+ Large Penthouse Photo & Video Archive, Constant Updates.
+ Dedicated 'Pets' Section, From Present Back to 1973.
- Quality Can Vary, Big Video File Sizes, & Hit-and-Miss Model Info.
User Reviews (4)
User reviews consist of pros, cons, and other thoughts.
Current Member for less than 1 month (at the time of review).
Pros:
- Multiple video download options
- Huge site with diverse models
- Good mix of softcore and hardcore
- Mix of porn stars and ‘lesser knowns’
- Photos of all Monthly Pets back to 1973
- 3700+ photo galleries
- 2200+ video scenes
- Full length movies available (340+)
- Access to Penthouse Forum and Variations
- Some videos are available in 3D
Cons:
- Download speeds can vary and sometimes can be a bit slower than average
- Links time out after 10 minutes or so
- Video scenes stream automatically on opening page
- Picture galleries tend to be small (less than 50 photos is common)
- Some pictures appear to be airbrushed
- Even on HD many of the videos don’t look great
Bottom Line:
I find that if I join a studio site I’m best served if I go in with low expectations. That way I’m not too disappointed when the site barely meets what I expected. But I have to admit that I was pleasantly surprised at how good a site Penthouse is. This is a very well done adult site.
Penthouse likely needs no introduction to anyone reading this review. The magazine was my introduction to adult stuff back in 1980. The site is much more than the magazine though because the Penthouse empire has grown to include softcore and hardcore videos. The site gives access to a huge amount of PH material and all of it is very good quality.
There is a search function but I didn’t use it much since the site is so well organized. There are links to sort material by porn stars (which gives you access to all the photos and videos with those models) and Pets (which again is an easy way to access photos and videos). If you’re looking for specific themes in videos the video scenes are tagged with the most common themes. Finding them is as easy as using the pull-down menu.
PH does a disservice to itself by not allowing prospective members the opportunity to get a good idea of what the site has to offer. I can’t see what harm it can do to any site to allow non-members the ability to see what’s on offer. (It was mentioned here on an earlier comment and it still happens: when you go to join the offer is for a free membership. It’s only when you click through the non-existent free membership that you have to enter payment information. Most porn buyers are sophisticated to know that they have to pay to get access to a site like this so why hide behind a trick that fell out of favour years ago?)
Most models have pictures and videos available. PH has certainly become more hardcore in the past decade, but there is a good amount of soft stuff too. Video downloads are available in a wide array of formats and sizes. MP4 HD, WMV HD, MP4, MPEG, Mobile and WMV SD are all offered on most scenes. I downloaded WMV HD and SD. HD came in at 1280x720 8000+ kb/s 24fps. SD is 768x432 3200+ kb/s 24fps. Both use WMV Codec 8. Subjectively, the videos don’t look that great even though the numbers would suggest otherwise.
Huge pet peeve of mine with this site (which is becoming more common too) is that when you open a link to a scene the scene starts to stream immediately. If you have your speakers on this can be a problem, but what I dislike about it is that it hogs bandwidth for something that I don’t want. To make matters worse with PH is that the scene continues to download even after you pause it. I open scenes I want in new tabs and wondered why my download speeds were so slow until I realized that most of my bandwidth was being sucked up loading streams for scenes that I was going to download. Webmasters: please stop doing this!!!
Apart from offering scenes with various porn stars and Pets, PH also offers about 340 full length DVDs. These are mostly PH-produced with a lot of Jill Kelly Productions thrown in the mix too. The problem with the full length videos is that they are full length. They are broken up into approximately 3-minute clips but those clips don’t necessarily begin and end with the one scene you want to see. With many of the titles added 5+ years ago there are no star names associated with them but many of the titles are listed on IAFD so you can get that information.
Photos are available in multiple resolutions, listed as being small, medium, large, extra large and extra extra large (no actual resolution sizes were listed). I downloaded the extra extra large and they came in at 2667x4000. Subjectively they look great. One beef I had with the zipped sets is that many (likely most) that I downloaded were buried six folders deep before you got to the pics.
I’m not a big photo collector but I always take the opportunity to get photos of favourite models. It was going through some of these photos that I realized that some of them have been airbrushed. I noticed this when I was looking at a high res photo of Faye Reagan and realized that they airbrushed out her anus. I know she doesn’t do anal, but I’m pretty sure she has an anus. Websites: please don’t doctor the photos!
