Date the UK review

Overview

Date the UK has a membership of around 3 million, and is free to join and search. The service offers postcode searching, live chat, online flirting, secure email services, photo personals, postcode searching, and matchmaking process. In addition, they offer 6 months free full site access if you don't find your other half during your 6 months membership.

The prices listed are for Gold Membership but there is also an option to upgrade to Platinum Membership which gives you unlimited use of the site and its features, and a quicker response from technical support should you need it. Platinum costs about 10% more than Gold Membership. You can also make your profile more prominent by paying an extra £3 per month.

Who is it for?

General online dating service.

Covers all ages and all of the UK.

Profile creation

Approximate time: 15-20 minutes

To get started, you fill in the basic sign-up details and also select what you are 'looking for' from the following list:
Friendship, Email or chat, Relationship, Fun, No strings fun, Other.

After this, all you have to do is go to your email account and click on your activation link from Date the UK and you dive straight into your account and can search people and events immediately. Quickest site yet!

You can then complete your profile by going through the following sections:

• General Details
• Physicality
• Descriptions: describe yourself and describe your perfect match
• Personality
• Lifestyle

The Personality section is not like most of the other dating sites which use your scores to analyse you scientifically. Instead, it is a simple 'rank yourself' on a scale of 0-10 on the following traits:
Loving, Confident, Successful, Faithful, Sexy, Compassionate, Extroverted, Caring, Patient, Sexually adventurous, Fit.

The Lifestyle sections also asks you to list some of your interests. You have 9 choices, which are:
Entertainment, Hobbies, Favourite music, Favourite food, Sports you watch, Sports you play, Favourite newspapers, Favourite magazines, Favourite TV genres. For each of these you get to pick up to 3 choices from a drop down menu, or if you don’t want to answer some, just leave them blank and they won’t appear in your profile

Features

Date the UK is right up their for features, especially communication with other members. Their real competitive edge in the market comes from the various ways you can contact members, so check out the 'Contacting Members' tab above.

Other good features include:

Video recording: you can post a video of up to 30 seconds to your profile. The system is linked up to your webcam (if u have one) so it should be easy to record.

Singles events search: also check out what singles events are going on near you, from speed dating to singles parties and so on.

Personal rating: See how others have rated and commented on that persons profile. Perhaps a little creepy and sleazy seeing others peoples comments though. You can also rate someone and be rated yourself with what Date the UK call a 'fun rating', such as a 'fox' or a 'angel'. Maybe a little babyish but nevertheless quite light-hearted and fun as the name suggests.

Virtual gift: you can send someone a virtual gift, like flowers or chocolates and so on. Quite a quirky feature and always a good icebreaker.

Searching

The search function on Date the UK is good, but not great like some other sites.

As you would expect, you can search the basics of age, orientation, location, marital status, and what the person is looking for (e.g. relationship, no strings fun, etc).

You can also expand this to take into account:

• Distance from postcode
• Date joined
• Who’s winked at you.

Not the most detailed, as you can’t filter through certain traits or keywords, but probably just enough criteria to yield decent results. Other sites offer much better search though.

Viewing Profiles

When you click on someone’s profile you can see the same information that you had to complete during your profile creation. So, there’s everything from their basic details, to their physical attributes and interests, etc.

You can also see that person’s scores for their personality traits on a horizonal bar chart. This is quite good find out a little more about them, although there is no direct comparison/compatibility tool with your own personality scores, thus making this feature less effective than it could be. Would have been better if both scores for each trait were side by side so you can directly compare, like with Dating Direct and Match, amongst others.

Contacting members

Date the UK are the best in the business when it comes to this. They offer lots of ways to get in touch with someone who may take your fancy:

Text Chat: strike up a conversation with this instant messenger function.

Send SMS: follow the instructions and you can send that person a text message either through your phone or via the computer to their phone. Available to standard members too.

Talk Live: available to paid-up members. Date the UK keeps your mobile number secret but you can alert someone that you are interested in speaking to them on the phone and the hours you are free to receive a call.

Voice mail: you can also send them a voice recording straight to their phone.

Like almost every other online dating site, there is also the generic wink and obviously the email option too.

Email alerts

Date the UK allow you to tailor your email alerts extremely well. You can choose whether or not to receive an email for almost anything, such as the major things like someone has viewed your profile and wants to chat, to the slightly less major things like someone has given you a virtual gift and so on.

Value for money

Very similar prices to Match and Dating Direct, slightly more expensive than both if you chose the 'Date the UK' 1 month option.

If you want loads of great ways to get in touch with other members then 'Date the UK' is THE best site out there definitely. However, it lacks a bit on profile comprehensiveness compared to its rivals in a similar price range.

Like the other big players in the industry, it has a very large membership base and the site navigation and feel to match. Their Love Guarantee for the Platinum 6 month package at £71.94 offers you 6 months free if you find no love in your first 6 months, which is good, although Match do the same for just over £65.

Date the UK perhaps lacks too much on profile comprehensiveness to be top-end value for money as other sites out there that give you more to put in your profile.

Best bits

So quick and easy to get started. If you don’t like writing a lot or patience is not your best virtue then, along with Smart Dating Online, Date the UK are lightening quick to get up and running on.

The various ways to get in contact with members is also a great unique selling point, too.

Worst bits

Too many banner ads, which are just plain irritating, especially when the majority of them are other online dating services trying to also get at your money.

There is also not enough stuff to put in your profile. Other sites have good comparison tools which allow you to check out your compatibility with someone. All Date the UK has is the ability for you to see someone’s basic self-description details, such as their appearance and personality, etc. That said, the simplicity of this may well suit many people who see 'less as more'.

Pricing

1 month: £19.99
3 month: £32.97
6 month: £47.95