Rating: 
Summary: Still the best!
Review: I hadn't been keeping up to date with Encarta for 3 years, and decided it was time for an upgrade.I was taken aback by all the new details -- first I started exploring the Discovery Channel videos, which were very informative. What really impressed me though was the new 360 views. 360 views aren't new to Encarta by any means, but for the first time ever I was able to actually move forwards and backwards instead of just looking around. The only thing that disappointed me was Mindmaze: I had expected Microsoft to change it a little. It looked exactly the same in Encarta '95. All said, Encarta is still a vital tool for any student of any field -- or even people who are just mildly curious about their world.
Rating:
Summary: Encarta 2004 versus Britannica 2004
Review: I have bought both Encarta and Britannica for years (EB in printed edition too: 32 volumes, 32.000 sheets). This is my opinion in brief: Encarta is excellent in all aspects, but Britannica's authoritative text (sometimes outdated) makes interesting to buy both.
TEXT: Britannica is a superb encyclopedia in text (not in visual aid) since 1768 (you know: an article by Einstein and so on...). Text in electronic version differs from printed encyclopedia (very large articles have been shortened). Britannica claims that it has more items than Encarta, but this is a joke: articles like "Mexico" are only one (with a lot of subdivisions) in Encarta, while in Britannica subdivisions are unconnected, and you must "jump" from one subdivision to another, which is slow and very annoying, especially if you want to copy it in "WORD". Very often, the text is not updated.
In the other hand, Encarta's text is not bad at all. Most articles have the name of their contributors (professions, works...): They are not John Doe. You can find large fragments of literary works, literature guides, a lot of sidebars and thousands of quotations. "Encarta Africana" is included. The Pop-Up (double clicking a word) Dictionary and Thesaurus has sound for correct pronunciation (by the way, it can read aloud, with a robotic and ugly voice, a whole article). The "Translation Dictionaries" to Spanish, French, German and Italian must be improved, because they are minimal. It gives you a lot of "Internet links", even if you are not connected. With Britannica you must be "on-line" and it searches in an EB Web page.
In theory you can update Britannica over the Internet free for a year quarterly (4 times), but this does not work: You can not find new files. Encarta can be updated free EVERY WEEK with new articles and additions or corrections to the old ones (till October 2004). With Encarta updating really works. Technically, is amazing to see the changes in old items.
ATLAS Britannica has not a real atlas; only a worlds map whose maximum detail is the States of USA. Statistics are very poor. Encarta's Atlas is like another encyclopedia, with a great detail (1 cm/ 4 km all over the world) and 20 types of atlas presentations (statistical ones can be counted by dozens). If you look a geographical article (city, river...) you can see in a corner where it is placed and, with only a click, open the atlas. In articles of cities, if you are on-line, you can see in another corner the weather of this place in that moment. If it is a USA place, you can read the latest news.
MULTIMEDIA: They say that "serious" or "adult" readers do not care about "pictures"; that multimedia is only for kids. I do not agree, because I think that, sometimes, "A picture is worth a thousand words". Works of art, anatomy, historical maps, diagrams ... Encarta devastates Britannica with a lot of photos, paintings, drawings, charts & tables, animations, interactivities, videos, music and sounds, pictures, 2-D and 3-D virtual tours, 360-degrees views, timeline, games... It is not only the quantity and quality. It is the easy access you have to all the multimedia, and that text and multimedia are fully integrated. Britannica is not really multimedia. It has photos and videos, but they make the program slow and sluggish. They should edit an alternative version with only text, as they did with the first edition in 1995. It worked fast and easy in old computers.
INTERFACE AND PERFORMANCE: This is the worst side of Britannica. With Encarta you only have to type a word or the beginning of a word to see all the articles and multimedia that contain it. If Encarta does not find anything, it gives you automatically alternative spellings. Even if you write the name of a small village lost in any country, you see it in the atlas. If you need to copy text or pictures, the integration with Microsoft WORD is perfect. It has additional ways to find content, including subject or multimedia browsing, "related articles" and the standard A-Z method. The "Research Organizer" is very helpful too. Encarta's TEXT FONT is very clear (Britannica's...) and you can choose 3 sizes.