The absolute bottom line? I really liked this site. PH is synonymous with stunning women and great photographers and the site carries on that tradition. PH has branched out into hardcore to follow the money, but there is a lot here for most people to like. There are models of different ages and body types and there’s hardcore, softcore and solo. And given the amount of older PH photos there’s also lots of hair for guys who remember those days. I’d definitely recommend giving PH a try.
*Newbie reviews and ratings don't count toward a site's overall score/rank until the user reaches the Rookie status level (5 points). This rule is needed to help prevent fake (or heavily biased) profiles and reviews.
User Comments (10)
Ask a question, give quick feedback, warnings, etc.
Is it pictures and videos or just one or the other? What format are they Side by side or the red/cyan color filter format. How many 3d picture galleries or videos are there.
Just a warning for Europeans, yep a extra $5 please
Yet another site I thought argh maybe this site will be worth a join but no yet another one charging us Europeans a sur-charge for not living in the US, great, another one I'll pass on then.
Might not be a big deal to some people but there you go, just a reminder to those joining from Europe you will pay more $29.99
Site no longer terminates membership on cancellation
Previous reviewers and commenters have noted that the site used to terminate access as soon as you cancelled your monthly membership or cancelled rebilling. I cancelled a few days early to check this and can confirm that it is no longer their practice. Billing is done through the site itself and in the page for your account there is an option to turn off rebilling. I did that and it seemed to say that I had access to the end of my billing period. A day later I can still download.
After several months away from this site, I decided to rejoin. I like their large, vivid-sized softcore photos ...
... which are getting harder to come by! They've been doing a lot more hardcore pics instead. What's more, the women are looking less pretty and more beefy and tatted up -- you know, like sluts.
This makes me unhappy. I know: "Past performance is no guarantee of future results." Will there be any more Melissa Jacobs? Princess? Georgia Jones? Lena Nicole? Girls like that??
But let's look on the bright side. Those of you who love seeing slags getting it good might enjoy it more!
BTW, they do have a nice newer (and growing) hardcore video section with a good viewer and quality vids now, in addition to the low-quality crap that's still there, too.
For the good stuff, go to the top of the page and choose "Penthouse in HD" from the little click-on, drop-down menu. MP4s in 720 px, true HD, are there, and you can get whole scenes or segments, plus usually screen caps for previewing or watch the vid streaming. It's one of best setups for porn video I've seen. B/G and G/G stuff.
And they've got some hot babes too like Nicole Ray, Ashlyn Rae, and Marie McRae. Quite an array.
I like to cancel my memberships with enough time between the date I cancel and the date that access ends.
It was with this in mind -- too much in mind, as it turned out -- that I "cancelled" at Penthouse, because there, you don't "cancel," you close the account. So I did.
Well, I can't blame anyone but myself for the results: immediate lost access. And my subscription term wasn't completely over. Oh, f-- oh, well. "Close the account" is clear enough language, I believe. Maybe I should switch to a stronger coffee brew.
So this little cautionary tale is for anyone else who might (?) make the same mistake I did? Anyone?
When I signed up for this site, I was under the impression that three additional sites were included in the price. There are listed on this web site. After I signed up I tried to get into the sites and was denied. When I contacted Penthouse, they said that the additional site are not included. Kind of a rip-off if you ask me. If you are not giving something don't advertize the fact. When I complained about it, basically I was told "too bad". Get any type of refund for the false advertizing, no.
Get this...when you hit the join button, you get taken to a page that says "Join For Free". Oh Boy, I better sign up right now!!! So you send in your email address, risking spam, and you get your magic password! Then everything you click on leads you to the real join page! Shame on you Penthouse for this antique P.T. Barnum sales technique---straight out of the 1970's porn world. It turned me off so much, I decided not to join.
Penthouse now has a new design, which is brighter and more pleasing to the eye. The navigation is more straightforward. The galleries now show all the thumbs on a single page. It's looking good.
About a week ago, there were no zips made available for the newer galleries at least. Fortunately, that problem has since been fixed and zips are available in 5 different photo sizes.
One other thing is that sometimes thumbs in the lists of galleries don't all show, though most do.
I've been a member for over a year. One thing they have bad habit of doing is listing a gallery in their coming updates, but when the day comes, the gallery isn't posted, and in fact, it never is.
Take today, for example. Two galleries are supposed to go up, and one has, but clicking the other, of "Georgia Jones," just refreshes the gallery listing page.
This has happened several times over the past few months.
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