National Review Reviews

by Cash-heavy Investor

I don’t mind paying for good journalism, and NR offers excellent writing on politics and culture, but NationalReview for the iPad performs terribly. It loads slowly, and then, after choosing “Website” content, it slowly loads the list of articles from the website (often leaving out the most current ones). But when you click on a specific article to read, it may take several minutes to load. Or it may never appear. I’ve paid $99/yr for access, but won’t be renewing my subscription because NationalReview and website are just too difficult to use, even for paying subscribers.

by Billy Guitar

Still bad. Worst app I have ever used for publications. Love the publication, which I only read digitally, but NationalReview is often very annoying. When reading, when new articles load, it kicks me out of what I’m reading and takes me back to the articles list page. When I download the magazine to read offline, certain articles - why just certain ones? - are not available to read offline. And, there is no way to change the font size! The Wall Street Journal app allows me to change font size, which is very helpful! All these things seem fixable - so please do!!!

by Old Piko

I like the content, as it is informative and well balanced. However... the articles and comments are impossible to read. NationalReview constantly refreshes the page and moves the screen to the top of the article. Before I scroll down, it refreshes again, and again. When I want to read comments, I find myself back to the article itself, and before I scroll to the bottom and hit the comments button, and scroll down to the comments I read, it glitches and I can start all over again. Absolutely frustrating. Please, fix this!

by "O Man"

I subscribed to NR thinking that it was a respectable publication. What I found is its writers are pseudo intellectuals writing long winded piece with their thesauruses in hand to interject multi syllable words so that readers will look upon in awe and think - oh my, how smart they must be!

Additionally, their writers and editors, are unable to see beyond their hatred of DJT, and his American supporters. 98% of contributions exhibit trump derangement syndrome. They might as well replace Mr. I’m so smart Andy McCarthy directly with that patriot Hillary Rodman Clinton. That is if she could step over all of the dead bodies in her wake and find a working computer after so many of her’s were destroyed illegally to hide her wrongdoings.

The elitist at NR can bash Trump countless new ways each and everyday. However, it is beyond their comprehension to think of and articulate a creative solution. Apparently they believe that Harris the fraud and Biden to ccp puppet are the candidates and path for the former USA they recommend.

VDH and Ms Lopez are exceptions and have humble and independent minds. Their contributions are valuable to all for reading and consideration.

by BLS In MA

National Review is my favorite website hands-down for its thoughtful and thought-provoking content. But NationalReview is terrible. For some reason, it kicks me out of an article I’m reading and sends me back to the menu of articles. This is a consistent problem and has been happening for months. Another problem with NationalReview is that it inconsistently won’t allow me to view NR Plus articles, even though I am a subscriber and am logged in. I have tried emailing app support but that was frustrating as well and the problem hasn’t been resolved.

by MTMatelski

The navigation is awkward, and when downloading then PDF version of the magazine for use offline (as in traveling in airplane mode), NationalReview always manages to dump the file. The worst part, however, are the intrusive ads, which completely hijack NationalReview : I will be reading an article, one of these things pops up and covers the whole page, and there’s no way to get rid of it other than to close and restart NationalReview . As a PAID subscriber, I find this inexcusable; Bill Buckley must be turning over in his grave to behold this turkey.

by Zak12332

You can’t get through a single article without multiple page reloads, constant bouncing of newly rendered content on the page, or my favorite just a big blank white screen that takes over the whole page while in the middle of reading.

The developers need to render the content from the articles different than just a PWA. I would love to subscribe to national review but I wouldn’t put any money towards an app who’s sole purpose is to render text for the reader and that can’t even be accomplished by these developers.

It might be time for a shake up in your development team if this basic necessity can’t be met.

by Kyle Donovan

National Review has some of the highest quality writing to be found in modern journalism. That being said, the quality of their work is totally immaterial if their app is so buggy that I can simply never enjoy it. Often times I will wait up to a minute for the article full of well articulated points to load only to have NationalReview stutter and fail to display any content at all. Other times, NationalReview seems to forget that I am a proud subscriber and insist that I’ve reached my free limit of articles to read. After logging in (while checking and verifying that I am in fact logged in) NationalReview will carry you in an endless loop, neither verifying that you are logged or accepting the log in credentials you are presenting.

All in all, my favorite source of journalism and news while being my least favorite app.

by Dr. B22

I really wish that people at news organizations actually tried USING the apps to read their news. Every time a new ad loads up, the article is reloaded maybe to where you left off. Maybe not. Meanwhile you spend 30-45 seconds looking at a blank screen. And you can count on this happening a couple of times per article. FYI, I am only reading the web content (free) and I understand the need to monetize. But when the ads are too intrusive/aggravating to make the article readable ... Well, now the ability to monetize off my eyeballs is gone because I will not continue to subject myself to this irritation.

by Cicero 2014

I love National Review, but NationalReview is next to useless. Despite being logged in to my NR Plus account and showing an active subscription in Settings, whenever I click on an article behind the paywall I get told I need to log in, am pushed over to my web browser (where it tells me I am *already* logged in), and have to navigate through the website to find the article I was looking for again.

I’ve stopped using NationalReview and just use the website on my phone.

by Rudo84

Being a subscriber I should not be seeing multiple or any ads on every page I read. I have clicked on a few articles which take me to the website and it was overrun with ads that I could not bypass. Terrible!

Only have NationalReview installed to read a digital copy of the mag while on the go. That's it.

Update: Used more cell data last month than other apps I use to stream music and videos. Had to disable background app refresh on my phone. I am not sure why NationalReview uses so much data, maybe all the ads?

by PGC_Sr

This review should not be read to reflect on the quality of the magazine. NR is fantastic and I am a long term subscriber. However NationalReview , is crap.

