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Rating: 
Summary: Not bad, not the best either
Review: On the positive side: very well written. So if you just have a few minutes to check something in the Torah or want to give this week's Torah portion a quick skim, and so you want a Chumash (i.e. Jewish-oriented Five Books of Moses) that doesn't have a lot of commentary, this is a good choice. On the negative side: commentary on the bottom is very skimpy compared to the Soncino Chumash, the ArtScroll Chumash or Gunther Plaut's version. So I don't consider this the ideal choice for extended study.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent
Review: This is perhaps the best single volume English translation of the Torah, i.e. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. I can only think of one exception to this, which is Everett Fox's "The Five Books of Moses, Schocken Bible, volume 1." However I still much prefer Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan's translation to Everett Fox's for various reasons. One of these reasons is the extensive footnotes at the bottom of each page of the text. Rabbi Kaplan has included invaluable information which will no doubt fascinate every student of the Bible. His knowledge of Torah is deep and the student will find his notes and research of tremendous importance. The more expensive edition includes the original Hebrew text on the right side of the book (Hebrew is read right to left). The cheaper one, of course, does not. Rabbi Kaplan was also a translator of the "Torah Anthology" (which is also highly recommended), and his notes reflect this knowledge. Additionally Rabbi Kaplan is an apt translator and I believe the student of the Bible will find his translation to be superior to any of the (modern) versions available. These translations include-- from Protestant, Catholic, and other Jewish or independent sources-- the KJV/AV, NKJV, RV, ARV, NASV, NIV, RSV, NRSV, NAB, JB, The Living Bible (Catholic edition), New Living Bible, NEB, REB, even William Tyndale's Penteteuch, JPS 1917 Tanakh edition, JPS Tanakh (modern version), et al. I even understand this is better than the Soncino translations, as well as the translation by Prof. Robert Alter of Genesis, but I have not personally compared the latter translations. You will not find a better translation from the Hebrew into the English, nor will you find a more detailed study with notes and other relevant materials than Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan's work. To my knowledge, there is also a "Living Nach" available by the same publisher. Unfortunately I have not had the opportunity to obtain this item.
Rating:
Summary: A commentary, not a translation
Review: This work is intended by the author to contain the authoritative Jewish interpretation of the Torah, by including the rabbinic readings which guide Jewish law. However, the author is actually changing the traditional Jewish approach which distinguishes between the Oral Law and the Written Law. By "translating" the rabbinic rulings into the text , Kaplan perhaps did a service to Jews who just "want the bottom line" but obliterates some of the complexity and profundity of the Jewish tradition, in which what literally says A is actually applied as though it said B
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