I am a big fan of Amazon Prime. As a student, I get a 50% discount on all it’s paid services and so I pay $40 a year instead of $80 like non-student members. Which is pretty sweet. Amazon Prime offers a lot of features that I think are pretty cool including a free lending library for Kindle users, free two day shipping, and, of course, Amazon’s video service which competes with Netflix – except, you know, you have the other aforementioned perks, too.
If you’re a student, you can get six months of the service free. You can sign up at any time on Amazon.com – they are constantly doing promotions to try and get people to sign up.
But let’s ask ourselves a very serious question.
Let’s say you don’t need free shipping and you don’t have a Kindle. Why should you bother trying out Amazon Prime?
The answer: it’s video service.
If you’re not a Netflix subscriber but still want to get your sci-fi kicks, it’s a great time to try the series out. I think just about anyone with a little dedication and a lot of free time could at the very least take advantage of the free streaming of every Star Trek series ever that a free trial of Amazon Prime would offer.
But f you’re not a Star Trek fan, there are plenty of other options for you, too. You can marathon through Stargate SG-1, Stargate: Atlantis, Stargate: SGU, Farscape, Battlestar Galactica, Doctor Who, the X-Files, Dead Like Me, Firefly, and more. A lot of these are also available on Netflix and if you already pay for Netflix, maybe those series aren’t exactly convincing. Keep in mind, though, that there are also a couple exclusives that you won’t find on Netflix like TNT’s hit series Falling Skies, Fringe, and the Doctor Who spin off the Sarah Jane Adventures. Classic sci-fi fans will also be happy to find a few other series that cannot be watched on Netflix. These include series like Bionic Woman, Wonder Woman, The Scarecrow and Mrs. King, Alf, and more.
Sadly, Babylon 5 is not available for free viewing on either service.
Now, I’m not advocating Amazon Prime over Netflix.
I pay for both.
Amazon Prime’s interface for watching videos is not user friendly in any format – either online through your computer, through your iPad, or through your gaming device. However, for students, you can get SIX MONTHS FREE. Plus you can enjoy free two day shipping and the Kindle lending library. The best you can hope for with Netflix is a one month trial and usually Amazon Prime Student free trials are only three months.
If you’ve already gotten a free trial of Amazon Student from their website then I think you’re out of luck. But if not, now is the perfect time to try it out. You’ll have plenty of sci-fi series to help you procrastinate throughout this semester at the very least.
For those of you who are not currently students but have access to a .edu email account, still, the offer SHOULD still work for you. (The ethics of lying to cheat the system are completely up to you to work through.) Give it a shot!
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