Rating: 
Summary: Alice in wonderland
Review: Being a previous owner of an earlier version of Britannica on CD, I was absolutely amazed by the 2003 Ultimate Reference CD.The CD seemed innocent enough once the program loaded and I was presented with a search box and a few other buttons. But don' t be deceived by the simplicity. As soon as I entered a few queries, I suddenly realized the enormity of the data contained in this product. It reminded me of the first time I ever browsed through the print version as a kid--you almost cannot believe how wondrously complex the world can be. I found myself skipping from topic to topic going through history as a wide-eyed observer...and at the end of my first session, I actually felt smarter!I have a recent version of Encarta installed on a machine at work and I can tell you that with Microsoft's backing, it has some really excellent graphical features. While I can see the appeal, I never felt compelled to LEARN. It was if I was playing a video game, and the content was secondary. Overall,I 'd recommend this CD to anyone who is genuinely curious about the world we live in and has a healthy thirst for knowledge.
Rating:
Summary: Most Scholarly and Complete Set Available
Review: Everyone knows that Britannica was the first publisher of encyclopedias, and those of us old enough to have had homes before the Online revolution had at least one call by Britannica door-to-door sales associates. The last visit I had, several years ago, was by a young college student who was selling a revolutionary product. You could buy the entire Britannica set of encyclopedias on CD-ROM for only about a thousand dollars. At the same time, Compton's offered a CD-ROM for a fraction of that cost. I opted for Comptons, not because it was superior, but because it was inexpensive. No more! The new Deluxe Britannica comes with all the original content, plus an Atlas, and two encylopedia sets for younger readers. And, needless to say, the price has come down considerably. Today, few cannot afford to have Britannica on their computers. Encarta users (like myself) will find Britannica to have a very different format. It is certainly less eye catching and lacks many of Microsoft's multimedia features. However, what it lacks in snazz, it makes up for in content. I like both Encarta and Britannica because of these differences, and I will continue to use both. As far as information is concerned, Britannica is the grand-daddy of encyclopedias. The content is identical to the company's online version, but for users concerned about downtime and slow downloads, the CD-ROM version is a life saver. Also, the offline version allows parents of young children to access the content without supervision and without installing Internet filters. There are many encyclopedias on the market, and they are each directed toward different educational levels and needs. Minimum education levels for various popular version are (in my opinion)as follows: Britannica: College or Advanced High School
Encarta: High School
World Book: Middle School
Hutchinsons: Elementary School That does not mean that college graduates and students would not find Encarta useful, only that the reading level is comfortable for those who have reached that MINIMUM level. Likewise, Britannica can be used by High School and Middle School students, but they may find some of the content difficult to understand. The Britannica 2003 version now provides content for all levels, without the need to swap programs. Still, with prices as low as they are, it can't hurt to have several versions.
Rating:
Summary: Great product, good interface - only real option.
Review: Having grown up with the printed Britannica set (c. 1970), I am extremely disappointed with this digital version. Although all the articles are complete, searchable, and cross-referenced, the overall user interface is so poorly designed that it makes using this program nearly unusable and absolutely unappealing. Installation issues:
1. wastes space (>2gig) by installing all 3 encyclopedias with some redundant material.
2. same interface for all 3 encyclopedias creates an intimidating environment for children. Interface issues:
1. articles are difficult to read because of poor font choice (sans serif), insufficient spacing between lines (< single spaced), and lame layout design (in-line images lacking, repeated TOC wastes space). Mac OS specific issues:
1. This is not a true MacOS app; it is a JAVA app running inside it's own window with interface components which are inconsistent with MacOS (e.g. menu shortcut key is Ctrl, not Cmd).
2. Screen redraw performance is unacceptably poor (e.g. several seconds to resize window, almost a minute to select-copy article text [450MHz G4, 1 gig RAM, OS 10.2.4]) Content issues:
1. Timeline shows only one item per screen; no context, no Gant chart.
2. Atlas is not interactive (no zoom; lacks detail) and other multimedia items are inconsequential.
3. Dictionary and thesaurus cannot be accessed directly; must do full encyclopedia search. Summary: I bought and decided to keep both Britannica and Encarta 2003 RL. The Britannica articles are substantially better researched and more complete than Encarta. Encarta is much, much, much better at everything else (even running inside VirtualPC 6.0). Money saving tip: if you must have Britannica articles, buy the "deluxe" version rather than the "ultimate" (full articles, fewer disappointments).
