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Rating: 
Summary: Good text for a first course in physics.
Review: I used this text as a first year introduction to calculus based physics and overall I was very pleased with the book. I found the explainations of concepts to be very understandable and the derivations to be straightforeward and fairly riggerous. Each section also includes very helpful "pitfall preventions" that help you avoid common mistakes and misconceptions as well as "quick quizes" that make sure you understand what you just learned before moving on.
The worked examples are also very helpful for developing strategies for solving physics problems. I especially liked the fact that many examples and homework problems are given where purely symbolic manipulation is involved. This abstract aproach allows you to see the physical relationships in a much broader sense than when only concentrating on a particular problem with a particular set of numerical data. The homework sets have a varying level of difficulty and there are many to choose from so you can get alot of practice.
The major drawback that I found is the same as for the other introductory physics texts (Halliday, Resnick, and Giancoli) that I have read. Serway seems to be holding back too much when it comes to using calculus, especially in the chapers on classical mechanics. This often leads to many special cases developed separately along with the underlying assumptions. To me this seems unnecessary since the more general formulations using calculus will reduce to special cases when particular situations arise. I have come to the conclusion that the authors of these intro texts feel that this approach is easier to deal with than the more general one for more students. I will say that when reading through a section be sure to pay close attention to the assumptions being made (this is where the pitfall preventions are usually helpful) and when the more general form of the equations appear later try and see that the previous ones were really just special cases of these.
Overall I think that this text gives the student a good background in the material that a first year course should cover. Whether this is the only physics course you will take or you are going to proceed to more technical treatments of the topics you will have a sound footing when you finish this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Good introductory text
Review: This was the required text for a course I TAed. I found the text useful for preparing my own lectures, as it often reminded me of ideas I would have 'taken for granted' among my students, although I found derivations often uncompelling and examples often glossing over subtle points. Also, examples and homework problems seemed predominantly to explore only straightforward applications of course concepts. I imagine, however, that many students at this level (freshmen bio, geo, and non-science majors) would prefer this kind of treatment, which is why, considering also this text's clarity and simplicity of presentation, I gave the above four star rating. Students who consider themselves more analytically inclined would be wise to consult instead Purcell. In fewer words Purcell describes E&M more clearly and more completely, with interesting examples and homework problems which evoke a fuller understanding of the theory.
Rating:
Summary: Good introductory text
Review: This was the required text for a course I TAed. I found the text useful for preparing my own lectures, as it often reminded me of ideas I would have 'taken for granted' among my students, although I found derivations often uncompelling and examples often glossing over subtle points. Also, examples and homework problems seemed predominantly to explore only straightforward applications of course concepts. I imagine, however, that many students at this level (freshmen bio, geo, and non-science majors) would prefer this kind of treatment, which is why, considering also this text's clarity and simplicity of presentation, I gave the above four star rating. Students who consider themselves more analytically inclined would be wise to consult instead Purcell. In fewer words Purcell describes E&M more clearly and more completely, with interesting examples and homework problems which evoke a fuller understanding of the theory.
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