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We’ve all heard of Vivid.com – pornstars take pride in being Vivid girls, and the material the company produces is noted for having high production values. The perception is that it is Top Of The Heap. So setting out to review Vivid was an exciting prospect – is their reputation justified?

I hope to convey a flavour of the site, add my opinion, and comment on any aspects which I think could be better. Because while Vivid is indeed very good, it’s not perfect.

Models

Models comprise of celebrities and pornstars. The largest proportion of pornstars featured are from North America, but many of the better known up-and-cumming stars from elsewhere feature in the newer material.

Girls range from the classic/retro period right through to the present day. You get fully-pubed, back-combed and non-implanted retro girls, to bald-as-a-coot, augmented-boobed, tattooed and pierced up-to-date girls, and all stops in between. There are enough gorgeous women of all varieties to keep you exploring for months if not years, as you visit faces and bodies both familiar and fresh. Whatever your preferences, you will find girls who meet them.

Content

The site is glossy and professional, as expected. It doesn’t offer a community feel, but it tells you what to expect right up front – porn, with a degree of razzamatazz in how it’s presented to you.

I found the homepage/login somewhat annoying. I just wanted to get straight to content but, even after login, I had to negotiate pop-ups for Vividwebcams and ads for related attractions, some included with membership, some not. Even more irritating, these don’t disappear on subsequent visits: you have to go past them every time. And, even when you get to content pages, Vividwebcams and ads are still bannered across the top of every page – Vivid very badly wants you to get into their camming section, go on, do it now! But I don’t want to, thanks. Leave me alone to surf porn, please.

The content itself starts with celebs: Vivid is noted for its celebrity sextape content. Although many of the celebs will be unfamiliar outside the USA, various well-known names are featured (eg. Kim Kardashian, Pamela Anderson).

The sextapes are mostly fairly high quality, and some are professionally produced. I get the impression that, while the more candid tapes may originally have been leaked, they are now presented with the approval of their subjects. Maybe this is making a virtue out of a necessity on their part, but I prefer to watch celebrities engaged in sexual activity with their consent. It looks as though Vivid avoids material which has been pirated.

Then we have the mainstream content. Scenes are presented initially under the headings Top Rated, Latest, and Recent, with further group headings following. You can also select an alphabetical listing of pornstars with 24 to a page. But you can’t start with, say, letter “H” – you have to start at “A” and page through from the start. It would be helpful to have an alphabet list to enable you to jump to a particular letter.

You can search for individuals using Search. There is also a Categories menu option.

The quality of content varies. Some of the sextapes are, inevitably, VHS quality. Some of the retro content probably derives from 16mm film prints and is not remastered. But the modern material is pin-sharp HD and, accordingly, file sizes of recent content are very big. As a result, features are broken down into parts: I couldn’t find an option to load a feature in its entirety.

The scenes on offer are many and varied, but most consist of variations on straight and lesbian sex involving couples and groups. There is little masturbation or overt fetish material. The scenarios are varied, and you will find a number of porn parodies of recent mainstream movies, all filmed with high production values.

There are also photosets for many of the stars and scenes, with a Galleries option in the menu bar.

Usability

As expected, the site is fast and efficient. Links work instantly, pages load quite quickly, and streaming is no problem. Because many of the files are big, downloads are not quick, and this may result in difficulties on a big download depending on your hardware and software configuration: this is likely to be down to you, not Vivid, though!

File sizes may also eat up mobile phone data allocations, depending on your contract.

Vivid logs you out automatically after a period of inactivity, which is irritating if you like to have sites open and switch between them during the day as circumstances dictate.

The search facility is specific to what page you’re on: it isn’t a site-wide search. So you can, for instance, search for “Pizza” or “Photographer” but you have to be within one of the groupings of scenes where that tag would work ie. not within the Pornstars listing. I would have preferred a site-wide search which would have worked wherever you were.

Longevity

This is a big site with a lot of varied content. If you’re looking for niche material, then you’d best look elsewhere. But if you lean towards good old straightforward bacon-and-eggs porn, then there is enough material here to keep you occupied for years, with more being added all the time.

Value

If it turns out that you enjoy this site – and if you like porn in general, then it is very likely that you will – then I think the year’s subscription represents very good value for money. But there is a cheap 3-day subscription which will give you the opportunity to find out for yourself without breaking the bank.