Playboy Review

Score 90.0 /100
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About Our Ratings

Intro promises

- "The complete Playboy experience online."
- 100,000 images & videos of every Playmate ever, college girls, celebrities, magazine archives & more.
- Playboy's largest online image and video vault.

First impression

Who needs an introduction to what is one of the most well-known icons of American pop culture? Playboy has been turning heads, provoking thought and opening up society to new ideas and new ways of viewing sexuality for decades in print, and when the web reared its head they expanded into the virtual realm with gusto. I always felt that Playboy's online membership site, called the Cyber Club, was a tad bit behind the tech front-lines, but since my last visit some time ago the site has really had a makeover. It also looks like they have re-imagined what they can offer and how they can offer it.

As a Cyber Club member you are promised keys to the Playboy Kingdom, so to speak. Unlimited access to years of online archives, to decades of magazine covers and galleries, forums, model wikis, interviews, exclusive web-only content and much more, all of it updated daily.

You can read on for my full report on what it's like to be a Playboy Cyber Club member below.

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Our opinion

Given the volume of content, archives, exclusives and updates touted on the tour pages for the Playboy Cyber Club I wasn't surprised to find that it was a mega-site in the truest sense of the word. It is layered and varied, with different types and channels of content, various types of girls, all of this drawn from the past fifty plus years of publication.

To put it simply, the club does deliver all of the material promised as pertains to the playmates, the magazines archives, the online exclusives and other bonuses.

To be more specific, we might as well start by looking at the new web design's main navigation bar, which is found on most pages in one form or the other, to take our bearings.

The main categories for content are: Playmates, Cyber Girls, Celebrities, COEDs, Amateurs, Special Editions, Playboy Magazine, More Girls, and Extras. Each of these options, when you hover over them, present a list of sub-menu options. We'll look at what I think is their most attractive section and most popular to get an idea of how the site is set up: Playmates.

When I hover over Playmates I get a list of further areas to look at, or I can click on Playmates in the top menu and go to the category homepage. On that page I get some big pics, what's new, spotlighted content and some recommendations from other parts of the site. I have a menu where I can search the playmate database by first or last name, by year, or by month, or all at the same time. I also have that same list of menu options that appeared when I hovered on Playmates in the menu: Playmate Files is the main index, Exclusives are, well, exclusive to the Cyber Club, Xtra has bonus pics and behind the scenes vids, as well as special director cuts and the like in higher quality options. There is a Playmate of the Year database, a video jukebox with movies dating back to 1989, test shots of girls before they made it on the cover, and of course a main centerfold gallery to browse though.

That is a lot, and in each of the main categories you have a similar waterfall of sub-categories and material. It's a pretty wild mix of web exclusives (both pictures plus the videos) and archived material. Yes, I was even able to pull up high resolution photos of Marilyn Monroe from her 50s appearance in the mag! This was a pretty awesome feeling, being able to cruise through over fifty years of playmates and bunnies. Long time subscribers will get a real kick out of the dimensions the site offers, and so too will those that have never subscribed.

The Cyber Club is built to Playboy standards. The material is totally softcore in other words, and the women are stunning in their beauty and curvy shapes. Most of the models have big, perfectly round tits. If you mosey into the other categories outside of Playmates you find boobies of all sizes though. There are some vids and pics of softcore lesbian play but nothing remotely hardcore and extreme. This is a gentleman's magazine after all, and the material, while intensely erotic, still has class and culture.

I mentioned in the beginning of my review that the Cyber Club seemed to have finally turned a corner and modernized. For a long time the Cyber Club just didn't seem to "get" the web. It always offered media options that were more limited and lower quality than other websites without print backgrounds or brands. Up until the end of 2009, in fact, just about every video was streaming only. That has changed.

Videos put out since about November 2009 are being made available in 720p HD QuickTime downloads and streams. These have a large 1280x720 resolution and a 4.3 mbits/s bit rate. They look fantastic and have the high quality production value that all Playboy content can claim.

Most movies come in great quality downloads and streams in QuickTime and WMV files that both have 848x480 resolutions and a strong 4-5 mbits/s bit rates. You have mobile phone downloads now as well, in M4V files that are 640x360 and crisp with a 1.5 mbits/s bit rate. Older movies are lower quality. If you go back far enough you can find streaming only clips that are 400 kbits/s or worse, and very small resolutions! They don't seem to have any intention of modernizing the archives. When you view these old pieces, they actually display on archives pages, too - - they have the same design as the last iterations of the site, not the new, streamlined, high quality design.

Playboy definitely still has kinks to work out when it comes to their video. For example, movies are still cut into clips for the most part, without full length options. I was also really disappointed that it took them so long to start offering competent media options, and that they aren't going back to update any of the older updates to be the same. Oh well, we can't have everything I guess.

The picture sets here are mostly more than 800x600 pixels in size, even if you go way back in the archives. Modern sets are around 1600x1067 pixels, high resolution, crisp and rich with color. You can browse the pictures online in galleries or download complete sets in zip files. Galleries really range in size, depending on what category you are in.

Besides the hundreds of thousands of pics and movies the site has other great magazine features and community forums to dig into. You can help maintain their model wiki, adding whatever tidbits of knowledge you have on your favorite girls, you can chat and discuss models in the forum with other members. You can pull up old interviews, read biographies on models and much more.

Conclusion

Playboy's Cyber Club is a really incredible mega-site, and anyone that is a fan of Playboy playmates and their ideal of female beauty will love what their subscription delivers. The site isn't without its hang ups, but they seem minor in the grand scheme of things and the huge archive of material you have unlimited access to. All of this at a price that is much cheaper than other erotica sites, even ones that are a fraction of the size. It is a great value, and a great option for both longtime magazine subscribers and first-timers.

Competitors

Playboy is probably the most famous brand associated with babes, particularly American babes with big, round tits and tight bodies. Their website lives up quite well to the promise of their decades in print, delivering the extras that a magazine can't like videos. But before you jump in, you should check out some of these other babes sites that we've reviewed. Some star busty girls, others lithe European glamour babes. Read more about FTV Girls, In Focus Girls, Twistys, MET Art and Hegre Art.

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External Opinions

Don't take our word for it and see what others think! We have collected a list of opinions and impressions from other sites, so you can compare them all from one place.

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