When reading the magazine it randomly drops out to the cover and I have to go back in and locate the article I was reading and where in the article I was.

As for reading the website, NationalReview refuses to let me sign in. The “LOGIN” button is dead on my iPad. So I can’t get rid of all of the ads and I’m limited to the free articles of a non-subscriber. I am able to log in through the web, outside of NationalReview so at least I can read it.

by Byhthyhyvtv

The content of National Review is definitely first class. However, this is diminished by the poor and inconsistent layout of NationalReview , and more so by the buggy interface. Clearly, programmers and designers were not selected with the same consideration as the writers and editors.

The worst aspect is NationalReview ’s habit of resetting itself. This seems to occur approximately once every 10-15 minutes, and necessitates relocating both the article and the place within article to resume reading.

A different, and significant issue, is the persistent reminder that I am running out of free articles (I am an NR Plus member) with the Login apparently disabled (Subscribe works fine, of course).

by Spectre88

Please consider better ways to present articles. Including the date and author would be a great first step. Also, when accessing the article the date would be very helpful.
Other things to consider, better search tools filtering/sorting by author, title, or date range. I find articles in NRO more reliably through Google, I’d prefer to find them in NationalReview , especially when an article has been mentioned in The Editors podcast. Thanks!

by Grubstr

I like the content. Yes, there’s a little too much opinion, but many authors do use data and facts to back up their arguments. Besides, what journalistic organization does not have opinion drift into their articles any more? I’d give NationalReview 4-stars based upon content (sorry, tough grader). But, I find NationalReview glitchy: content missing, suddenly NationalReview jumps to the home page or crashes and the article that was being read can no longer be found. An infrequent rate of occurrence and I wouldn’t care, but it happens quite frequently on my iPhone. Sorry NR.

by Hilk1111

Nope. An apparent fix lasted all of a week. All articles again randomly crash in a white screen. The user can only go back to the home screen, find the article they were reading again, then try to scroll back to where they left off reading. It may happen 2 or 3 more times when trying to get through a longer article.

I had theorized that it was caused by script issues with their ads but who knows. They had seemed to completely fix it for a week or two in December 2017 but it is back to being nearly unusable.

I still give 3 stars because of course the content is excellent and impossible to find elsewhere curated all in one place. It is worth some frustration, but this is sisyphean.

by Pepe The Dog

I've always liked the content of NR, but NationalReview left me cold. All of the annoying problems of earlier. Erosions have been fixed and it now performs better than most magazine apps.

The writing has always been superb. My politics is much closer to Reason magazine, but the writing is superior to any political magazine, or most magazines of any stripe.

by Akhilles

My readership has been dampened by the NR’s apparent rejection of Trump in the early years, but my loyalty bridged the gap, and a good thing too. Otherwise, I’d have lost the insightful knowledge that accompanies setting aside petty differences over loyalty. As a loyal reader I am grateful for the many years of well written and thoughtful articles.

I don’t regret my loyalty to NR, or mine to President Trump.

by Portgirl17

The stories at National Review are well-written and well-researched. Most pieces are written with a political bent, and that is to be expected at NR, yet the coverage is still fair. It is one of the few remaining journals one can turn to for reliable news. Once well-respected newspapers such as the New York Times and WaPo are now agenda-driven rags that can no longer be trusted to deliver the actual news. National Review fills that void. Great writers like David Harsanyi make it a must read.

by Asher P.

The National Review is home to an enormous amount of great content. New articles appear on the website all throughout the day and are of a great quality. The articles are also neatly organized in NationalReview . My only complaint is NationalReview has a tendency to crash at times. However, it has not been crashing lately.

by Kicking47

If you subscribed by way of the website good luck trying to log into the mobile apps. I have an NRPlus subscription but have yet been able to log into the mobile apps despite a month of emails, phone calls, password resets, etc. NationalReview login for subscriptions not made in NationalReview itself is broken, and has been, apparently, for quite some time. National Review publishers have passed off NationalReview maintenance and customer service to a lousy 3rd-party service and have neglected to keep proper oversight....or simply don’t care.

by Sobercoolcat

Wow! Your app is HORRIBLE!!!!!! That whirring noise I hear when I try to read an article is William F. Buckley spinning in his grave. Have you no shame!?!? NationalReview is an insult to the man’s memory. Why would I want to subscribe? So I can throw money at a worthless product? I would like to at least be able to read one article without NationalReview repeatedly crashing and freezing. The Obamacare website works better than NationalReview! At least liberals can do one thing that obviously conservatives are unable to do and that is to create a workable news app!

by Rsnomad

As others say, the numerous ads crash my iPad when trying to read "the corner". Totally useless. The magazine part is not much better. Have to dig to see which cover I'm trying to read. Can't delete an issue. Doesn't remember where I left off. Numerous complaints via NationalReview but apparently management doesn't care if we all start to cancel. Weekly Standard had an issue when they recently changed the add but it was corrected in a few days. NR problems have been since the last update. If not fixed soon I'm out of here!

by Fix The Bugs22

Waiting for 1 of these updates to fix the bug that keeps making every article crash and either refresh to the top or completely force you to exit and go back to the home screen.

Not sure when you’re planning to fix this but it’s been happening with at least 2 updates....

by Tattoooz

Make sure your password for NationalReview and the website have no special characters or numbers or NationalReview will not recognize your login credentials. I’ll rate NationalReview again later after using it a bit.

by WFB Lives

National Review has been my place to not only read thoughts about the issues of the day but also the larger principals on which to base those thoughts. The discussions are real, informed, and civil.