Navigating with Britannica is different. 2004 edition is better than 2003 one, but still it is disappointing. I will only give you an example: if you do not know the exact and correct spelling of a name or word, it does not help you with similar spellings (unless you open a window and fight with it). As I said before, the program's performance speed is very slow and sluggish, and it must be dramatically improved. To go "back and forward" you do not find any icon and you need to open a "menu".... One "pro" for Britannica: they say it works with Macintosh.
I repeat my modest piece of advice: Encarta is excellent in all aspects, but Britannica's authoritative text (sometimes outdated) make interesting to buy both.
Rating: 
Summary: Everybody should have one!!
Review: I purchased this item for my 3.5-year-old son who was very curious and also could read by himself. I tought him how to look up words with this software. He liked this software and could spend quite a while exploring it. If a 3-year-old kid can use it, it proves that it is really easy to use. It is better to give kids something great like this to kill time with rather than some violent PC games. At the mean time, they become more knowledgable also. Isn't it great! I give it a 4 stars because I think the quality of some videos can be improved a bit more. Go get it, it is worth every buck you spend.
Rating:
Summary: A Slight But Great Improvement
Review: I thought that the 2003, edition of Encarta Reference Library was the ultimate refernce resource. But I was wrong. With a restyled start center, that makes it inviting and easy to use, Encarta 2004 is truly a winner. Basically the information is so update its really the Internet on DVD. This Digital Encyclopedia is must for students, who want concise and accurate information relating to what they are learning in school. But the fun does not stop on DVD's, users are able to expand their searching capabilities and knowledge to the Internet, through MSN Encarta. And you can also get updates from which keeps your information updated and always accurate. With great videos to give a visual concept of life in countries whether it be about people or animals. Whether its technology, science or history Encarta Reference Library 2004 gives you the information you need and expands the knowledge resource to the Internet. The program still lacks up to date images, but comparing the DVD to the 5 disk Set, you get more content on DVD. Its faster and certainly reduces disk swapping. I have always admired Encarta for its approach to presenting information in a visual stunning and easy to understand way. Comparing this to a set of books would be a dishonour, because Encarta keeps current and more efficient. Who Should Upgrade?
Well, it depends, if you need to get the latest and most up to date reference information on topics relating to our world, Encarta 2004 is must upgrade especially if you want to reduce disk swapping and go for the DVD Edition. 2000, 2001, 2002 and even 2003 users will find this update a necessary update to their reference collection. But students and teachers are the ones who will benefit the most from magnitude of information. I can't wait to see whats in Encarta Reference Library 2005!
Rating: 
Summary: Same old thing
Review: I usually only write reviews when I have postive comments, but I was disappointed in this years version of Encarta. It has very few improvements or new features.
Although the content will always remains secondary to the real encyclopedia publishers. I always enjoyed seeing what new flashy features Microsoft has come up with... (and 10 new videos was not good enough for me). There is no question that this is the best functioning encyclopedia (at least if you are using Windows and other Microsoft products) but without any new flash... and considering the nature of the content I can not recommend anyone purchase this product (and will probably see if I can return mine).
Rating:
Summary: Same old, Same old.
Review: I usually only write reviews when I have postive comments, but I was disappointed in this years version of Encarta. It has very few improvements or new features. Although the content will always remains secondary to the real encyclopedia publishers. I always enjoyed seeing what new flashy features Microsoft has come up with... (and 10 new videos was not good enough for me). There is no question that this is the best functioning encyclopedia (at least if you are using Windows and other Microsoft products) but without any new flash... and considering the nature of the content I can not recommend anyone purchase this product (and will probably see if I can return mine).
Rating:
Summary: I love this product!
