I’ve had a chance to play with the new sync feature a little bit over the last few days, and have to say that it makes the Plex app on my iPad a lot more valuable for me. Plex traditionally relies on a media server application. The idea is that you have the server up and running on your Mac or PC at home, and then access your media anywhere – either in the living room, or on the go.

However, I often find myself in situations where I have the iPad in my bag, but no way to access my server. Think road trip without cell phone coverage, for example. That’s when the ability to download a few movies beforehand is great. And having the really slick Plex UI to select the media I want is an added bonus.

It’s worth noting that sync is only available to paying PlexPass subscribers. Plex introduced PlexPass as a paid subscription tier this summer; subscribers who pay $4 a month or $30 a year get access to some premium features. Right now, this includes sync as well as early access to a web-based Plex client.

Check out a few screenshots of the new Plex iPad app below:

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