Customer Reviews

Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing 18

5 star:		(33)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(12)

 

 

I thought it was a fairly good product. It was easy and fun to use, it was more like a kid's computer game than an adult product. Which could be a good or bad thing depending on your preferences. It did help me learn to type better I'm at 47 words a minute verses the 18 when I started. It has a Spanish language mode and even teaches you the numeric keys. So all in all I give it a 4 out of 5.

My kids got a little experience with Mavis Beacon version 16 at school and liked it, so I got version 18 for them to practice at home. They tried it out and said it isn't as nice, the games are nicer on 16. I didn't believe them, so I went to school and tried out version 16 and they are right. I don't understand. Why would a program downgrade? Other than that, as far as I can see it is a nice program, good for getting lots of practice!

I bought this product for my mother, who wanted to learn how to type faster. I gave it to her as an early Christmas present and she loved it. She's never had a typing class and this is just the thing for her, she's only been using it for about a week and you can already tell she's improving.

I bot this for my 8yo daughter. She is doing great and enjoying it except for a program glitch: it doesn't advance properly - every 3rd or 4th lesson the program gives a lesson that includes all letters on the keyboard; as I saw in some reviews - you can get through the 'advanced' lesson and then it returns to a proper progression, BUT - it keeps doing this every 3rd or 4th lesson which is a real pain. Other reviews that I've looked up elsewhere (not just Amazon) say that the company acknowledges the problem but calls it 'minor'. I guess that means they don't think it important enough to fix. It is a very inconvenient problem in the program. Putting the glitch another way: you learn, say - 10 keys - then the next lesson will have all 26 letters in the lesson assuming you've learned all 26 when you've only learned 10 - you get past this lesson and it goes back to teaching you keys 11 & 12, you practice 12 keys for a couple of lessons - then the next lesson has the whole keyboard on it once again, and this repeats time and again. We're giving up and buying our 3rd typing program hoping it will work. (The first we tried, Typing Instructor for Kids - didn't advance at all - she learned the home keys and then it stayed on the home keys forever not advancing to other keys - aahh! - We just want to learn to type!). We will try "Typing Quick & Easy" this time.

I got this version after I returned the Deluxe 20 version. Unfortunately, it had the same bug in it. After learning the home base letters, it insisted on taking tests with all the letters on the keyboard. And the advanced test doesn't show up in lesson history. It seems like beginner is mixed up with advanced, which is very frustrating.

Very disapointed.

This product is defective. It has "a bug" in the code; during the first lesson, the program goes to The Chamaleon game and stays there, no matter what you do. You should stop selling this product, It's incompatible with the good reputation for quality and excellent cuatomer service that Amazon has earned throught the years.

The copy I received was flawed. It could never go past the "ty" lesson even though I tried using several players' names. I read several other reviews afterwards and noted that other buyers had technical problems as well. I would suggest you buy this where you can easily return it. I ended up buying another brand at a local store. (Wish I could have given it a no-star rating but the lowest I could give was one star. Doesn't deserve even that when the product is faulty.)

Read reviews first and they all said there was a possibility of getting one that was defective.That after the e,i lesson it skips to big words that you haven't learned the letters for. And guess what, that happened. But I tried something. I typed those big words best as I could and then the lessons went on normally after that. It's a glitch. So I have still been able to use the coarse. For those of you who have bought this and have come across this problem try this and see what happens with yours.I bought the 18 instead of the 20 because I got it cheaper and I was afraid of getting a defective one and losing my money but it turned out I could use it any way. So I wouldn't at this point be afraid to by the 20 knowing I could skip over the big words and get on with things.

I have owned previous versions of Mavis Beacon and had to upgrade because I upgraded to Windows Vista. This version is just as good as the others!

Bought this product for my daughter--easy to install and use. But after she took about 10 lessons, her user id disappeared. So she had to take the lesson all over again, which being a child did not make her happy. 10 more lessons and the id is gone again. Sent in 6 request for support on the product and never received and answer. Not a bad product, has not been updated in years.