Review: I've not seen Encarta before so I have no idea about previous versions. However, this version is very impressive. I'm a computer professional and I can say that very few products have a user interface that 'flows' this well. My primary reason to get this was for my 10-year-old, but I think I'll be using it a lot more than her. The maps, dictionaries, articles, and links to related content on the web are great, but how they are all tied together is what really makes this product shine. It does take a while to load and you want to install everything on your hard drive (about 2Gig). If you don't load everything to your disk then you'll wear out your arm swapping between the 5 CDs when you look at different articles.
Rating:
Summary: Invaluable
Review: I've tried both Encarta 2004 and Britannica 2004. As other reviews here pointed out, Britannica is also good, but the interface leaves a lot to be desired and program is very very sluggish. I'm on a 1.6Mhz Pentium 4 Windows XP system, with 1 gigabyte of memory. So I was a bit surprised how slow it was. I decided to go with Encarta because it's faster, has more multimedia, and I like how Microsoft updates it (and displays a list of what was updated/added). I haven't tried the older versions of Encarta so I cannot compare, but 2004 looks and works fine for me. Some have complained about the Visual Browser "carousel" on the main page of the program. This can easily be disabled in the program options if it annoys you. The Encarta interface is very clean and organized. Colorful detailed buttons on the toolbar make it very easy to access the most common tasks and the search function is very fast. It seems the more you dig into it, the more goodies you'll find. There are great interactivities, games, dynamic atlas, 3D and 2D virtual tours, thousands of quotations, an entire dictionary program, and lots more. If you're used to the Internet Explorer browser, the "Favorites" menu in Encarta is identical and a great way to bookmark and organize your favorite places in this vast program. It's very easy to get "lost" for hours just clicking around. I haven't looked through an encyclopedia on CD-ROM since the early 90's when CD-ROM technology was just starting to take off. I'm pleased to see how detailed and invaluable they've become. I'd recommend this to anyone.
Rating: 
Summary: Light on Content and Yet Still Biased
Review: If you are looking for great presentation, lite content, and biased history, by all means by this product. I reviewed both Encarta and Britannica and found Britannica to more in depth and less biased in its history. Many of Brittanica's articles are by people Encarta only writes snippets about (i.e., you get their point of view not some political hack.) If you are looking for content and a fairer presentation of history buy Britannica.
Rating:
Summary: Building on an already attractive encyclopedia
Review: In my review for Encarta Deluxe 2004 my basic points were...
1. if you are a visual learner and not in upper division classes from High School onward Encarta has a great deal to offer at an attractive price.
2. if you need detailed articles Britianica is probably the better purchase as there are more subjects and more intensive treatment of them. If you are still hovering on which to get and you do not need the kind of detail Britanica has you will appreciate this expanded Resource package. In Encarta Reference Library 2004 Microsoft pulls out all the multimedia stops and delivers a highly entertaining and educating encyclopedia that is a pleasure to simply roam around. The additional African Encyclopedia, Maps, extra content and lots of additonal useful information such as quotes and a very nice section on world musical instruments complete with the sound and ensemble works of these exotic instruments most of us otherwise would be unexposed to. The dictionary and theasaurus are suited to the content and tie in nicely with the standard information. The result is a rich and involving multimedia learning experience. That makes Encarta Reference Library 2004 indespensible for casual and younger readers. While it is a nice gesture including the African Encarta the extra detail paid Africa at times seems disproportionate in it's importance compared to the rest of the reference libraries content. While this may be an unpopular thing to say it is almost verging on political correctness. While I applaud a deeper, and to some degree necesary involvement of African cultues contribution to the world I would have liked seeing a bit more attention paid the existing areas that are a little underdeveloped like political science, world history and the sciences. This is a minor quibble and the material on Africa is exceptionally well produced. Still, I think I'd rather hear and read more of Dr. King and Malcom X, or more detail about the Chicago 7 trial. No matter what, if you enjoy this well rounded multimedia experience. It is hard to imagine almost anyone not impressed with this exceptional program.
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