PlaysterReviews 88

Overall, Playster has a good selection of audiobooks (the only reason I use it) and is fairly simple to navigate. If you go through more than 3 books in a month, this plan is for you. The books arent in the order that they were most currently read and that could be improved. There is an unfinished books tab but that could be eliminated by putting the books in order of relevance to the reader. The app also seems glitchy in a few other ways. For instance, when I close out all of apps on my phone, the place that I was at sometimes gets lost and I have to go through the chapters to find my place again. I also dont like how the app interrupts my current book to suggest other books-that can be done on the home screen. Also, the play and pause buttons are sometimes interchangeable; I when my books stops for no reason (I am always connected to WiFi) sometimes I have to push the pause button to get my book to play. If you ever come out with a new version of the app and need a tester, Im your girl!

Yes, there is great content with Playster. I had the audio books subscription - nearly every book I wanted to listen to was available. But the user experience was ridiculously bad. Between the app not remembering where I was, giving up on using bookmarks, not working in offline mode, having to be connected to wifi, logging out when it lost connection with wifi and the connected to devices incomprehensible list, it was the worst app experience I've ever had. I cancelled my subscription because there was an outage with no information related to customers plus very poor turnaround on fixing it. I gave up! It's not worth the content if the experience leaves me frustrated and upset. Audio books are supposed to be a relaxing experience, not a stressful one. Playster needs to spend money on app development as well or all the content in the world won't make a difference and they will go out of business. I'm gone and staying gone.

I drive a lot, and audiobooks help keep me sane. For a while, I was paying for an audible subscription, but I was running out of books too fast. I found Playster while browsing Facebook and decided to give it a try. There are TONS of books on Playster, and if I dont like one, I just remove it. However, when I signed up on the browser, it doesnt explain to you that your subscription there does not carry over to the app on your iPhone. So, I somehow ended up with TWO subscriptions. After several emails, I got that lined out and got a refund for the online version, and opted to stay with the app. My biggest struggle is connectivity with the iPhone and Bluetooth. When I try to listen, it rarely lets me just press play to start the book. Sometimes I have to close the app completely and then start over. Ive found a work around that is probably 75% successful: press rewind once or twice, then play. Not sure why this works, but it does. Also, the app often wants to keep playing after I stop it, kind of annoying. Overall, Im keeping Playster in hopes that it will get better. Even the apps that I can get free audio books through my local library have better connectivity!

Ill start by saying this app is (mostly) worth it. The price, the selection. I love it! I listen to a book a day so its really been a money saver. BUT. The app itself is horrible. It interrupts my reading MULTIPLE times to ask if Im enjoying this book I shoukdncheck out these books or it will ask me if Im still listening, yes this isnt Netflix I want to listen to many, many chapters, usually all of them. When I pause the book or stop the book to say answer a phone call I cant just restart it easily. I have to go back to the book homepage and click listen again and it usually goes back a ways from where I was. I also have to adjust my speed EVERYTIME I leave the app. Even while listening. Please please work on this because Im not sure how much longer I can take it lol

Previously I wrote a review of Playster on this site saying it was a scam. A Playster representative read my review and contacted me about the issue I had (I was blocked from using my account because they felt I was copying or sharing audiobooks). He told me to send them an appeal, which I had already done. I gave him my membership info and he looked into it. The result is that my account has been reactivated.
In light of the reactivation I need to retract my statement that Playster is a scam. They have some bugs to work out on their app but as I mentioned in my first review they have a fairly good book selection. I'm willing to put up with the bugs because their selection is a pretty big achievement. I work for a public library and know how expensive it is to provide ebooks/audiobooks for our patrons. It's killing public libraries because the Big Five publishers have made it nearly impossible for libraries to carry large digital collections. Because libraries can't buy the books - we can only rent them - the publishers hold all the cards. For example, they put a limit on how many times a paid-for-ebook can be read. When the limit is reached the book must be bought again. It also hurts businesses like Playster and many such businesses have had to close their doors.
My advice to anyone who had the same experience with Playster banning them is to fill out the appeal form. It's easy to do. The info they're looking for is your listening habits - when & how often you listen.

Caveat - I only use for audiobooks. Best thing about the service is the price. It's very affordable and you can stream from a wide choice of content for a low monthly fee whereas on Audible it was costing me significantly more (I'm addicted to audiobooks, don't judge). However, the app itself is not very user friendly and it can be difficult to find what you're looking for. Once I figured it out, I thought it would be smooth sailing. Unfortunately, it looses my place in my audiobook all the time causing me to fast forward, freezes most of the time when trying to fast forward or rewind, and can take a long time to start the audiobook if it starts at all, often it doesn't. Only a small quantity of the audiobooks are available to download for offline listening, and those, once downloaded, work fine. I'm still on the fence whether I'll stay or switch back to Audible because these things are very aggravating. Their idea is good if they could only improve the user experience.

So the customer service ive had to receive has so far been top notch, quick to respond and very helpful, the audio books have a nice selection and has kept me interested. HOWEVER signing up for the combo pack was in my opinion a mistake, the tablet they send you seems outdated, its non compatible with netflix, and the wifi on it is ABSOLUTELY HORRIBLE, i can be sitting RIGHT beside my modem and lose wifi connection, it already had to update the wifi on it which i was hoping would solve this issue but nope. I can get past the crappy built in speaker and the sub par screen resolution, but how am i suppose to enjoy ANYTHING on it, if im CONSTANTLY losing my wifi connection to it. I'm seriously thinking of sending it all back and just using the service on a month to month basis on my laptop and would much rather invest $100 on a used tablet that would surpass the one they sent me 100 times over. Besides the paper weight of a tablet, the head set is decent. And the customer service is spot on, i also enjoy the service. But dont get locked in a contract for the garbage gift they are sending, unless they upgrade the tablet, it can barely even handle their own program never mind if you wanna play any multiplayer tablet games or live stream music stations.

I like that you can get unlimited entertainment in terms of books, movies, audiobooks, music, and games. I really don't play the games so can't comment on that, but their selection of books, music, and especially audiobooks is pretty good. Their movie selection is just okay, but if you're into horror and documentaries, especially music docs, you'll enjoy this part of the service. I signed up for the 12-month membership and received a free 8" tablet and headphones and they're pretty decent quality. My only complaint is that I wish their search box was better. For instance, when I search for Coldplay in their music section, it says they don't have that, but actually they do. I stumbled across a few Coldplay songs in their curated lists, and when you look up a particular author, the search engine doesn't always list all of their books, but I accidentally stumbled upon "extra" books by that author (Lauren Oliver, author of the Delirium Trilogy). The search box listed the first two books in the series but not the last and I was really disappointed until I "accidentally" found the third book by browsing their entire collection! All in all, though, I'm pretty satisfied with the service.

I had been using Playster for around 4 months when I lost my job and had to adjust my budget. It turns out I made a mistake during the cancellation process and ended up being charged for another month after I had already stopped using it. However when I called support they were extremely sympathetic and refunded my last charge. This experience has left a huge impression on me, and I am almost certain to use Playster again when my situation turns around. It is a fantastic concept and if they can continue to treat their customers this way I believe it will only meet greater success.

It sounds catchy to describe the service as "endless entertainment", I understand that there can be practical difficulties to getting the copyright to a lot of books. But, I have gone through the books available and it seems the service would like to cater to just those who read the pop culture books. Its a serious issue that Playster needs to rectify if they want to bring in the loyal customers.

For now I see myself being happy with Kindle, would love to see Playster stepping up to the challenge rather than hiding behind safe bets.