I purchased this book since it would be used in an in-company CCNA mentoring program which I had joined. For that reason, I didn't even consider other books.
I read the whole book, and have to say was very disappointed with it. It has a boatload of typos, many of them in the CLI captures shown, which amazed me... I didn't think someone would actually type that stuff but rather just copy and paste it from router lab scenarios. If taken from live routers, how could so many typos be introduced? Beats me. These typos at times really hinder understanding of the concepts (costs for EIGRP topology table samples come to mind). I started making a list so as to provide it to the author, until I realized they were so many that I just didn't have the time to do someone else's job.
I have also found several mistakes, some of those discussed / reported at Lammle's website (load sharing over static routes, admin distance of a static route using exit interface, etc).
In my opinion, content was disorganized in many parts, and didn't follow a logical order.
I understand that many people may like his informal writing style. I wouldn't mind it myself, if it wasn't at the cost of accuracy and
thoroughness, which this book notably lacks in several parts.
For example, in a section describing default routing and the ip classless command, he waved the issue off by saying something like: "use this command, otherwise sometimes default routing will work, sometimes it won't". Come on, we're talking network engineering here, not cooking recipes...
A co-worker started studying for CCNA roughly at the same time I did, and had bought the Cisco Press books (Wendell Odom Official Exam Guides - 2 books). I found myself going to those books time after time to seek clarification for things that were just skimmed over in Lammle's book, were confusing, or were not even mentioned. Particularly after starting my rounds of test questions and finding many questions that had no answers in Lammle's book. I found the Odom books did explain why things happened the way they did, and were real eye-openers. They usually required you to read more pages than the Lammle book, which is not surprising since thorough coverage of subjects does require content be layed out. By the end of my review period, I was sorry about my training book selection.
I was also surprised by the significant percentage of the Lammle book devoted to Cisco's SDM. While the Cisco Press books barely touch on it, and my CCNA exam presented me with no questions on it, Lammle spends dozens of pages on it (each chapter has a good chunk on how the chapter's subjects are done via SDM).
In short, if I were to make a recommendation to someone who was to start preparing for this exam, I wouldn't hesitate in pointing him the way of the Cisco Press books (W. Odom) instead of this one.
I did pass the exam, and with a good grade, too, but I felt the real meat I learned it from the CP books, not from this one.
I'm surprised with the many great reviews the book has here, I guess maybe this book would be considered a good tool by those just starting in the networking arena. But I don't see how it would meet the expectations of anybody with a few years into this and looking for in-depth review of how things work the way they do.
Just my views here... hope they can be useful to future CCNA exam takers out there.
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