$35/Month YouTube TV Goes Live In Select Areas, First Impressions Already Out

It’s the age of digital TV and YouTube is the latest to join with its own offering. At $35 a month, the online video hosting giant just launched YouTube TV in select areas and already, impressions as to what it’s like are pouring in. Tips on how users in other areas can sign up are also available, though, it should be noted that there will be some effort involved.

YouTube TV is only available in five locations, so far, Forbes reports. These are Chicago, LA, New York, Philadelphia, and San Francisco. Officially, anyone who is not living in those places will not have access to the new service. Unofficially, they can still get the service if they have a VPN.

The upside to this method is that people no longer need to wait for the online TV offering to roll out in their areas. The downside is that it will require people to pay for the VPN fee on top of the YouTube TV $35 monthly charge. Anyone who doesn’t want to spend much on what essentially amounts to a glorified online streaming package might want to just wait.

On that note, it might be handy to have access to favorite TV programs on the iPhone or Android devices, but is it really worth the trouble? Users can find out for themselves via the free one month trial that they can get, Business Insider reports, which is reminiscent of Netflix’s own system.

Users will have access to over 40 channels by default, but they can also add a few others for a few extra bucks, like Showtime. Anyone who wants to simply record their TV programs can do so via digital DVR, which comes with unlimited storage, so that’s neat. However, the biggest advantage that YouTube TV has over its competitors like DirectTV appears to be the reliability of the streaming, which certainly adds to its appeal.