Reviewed 2008-07-01 l Last update on 2020-09-26
You are offered the chance to sign up for free at Males Online though you will need to give your card details to prove age. Later you can choose to upgrade your membership and you will definitely want to do this so that you can view the collection of DVDs in their entirety. The site features a wide selection of titles but mainly focuses on hunks and bears, hairy guys and hard-core. There is a collection of image galleries too. Its an easy site to use and new titles are added regularly.
Starting with the videos page, as DVDs is what the site is really about, you will find 13 categories containing over 500 movies and over 750 hours of gay porn. You can either use the category lists to search for what you want to see or you can flick through page by page, looking at the cover shots as you go. When you have made up your mind its a question of clicking the cover and up comes some more details. Admittedly the details are a bit sparse; theres the legal notice, the title and a short description no news on cast or studio. Having said that you can also search by studio in another drop down list and there are some big players providing content here: Pistol Media, Daddy oohhh! Productions and Baccus, for example.
The content is also easy to access, from each DVDs individual page, as you are given at least three streaming or downloading options. Its worth noting here that there are no restrictions on the downloads either so you can, in theory, take all of them. If youre on a dial up connection you have a 240 x 180 sized screen playing @ 56k which is a bit small and fuzzy but if thats all you can manage it will have to do. Then there is a DSL configured version, 320 x 240 @ 300k and a 560 x 420 @ 700k for Broadband users. In many cases there is also an HD version which plays at 720 x 480 @ 2MBps. So you should be able to find one of those to suit you.
If you opt to stream a scene you will have the player in a new window and all of the files (that I saw) were Windows Media Player format. A help page is provided if you have any trouble playing the movies so everything has been thought of for you. All you need to do is select and click. And to help you even more each scene comes with a set of six thumbnails showing you parts of the action so you get a good idea of what and who is in each one. I couldnt find a way to download or stream an entire movie but the scene lengths were quite adequate, there are no thirty second clips here.
Over in the photos area you will also find 13 categories to browse though or you can simply start at page one and carry on through the ten pages. Thats 90 photo galleries, each with a different amount of pics in them. Each gallery is displayed on the standard issue thumbnail pages with individual images clicking up to a large size, 800 x 1200 in new windows, so theres no getting lost. Some of the sets look like they would have been better at a smaller size as some pixilation takes place but not on all of them. And having said that, there is an option to view the images in three resolutions so if something is too big simply opt to change the resolution down a little and it will be much clearer. You can also download and collect as many images as you want and add them to your personal library, assuming you have one.
Thats basically the content outlined for you: a good collection of DVDs that are mainly hard-core with leather men and hunks, plus some interracial and ethnic themes too and a good collection of varied solo and action image galleries. Though the tour may list cam sites and so on these are actually links to external sites and you may be required to sign up to use them.
There are some nice little touches at Males Online: you have an add to favourites function so you can store your favourite scenes and galleries in one place. This is displayed when you click the list favourites button and its easy to remove them from the list once you've finished with them. The other feature I liked was the queue function. It works in the same way as the favourites one, it makes a list of things, so if you see something you want to come back to later you simply add it to the queue list to remind you to view it on your next visit, or whenever. I mentioned the resizing images function and that certainly helps when viewing the galleries.
Navigation is made easy by the top and right side menus. In this right menu you will also find the model index with over 100 stars listed by name in alphabetical order. Theres no image of the guys to guide you so you either take pot luck or click a name you recognise. When you do you will find a page linking to all that stars appearances. There is also a generic search box, the drop down lists of categories and studios, the most popular DVDs are displayed on one side and the featured title of the moment on the other. So you see, there are lots if things to help you decide what to watch.
Gallery images open in new windows so you dont drift away from the main part of the site and you can navigate through next and previous with the links provided. There wasnt a slideshow option or zip files of the photo sets but you cant have everything. You will also notice that when you hover your pointer over a cover the basic description of that movie will come up on a floating box. This saves you having to click on every single one to see more details, you can simply float around the page, but it can get in the way if you dont keep an eye on where your pointer is. Move it off the page and the floating boxes go you'll get used to it and it is a helpful, time saving device.
The site is simply designed though it does a lot of things. Each page is the same with the main content in the central area and the menus, searches and links to the left and right. Surprisingly the pages dont take too long to load, considering how many images are on each one, but if youre on a slow connection speed you may have to wait a while, but I guess you'll be used to that by now!
Al though it has the same content as its partner sites, like Absolutely Male, Males Online has a good enough collection of DVDs to justify the monthly fee. Theres not much news about updates but assuming they are regular, you will also get value for money here. There are no restrictions on downloads, which is great and you get a good set of viewing options so you should have no trouble viewing the hot content. For a mix of general gay hard-core movies this is a good place to come.
