of the best photographers in the world, gracing numerous magazine covers, appearing on countless web sites (Danni.com is worth mentioning as a great source of exclusive Aria material - including a number of long video interviews), as well as doing several movies with director Andrew Blake (whose artsy, erotic style can be a bit of an aquired taste).
(No sample photos available - member area screenshots used instead)
Professional glamour photography with high production values is what Aria is best known for, but as you will see, the amateur as well as fetish and artistic nudes sections of her site are also extremely well stocked - and the video collection is decent as well, although not nearly as interesting as all the photo content.
Over the last couple of weeks the member sections of Aria's site have been getting a design overhaul (almost done it seems), replacing simple text links to all photosets with small preview images - a much appreciated change considering the large number of photosets on the site as a whole and in most of the categories.
Speaking of the individual categories - as I've already indicated, they consist of glamour, fetish and artistic nudes as well as "Aria & Friends", candids and videos.
Another point of interest for fans is likely to be the active forums where Aria herself is regularly answering questions.
There's also a diary on the site that she updates typically one to three times a month with the latest news about her life and what she's up to in the near future in terms of photoshoots, appearances at conventions and events etc.
The glamour photography section is obviously all about Aria dolled up to look like a million bucks in a variety of settings.
As much as I love glamour photography, the fetish and artistic nudes categories makes for a nice change from the usual glossy stuff - in the former category with Aria appearing in a variety of sexy latex outfits, pantyhose, corsets etc. and occasionally all tied up in some pretty hot bondage photosets
In the artistic nudes section the photographers are experimenting with black and white shots, fancy color tones or settings and often with Aria dressed up in something a little out of the ordinary, like several photosets with hair style and clothes straight out of the 50s.
Most of the photosets in the fetish and artistic sections are obviously done by professional photographers just as with all the glamour sets - and the same is the case with the "Aria & Friends" section where you'll find a healthy selection of photosets featuring either softcore girl/girl with Aria and, well, a friend, or in other cases, just one of the girls alone.
Many of the names should be instantly familiar to most porn fans - Nikki Nova, Jelena Jensen, Aimee Sweet, Erica Campbell, Justine Joli, Adrianna Sage, Sunny Leone, Kelle Marie and several other babes.
There's a good chance you may already have seen at least some of the thousands of photos in the categories above on various other sites - but that's definately not the case with the amateur and candid photos.
To start with the latter, that's various sets with snapshots taken at events, conventions, birthdays, movie sets, holiday locations etc. Tons of photos of Aria relaxing, hanging out with friends and just looking naturally gorgeous.
The amateur section is great as well - mostly photosets shot at home by Aria's assistant in the bathroom (sometimes shaving her legs or pussy), on the couch, on a bed etc., where Aria usually starts with clothes on and ends up just the way we love her, naked. Many if not most of these sets feature her without any makeup (she still looks amazing), and as you would expect she looks a lot more relaxed and smiling here than in the usual posed glamour sets.
Finally the video section. Around 60 pretty short clips ranging from three to five minutes of Aria putting on a nice little strip show, over behind the scenes clips from photosets to a few interviews with Aria as well as a couple of personal videos, like Aria and a bunch of model girlfriends doing whatever it is five or six girls do together in a bathroom at a birthday party (if you said talking, laughing and giggling you wouldn't be too far off).
Overall I've never been particularly impressed with Aria's video work. Probably because she pretty much is as softcore as they come (well, alright, the girl is not exactly afraid to spread her legs and pussy lips - it could be a whole lot worse), so even getting slightly intimate with another girl tends to make her seem a little uncomfortable. Works in still shots, but not always all that well on video.
If you're interested in longer and more interesting videos with Aria, I highly recommend Danni.com. Aside from several 15-25 minute softcore lesbian videos (and some shorter solo movies), she has also been featured in long video interviews a couple of times as well as hosted a few herself with other models.
The technical quality of the content at Aria's site is a bit of a mixed bag - although with the content that by far weighs most heavily on this site, the photos, the resolution and sharpness of particularly fairly recent sets is very good, up to 900x1200 pixels, but at the other end of the scale on older photosets (as well as some done for other sites), down to anwhere from around 400 to 800 pixels on the long side.
Before I forget it, I must also point out that I really miss an option to download photosets in a zip file. The browsing options are adequate, but try saving 30,000+ photos by right clicking and choosing "save as..." on every single one of them, and chances are you'll be screaming in pain long before you're done (nope, I haven't actually tried that - sticking to saving my favourites so far and enjoying the rest on the site).
The design update of the site isn't fully completed yet though, so perhaps there's still hope for a zip file option. I wouldn't count on it though.
The quality of the videos isn't quite as impressive as the recent photos. With a couple of RealPlayer exceptions, nearly all of them are available in Windows Media and/or QuickTime format, but at 320x240, 500 kbit (some of the oldest videos - interviews, behind the scenes even lower resolution) we haven't exactly found a new candidate for the Technology Leaders page.
Given how short most of the videos are and that the photo content is so overwhelmingly in focus here, it's not exactly an issue that spells disaster, but it does drag the quality score down a point or two.
So did this review really end up as biased as I initially admitted to? I don't really think so afterall. The video collection may not impress much, but as I don't feel that's ever really been Aria's real strength at any point in her career, you can't really fault the site for that.
The photo collection on the other hand is downright huge - and growing even larger pretty quickly with four weekly updates (typically 30-60 photos per update), and especially the amateur and candid sections provide a great glimpse into a side you don't often get to see of high profile models.
Well, I'm off - my latest three month membership runs out in a few days, I better go renew it. I think I'll mail Aria and ask if there's a discount on life time memberships.
Click here to visit Aria Giovanni
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95+ Excellent
85-94 Very Good
75-84 Good
65-74 Acceptable
-64 Don't Bother
Full rating info here
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