After Netflix’s price increase a few months ago, and the controversial decisions that the company is taking regarding its service, many users are rethinking whether to continue on the platform or stop paying the subscription. The arrival of a plan with advertisements, or the additional charge for the service by profile in someone else’s house, among other strategies, it is something that directly affects the pockets of subscribers.
In order to find out if it is worth the savings, we have configured Netflix to play series and movies at a maximum resolution of 480p, the only resolution available to Netflix Basic plan subscribers. We show you how to do it and how much you would end up saving if the change convinces you.
Change to the Basic plan, with a maximum resolution of 480p
Netflix currently has three plans: Basic, Standard and Premium. The main differences between these plans are in the maximum number of devices that can play content simultaneously, the number of devices on which content can be downloaded, and the maximum resolution that can be achieved.
The Netflix Basic plan, which is what we have been testing for the article, has a maximum resolution of 480p, and it is not possible to play content simultaneously on other devices. Its price is 7.99 euros per month and represents a saving of 4 euros compared to the Standard plan and 10 euros for the Premium plan, the latter plan being the only one with content support in 4K UHD and HDR with Dolby Vision.
How to lower quality on Netflix without changing plans
To carry out the tests we have purchased the Basic plan, but if you want to test with the Premium plan, you can also modify the video quality from the account settings. For this you can go to Account > Profile & Parental Controls > Playback Settings. However, if you do this with a Netflix Premium plan, the minimum resolution on your TV will be 720p, so the only way to get 480p on Netflix from your TV is to upgrade to the Basic plan.
In the settings we can modify the quality in Automatic, Low, Medium and High, and we can do it for each profile of the account, without altering the configuration of other profiles. Selecting the quality of ‘Low’, according to Netflix, we would consume about 300 MB of data per hour.
However, our tests have not been carried out with the aim of seeing data consumption, but to find out if the drop in quality is worth it to save us a few euros.
480p is noticeable, but it all depends on your equipment and the viewing distance
For the tests we have used a 24-inch PC monitor with a 1080p panel, in the living room with a 55-inch Xiaomi TV P1, which has a 4K panel, and a OnePlus Nord 2 with an FHD+ screen. And yes, logically, the drop in resolution is noticeable considerably. Nevertheless, it all depends on the equipment you have and the distance at which you usually see the content.
For example, if you don’t have a high-resolution Smart TV and you have a media player like Chromecast or Fire TV plugged in with the Netflix app, it may be a good option, since your television will not be able to go further in terms of resolution due to its technical limitations.
Another key point is the viewing distance. And it is that if you usually play Netflix on a 1080p monitor and you are no more than 1 meter away, The decrease in quality is quite noticeable. In contrast, for a standard 1080p monitor, if you tend to be six feet away or more, the difference is much less noticeable.
On TV, the change was much more radical, since being a panel of such dimensions, we would have to move away about 3 meters or more so that the change would not be so serious. In our case, we have the television at a distance of about 2.30 meters from the sofa in front of us, and lowering to that resolution has been noted.
The difference is clear in terms of bitrate and pixelation of the image, especially in scenes where there is more action and movement. If you add to this a somewhat darker scene, the quality is corrupted too much and it is only salvageable depending on the size of your TV and if you are at a far distance from it.
On mobile, the difference in quality has been noticed in some scenes more than others, although taking into account that it is a screen that we usually have practically glued to our faces when we watch a video or a movie, the experience is not very pleasant.
However, and this is on a personal basis, I could live perfectly with this quality. And it is that I am not usually so used to high resolution since the vast majority of the content that I see is on the PC. Of course, these circumstances may be different from yours.
I’m still sticking to 4K, but it hasn’t been an entirely horrible experience.
As a personal choice, I wouldn’t go down to 480p at will, although watching a full movie at this resolution It would not be something to put my hands to my head since I am used to watching Netflix content from my humble PC monitor and quite far away (wow, a demo of how to watch Netflix badly).
As for savings, it all depends on the people with whom you share the account. If you don’t share the cost with other people, then obviously we find a saving of about 10 euros compared to the Premium plan. However, the basic plan only supports one device at a time, so sharing expenses in this plan is not a very good idea.
One of the advantages of streaming platforms is the fact of being able to share the account with other people, as long as there are a number of devices to play content simultaneously. In this way, the subscription to the Netflix Premium plan we can leave at a minimum price of about 4.50 euros per month per head if you share with three other people.
In this way, if sharing an account in the Premium plan can be up to almost 50% cheaper than the Basic plan without sharing, why go down to 480p? Well, it’s pretty much confirmed by the company that there will be changes in that of sharing so while it’s not currently worth it, it may not end up being so far-fetched in the future.
As we mentioned above, you can try lowering the quality of Netflix without having to change your plan and thus decide for yourself if it is worth the change.
Netflix, the most expensive service
Netflix is currently the most expensive platform to watch series and movies in streaming, with a cost of 17.99 euros per month in its Premium plan. That is why there are many who are looking for alternatives to this service, although if you enjoy this service to a great extent in your day-to-day life, you do not have a compatible HD device and you want to save money, switching to the Basic plan may be the end of your life compensating.