Matt Elliott is a senior editor at CNET with a focus on laptops and streaming services. Matt has more than 20 years of experience testing and reviewing laptops. He has worked for CNET in New York and San Francisco and now lives in New Hampshire. When he’s not writing about laptops, Matt likes to play and watch sports. He loves to play tennis and hates the number of streaming services he has to subscribe to in order to watch the various sports he wants to watch.
Brian is an editorial intern focusing on home entertainment and general news assignments. Brian is a rising senior studying journalism and English at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Despite the whole two-majors-in-writing thing, he’s struggling to come up with a third sentence for this bio.
CNET’s expert staff reviews and rates dozens of new products and services each month, building on more than a quarter century of expertise.
SCORE
Peacock
Cons
No longer offers Hallmark programming
Less comprehensive library compared to rivals like Netflix
No downloads, local NBC station unless you’re on the more expensive tier
Peacock, though not as large as some of its rivals, looks similar to Netflix, Hulu, Disney Plus and Max, with a simple tiled interface lined with famous network shows.
You’ll find shows, movies, live sports and always-on channels, with standouts including Poker Face, The Office and Modern Family. If you upgrade to Peacock’s Premium Plus tier, you get downloads, your local live NBC station and fewer commercials in addition to the perks of the Premium tier.
Peacock once offered a free tier for new subscribers, but now that option is only available for some existing customers who want to downgrade their account from a paid, premium version. For those who have had the free tier, there is a catch. Popular shows like The Traitors and Poker Face only offer one episode on the tier, with the rest behind the Premium paywall. And some shows, like Parks and Recreation and The Office, are entirely off-limits unless you upgrade.
Peacock’s live sports offering is a strength, and you can watch with a standard Premium subscription. It has NFL Sunday Night Football, the US Open, WWE wrestling, the Premier League, the Olympics and, starting in the fall of 2025, live NBA games.
Streaming services compared
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Peacock
Netflix
HBO Max
Disney Plus
Monthly price
Premium with ads for $8, ad-free Premium Plus for $14, free option for existing subscribers
Starts at $8
Starts at $10
Starts at $10
Top titles
The Office, Yellowstone, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, The Day of the Jackal
House of the Dragon, The White Lotus, Euphoria, DC titles
Daredevil: Born Again, Andor, Loki, Phineas and Ferb
Mobile downloads
Yes, with Premium Plus
Yes
Yes
Yes, with $16 Premium
Live sports
Yes
Yes
Yes, with $17 Standard and $21 Premium
No
Number of streams:
3
2 (4 with $25 Premium)
2 (4 with Premium)
4
How many ads does Peacock have?
I tested out the streamer’s $8 per month ad-supported tier, Peacock Premium. It’s also worth mentioning that subscribers to Peacock’s $14 per month ad-free Premium Plus tier will still see commercials on “a small amount of programming, Peacock channels, live events and a few TV shows and movies,” according to Peacock.
I watched an episode of the most current season of Love Island USA on a laptop, and the ads were tolerable. You can view how many commercial breaks will appear in the progress bar, and I counted five outside of a 15-second ad roll before the episode started. Breaks lasted between 60 and 90 seconds, and in total, I watched about 6 minutes of ads over the course of the hour-long episode.
Familiar navigation (for the most part)
Peacock’s homepage is similar to what you might see from other streaming services. There’s a big carousel of “hero” tiles at the top and rows of thumbnails below, labeled Peacock Picks, Continue Watching, Peacock Originals, Family Movie Night and so on. You can view Top 10 lists for shows and movies or choose to see content from a specific brand like Bravo or Universal Pictures. You can also seamlessly search for specific titles, but if you type in “originals,” it won’t spit out a list of Peacock Originals.
Note that Peacock does have kids profiles with movie options like Shrek 1 through Shrek 3, Despicable Me 1 through Despicable Me 3 and the 2025 animated flick Dog Man. Parents can limit the content accessible on these profiles by selecting from one of three maturity ratings: Little Kids (TV-Y), Older Kids (TV-Y7, TV-G, G) and Family (TV-PG, PG). It’s important to note that kids may see child-friendly content on their profile that they can’t watch because of their pre-set range. If they try, they will get blocked and see a message that says “this content exceeds the maturity ratings limit set for this profile.” Parents also have the option of setting a PIN to keep kids from switching to their adult profile.
Browsing deep into NBC’s back catalog
Peacock is a trove for fans of NBC and Bravo shows, offering comedies like 30 Rock and Parks and Recreation, reality series like Real Housewives and Below Deck and Law and Order spin-offs. Peacock has also become a destination for buzzy originals like The Day of the Jackal and the popular dating show Love Island USA. Poker Face and Ted are other originals that have earned multiple seasons.
You may view Peacock as less of a must-have streamer compared to rivals like Netflix or Hulu, but it may still be worth getting for its price point and attractive content offering. If you don’t mind watching a few ads, it’s a fun place to explore movies and a big mix of TV shows, and keep up with current NBC shows, reality TV, news and live sports in one spot.
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