Rating: 
Summary: Mac buyers beware
Review: Having grown up with the printed Britannica set (c. 1970), I am extremely disappointed with this digital version. Although all the articles are complete, searchable, and cross-referenced, the overall user interface is so poorly designed that it makes using this program nearly unusable and absolutely unappealing. Installation issues:
1. wastes space (>2gig) by installing all 3 encyclopedias with some redundant material.
2. same interface for all 3 encyclopedias creates an intimidating environment for children. Interface issues:
1. articles are difficult to read because of poor font choice (sans serif), insufficient spacing between lines (< single spaced), and lame layout design (in-line images lacking, repeated TOC wastes space). Mac OS specific issues:
1. This is not a true MacOS app; it is a JAVA app running inside it's own window with interface components which are inconsistent with MacOS (e.g. menu shortcut key is Ctrl, not Cmd).
2. Screen redraw performance is unacceptably poor (e.g. several seconds to resize window, almost a minute to select-copy article text [450MHz G4, 1 gig RAM, OS 10.2.4]) Content issues:
1. Timeline shows only one item per screen; no context, no Gant chart.
2. Atlas is not interactive (no zoom; lacks detail) and other multimedia items are inconsequential.
3. Dictionary and thesaurus cannot be accessed directly; must do full encyclopedia search. Summary: I bought and decided to keep both Britannica and Encarta 2003 RL. The Britannica articles are substantially better researched and more complete than Encarta. Encarta is much, much, much better at everything else (even running inside VirtualPC 6.0). Money saving tip: if you must have Britannica articles, buy the "deluxe" version rather than the "ultimate" (full articles, fewer disappointments).
Rating:
Summary: Great product. Great Value.
Review: I don't often write reviews, but I strongly disagree with a number of the negative reviews that have been posted regarding this product. CONTENT: Quite frankly this product is untouchable by anything on the market for both the amount of content and the editorial quality. Some points: - It contains three (3) complete encyclopedias each for a different age level. Elementary, Student and the full Encyclopedia Britannica. - It contains both the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary / Thesaurus and the age appropriate Student Dictionary and Thesaurus. - It contains 3 age appropriate atlases (although it is more like a country browse). - It contains 3 age appropriate timelines - It has an image and multimedia searching ability - It links to additional on-line content including Web sites and Magazine articles (again age appropriate depending on the 'library' you choose. INTERFACE: Britannica has gone in a different direction then the other CD/DVD encyclopedias and it is one that is quite useful and has tremendous potential. Some highlights: - There are three libraries that you can work from each targeted to a specific age group. Every feature in the product except for the Knowledge Navigator (not sure why not) is available in each library. Material from the three libraries can be mixed and matched in a kind of work area. This includes pictures, media, article, images, and so on. - The interface is all on a single page. There is no need to flip back and forth through a lot of confusing screens. This makes the product easy to navigate and use. Granted not all the 'fluff' (animated icons, big splash screen, etc.) that you see in other projects is here - You can open, view, read and organize multiple pieces of content at the same time. I believe this is the first encyclopedia that allows this and it is a feature I use a great deal. You can open a series of picture, article, and other related material and organize them within you work area. You can even save the work area to pick up where you left off. Within the work area you can automatically cascade the windows, you can minimize them (which shows a clever mini-view or the large window), etc. - The product does maximize the space on higher resolutions screen, and although it works fine in an 800x600 view it is better in 1024x768 or higher where you have more space to open windows and organize your content. - The product still contains some classic feature from the 2002 version like the Research Organizer that allows you to generate reports, etc. and the Knowledge Navigator which allows you to visually browse through the Encyclopedia Britannica articles and draws some interesting connections.. Although there are still improvements that can be made, and other reviewers point some of those out, this is already an incredible value and a 5 star product. I hope that Britannica will stick with this direction and continue to improve and add some of the important features like Bolding, Find text, etc. that are lacking this year as well as continuing to improve the load times, memory usage, etc. I am very happy with my 2003 version and am looking forward to seeing the 2004 version. If you like a lot flash and fluff without much substance or utility then stick with Encarta, World Book or Grolier's. If you want reliable and complete content, a no-nonsense user-friendly interface, and a genuinely usable and useful tool then Britannica's Ultimate Reference Suite is for you - and your whole family.
