I use Plex for Android on a daily basis, and I know a lot of users who do similar (Hi Chris!). There have been continual updates over the last 12 months or so, but the latest update for Android brings a lot of feature changes and upgrades.
The UI update is far prettier, easy on the eyes and importantly, easier to navigate. For users who’ve used the Music interface, you’ll find that the video navigation is identical and extremely useful. The improved seeking is very easy to utilise if you’re looking for a particular spot in a video, or rewinding to relive a favourite moment through either scrubbing on the time-bar, or double tap right or left on the screen to seek quickly with thumbnails showing your location in the video.
Picture in Picture (PiP) similar to the Android function with YouTube or other video playback services has made an appearance. It was previously in their Beta but somewhat clunky in function. The final delivery is quite seamless. Another feature which Chris is enjoying is far easier access to subtitles, both ones of you’ve downloaded before and ones Plex has matched for you. Subtitles used to be a bit of a pain on Plex, now they’re a lot easier and quicker to load.
I’m regularly enjoying media on different devices which all have different display ratios so being able to fill or stretch video to fit the screen is a nice option to make the most of your screen or TV.
A new addition I noticed (but didn’t realise what was occurring until I went looking) was the instant start if you’re watching a series of videos on your device. As the episode completion countdown begins, the next video in your queue begins to buffer, a very nice touch. It’s like what Netflix does, but Plex brings this convenience to your local media too.
If you’ve never tried Plex, give it a crack with a free 30 day trial for Plex Pass.
There’s a lot of users who are still invested in Plex for their personal media collection, undoubtedly many have abandoned ship for the streaming options – where do you sit on this decision?
