Customer Reviews

Encyclopedia Britannica 2005 Deluxe Edition

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Undoubtably EB offers a venerable tome of information. Articles tend to be longish and many, e.g. on "Western Architecture or " Psychological Theories" offer a comprehensive introduction to complex topics. If you want to quickly look up a concise definition, look elsewhere. Likewise dictionary and thesaurus are encompassing, incl. etmythology and pronounciation. The atlas on the other hand can't hold a candle to Encarta. If you're looking to get the contents of the famous print edition for a fraction of the price, you'll be fine.

If, on the other hand, you're looking for a user-friendly, comfortable piece of software to consult routinely, you'll be extremely frustrated.

This software
* is enervatingly slow to start up, and the queries aren't much better (we're talking complete installation on the harddisk here!).
* often does not comply with Windows conventions, e. g. use ESC to close pop-ups, use right mouse button for cut/ copy/ paste, "Mark everything" from menu, F1 for help etc.
* is hardly user-configurable at all (you can choose 3 grades of type, wow!). I.e. query result windows have to be maximized manually again and again. , adavanced search, too, has to be enabled at every start-up and for each subprogram. Gets kind of tedious.
* cannot wrap lines correctly with each of those 3 type grades. They sometimes vanish into the wild blue yonder, off screen.
* needs you to be pretty exact when typing queries: "kelim" gets you nowhere, as it's "kilim", same for "von der Rohe", as the architect was a "van".
* does have multimedia-elements, but they do seem afterthoughts, not integrated parts of the whole, and remain far below today's possibilities. The architect mentioned is honoured with one illustration (of a chair he designed, my foot!), for the "September 11 attacks" there's nought, no video bit,no Osama tape-excerpt, no crosslink to the atlas in case someone doesn't know where New York happens to be.

In short: more 19th, than 21st century

I have both Encarta 2005, World Book 2005, and EB 2005 Deluxe CD. The content of the EB 2005 is oustanding as would be expected. However, as the other reviewer stated, the software is horrible and ruins the experience. I am disappointed I purchased the EB 2005. I find it slow as well-VERY SLOW! I would not purchase this product again. I will not purchase future versions either. My computer is very high end. I have 1 gb of memory running on a brand new Sony P4 3.6ghz. So it is not the computer. Encarta runs very well as does World Book. Encarta's text content is better than WB but not as good as EB. For example: looking up Ethics EB is much more complete in is presentation of the topic. World Book is definitely written for a Junior High audience in my opinion. Encarta is very close to EB in text content. The feature I like about World Book is the ability to do a random search called "browsing". I like to do this because sometimes I honestly just want to learn something new and may not have a specific topic in mind.

I would recommend Encarta if you only buy one.

Lots of information on a wide variety of topics. O.K. search interface is relatively easy to use. Some multi-media features do not work.
I also own World Book 2003. WB 2003 is not as in-depth an encyclopedia, but it runs much smoother and all of its features work.

I purchased this software because no encyclopedia came with my Dell Desktop. Well I wish I hadn't!!! This software moves entirely too slow. I thought it was just my inexpensive computer which still happens to be windows xp running on a pentium 4 processor. Thanks to the other one star reviewers I realize it's not my computer the software just stinks. I now own a Ibook and enjoy using the Mackiev's Worldbook encyclopedia that came with it. But I have the feeling that the Encyclopedia Britanica has far more articles. But I would never know it takes several minutes to boot up the information and sometimes (most of the times) it just gets stuck. What a waste.

This is an excellent product, my kids need not to go to library to do research, they now have a compact library at home thru their PC.