PremiumPass
Quick Review
About Quick Reviews
Category: Site Networks
Additional Keywords: Pornstars, hardcore guy/girl, anal, group sex, double penetration, blowjobs, sperm swallowing, interracial, milf, teens, lesbian and more
Reviewed May 12 2009
(Subsequent update in 2009)
Click here to visit PremiumPass
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| Content Quantity: |
19/20 |
Content Quality: |
18/20 |
Updates: |
10/10 |
| Entertainment: |
15/15 |
Navigation & Design: |
8/10 |
Download: |
5/5 |
| Value for Money: |
15/15 |
Reviewer's Tilt: |
5/5 |
Total: |
95/100 |
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Site NetworkIncludes 20 sites (plus the large, main PremiumPass video archives), 3 reviewed and listed below |
| Pricing: |
1 month recurring: $29.95
3 months recurring: $59.95
12 months non-recurring: $89.50
2 day trial: $2.95 |
Important: Note that the tour page at the main PremiumPass site is currently only listing 12 sites (and not the largest and in my opinion best ones) and the content update pages also available from the tour are also only listing content from these sites.
Within the member area all 20 sites - and their updates - are, of course, visible.
I've been informed that the reason for this discrepancy is because partner Jules Jordan has requested that the sites he's supplying with content, not be advertised on the main site.
Update, December 7 2009
Since my original review, the PremiumPass network has become the official home of several additional popular pornstars. Jenna Haze, Katsuni and Gina Lynn's official sites were already there back in May last year, and I think Eve Angelina's might have been as well, and to that list has now been added the official sites of Audrey Bitoni, Lexi Belle, Tory Lane, Tori Black and most recently Alexis Texas.
While all of them have some great videos, photosets and behind the scenes content, most of them do however remain rather light on content, with only around 20-35 scenes in most cases. Which means if you're after a larger selection of hardcore videos with most of these ladies, you will for most of them be better off on the various DVD download sites - much, much better in the case of Tory Lane and Eva Angelina where VideoBox currently has 169 and 132 scenes respectively.
And I guess content volume has proven to be my main issue with the PremiumPass network in general as I've been keeping an eye on it since my original review.
While 3,800+ videos (or 2,800+, depending on which number to trust, adding up inside the member area amounts to the largest of them, but there are also some repeated scenes that obscure the number a bit further) is a pretty healthy chunk of content from an objective point of view, as a network it's just starting to look ever more lacking in content (and site interface and features) compared to my two favourites, the 21Sextury Network and BrainPass (the latter from the same company as mentioned below, and still sharing some content with PremiumPass).
As mentioned in my original review text, the PremiumPass network does have many absolutely stellar scenes and several rareties (a few examples were given in section four of the pros below), but unless you're after those very specific scenes, the same could obviously be said about the other two networks - particularly for 21Sextury, given that most of their content is entirely exclusive, which can't be said for BrainPass and PremiumPass that both rely heavily on DVD content (albeit mostly DVD content you will only find online on pay-per-view sites rather than the cheaper DVD download sites).
I still stand by that 95/100 score, but if my slightly flawed and overly top heavy rating scale (problems I've mentioned in several reviews before) hadn't been so cramped near the top, there really should have been more than a mere two points difference between the PremiumPass and the BrainPass scores.
Original review
Pros & Highlights
+ PremiumPass is a fairly large and reasonably new site network, run by the people who are also behind the excellent BrainPass network.
As far as I can tell, PremiumPass was originally launched back around 2006 (or at least that's the date on some of the oldest content), but most of the sites, including the five official pornstar sites, are newer than that, several from 2009.
+ The main PremiumPass site lists all network content updates along with additional hardcore scenes (the latter licensed from a variety of sources from what I can tell) that can be downloaded from this main site (similar to the BrainPass main site, which also has some new scenes going to a central archive rather than one of the individual network sites).
At the time of writing the total number of videos across the entire network is listed in one place as 2,636, but actually adding up the content amounts to 3,348 (186 pages of 18 videos), so it looks like the larger number is the one to trust here.
On top of the video content there are also roughly 400 photosets (again the numbers listed for each site on the main overview page don't quite add up to what's actually listed in the content archives).
+ With the exception of Gina Lynn (direct site link, as are the following ones) and to some degree Jenna Haze's sites (109 and 77 videos respectively, plus slightly fewer photosets), the pornstar sites plus most of the niche sites (interracial, blowbang, threesomes, housewives, sybian) are still rather small (roughly between 10 and 40 videos), so at this time most of the content can be found at the Jules Jordan site (a producer who's known to crank out some really excellent hardcore movies, many of which can obviously be found here), three of the niche sites (anal and cum swallowing/cumshots), the two aforementioned pornstar sites plus the main PremiumPass site.
+ As already indicated above, you get a lot of top notch content in the PremiumPass network. Like Evil Angel, Zero Tolerance and various other studios, Jules Jordan Video (and they are behind a number of the niche sites in the network as well, not just the main Jules Jordan site) doesn't produce a lot of bland and forgettable movies, it's usually first class pornstars and very high entertainment value. That includes some fairly rare stuff like double penetration scenes with Brittney Skye, August Night, Jenna Haze and Brianna Love (August's so far one and only DP, and she's only actually done anal in four out of her nearly 300 movies), and a (rather awkward looking) triple penetration with Aurora Snow.
A lot of the additional licensed content is really great as well, rather than just bland filler stuff.
+ Despite the uneven size of the network sites, updates across the network, including the main archive, are coming pretty fast. As mentioned the PremiumPass main site lists them all and it looks like 1-3, occasionally 4 new videos are added virtually every day (there is a day missing here and there, but it's rare).
Photoset updates are a bit more infrequent, but in general it looks like you can expect several a week at this time.
+ Several video formats (including iPod/PSP) and qualities (including both low and high quality segmented options) are available. The best quality is a very respectable 720x480 (DVD resolution) at 2000 kbit, the same as BrainPass has been offering for the last few years.
+ Solid site interface with a very clean and attractive layout and large scene preview images.
There's niche browsing (although slightly stronger search features would be nice) and a network wide pornstar index. Pornstar names aren't clickable from the individual content pages though, which results in what ought to be an unnecessary trip to the index if you want to find additional scenes with a girl that just caught your attention (Update: Names are however clickable from the content overview pages, which is usually only one step further back. I can't believe I didn't notice that until several days later).
Cons
- There are some scene dublicates, which obviously detracts from the total number of videos (although I don't think there are enough of them to explain the difference mentioned further up, between the listed number and what appears to be the actual, larger number).
- This is probably a case where you need to decide if the Jules Jordan content (not available on DVD download sites, but at least to some extent on pay-per-view site AEBN) and the exclusive scenes from a few major pornstars, those with their own sites in the network, make it worth choosing PremiumPass over, or alongside, eg. the larger and slightly more varied BrainPass network, or perhaps one of the large multi-studio DVD download sites that dwarf any site network I've ever seen (but also have a lot of bargain bin crap thrown in among the quality titles).
- No option to stream videos, which is arguably something many if not most people have no doubt come to expect these days where embedded Flash players are used everywhere.
Personally I'm still partial to downloads (assuming I've been able to get an idea of what to expect from a scene, and the preview pics and full set of video stills with each scene on PremiumPass do a good job there), but I do admittedly find myself regularly using the Flash players on various porn sites lately.
- As already mentioned above, the interface search and index features aren't quite as strong as they could have been. I generally felt they got the job done though, as using either pornstar or niche as an entry point works fine for me, although being able to combine them might have been useful for those girls who are in more than a handful of videos.
Click here to visit PremiumPass
(Member area screenshots)
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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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