Rating:
Summary: What is it with Britannica?
Review: I have been a print user since high school (25 years) and a CD/DVD user since the 1997 version. What is it with this company? Every year they change the interface, but each edition is hopeless in many new ways! Can't they ever get this right? It's almost like the software is incredibly dumbed down so that literate people will prefer the print version. And they are utterly unresponsive when you complain. Nevertheless, you have to buy a copy every couple of years because, well, there is only one Britannica! No Encarta is ever going to have the scholarly content I'm looking for. But I'm sticking with DVD 2002 for now, even though it has other flaws (dvd can't install to hard drive, etc). No need to "upgrade" to another set of mistakes this year.
Rating:
Summary: The entire Enccyopedia Brittanica on your computer.
Review: I have in my home a leather-bound set of the Encyclopedia Britannica, as of course do many others. I purchased mine several years ago for about [a grand] (the price of the hard-bound version has gone up since then). My leather-bound Britannica set looks very impressive and, consequently, probably will remain on display in its bookcase. But recently I have stopped using it because I recently bought Britannica on CDs at its current incredibly-low price and installed it on my computer's hard drive where it is readily accessible without having to lift and carry those beautiful, but somewhat large and heavy, leather-bound volumes. To me it is wondrous that the world's most highly regarded encyclopedia is now available for installation on one's computer at a price accessible to virtually everyone. Furthermore, this software version contains not only the complete Britannica but also two other versions for younger users, plus a dictionary and thesaurus. What a treasure trove of information at an incredibly-low price.
Rating:
Summary: No problems with Britannica
Review: I recently received Encyclopedia Britannica 2003 Ultimate Reference Suite on dvd. I read all the problems people had with it, but decided to purchase it anyway because of the content. I had no problem downloading it to my hard drive and the user interface is straight forward. I don't know why people are having so much problems with the software. It may be because they are using Windows instead of OS X. Although it is easier to look an article up in the book version of the encyclopedia, it is a lot more economical to buy it on dvd. ...
Rating: 
Summary: inferior piece of software
Review: I would like to compare Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite 2003 (which I will refer to as Britannica) with its competitor Microsoft Encarta Reference Library 2003 (which I will refer to as Encarta). Fact 1 - Britannica is incredibly slow. It takes 200 seconds to start the program, search for an item and display the sought article. For comparison the same operation takes 40 seconds with Encarta. These numbers are averages of three trials rounded to the closest multiple of 10 taken on a 350Mhz AMD with 256mb of memory. I think that being five times slower than your competitor is unacceptable. Once the programs are loaded the subsequent searches are much faster, but that is not how I would like to use the programs. I would like to search for some items few times a day and between the searches I want the programs not to occupy the memory. I must also mention that there is a patch on Britannica technical support page that should speed up the searches. It did not work for me - the above-mentioned operation still took 190 seconds (I did only one try). Fact 2 - Britannica does not correct spelling. Try typing in "bratislva" in Britannica and in Encarta. Britannica simply says that there is no entry with bratislva and you are left to figure out what is the correct spelling. Encarta on the other hand offers you the corrected spelling Bratislava and after one click you have the information you wanted. Fact 3 - Once an article is displayed in Britannica you cannot search for a word within the article. This is extremely annoying - you often have to perform this low-level task yourself. Conclusion - I think that in many areas Britannica has better content than Encarta (however if you want an example of an area where this is not the case, see the last paragraph). However the information is extremely hard to access because the software is poorly designed. Personally I purchased both encyclopedias but decided to return Britannica to the store and keep the Encarta. I will wait until Britannica provides an acceptable user interface. Has Britannica better content than Encarta in all areas? It seems widely accepted that Britannica has better content than Encarta. I think that in many areas this is true - Britannica has better content, especially when it comes to science (I do not feel competent to judge the content related to arts). However, I would like to point out that that in some areas Encarta is better than Britannica. For example consider "controversial events in modern history". I chose the following sample of events: the Rosenberg trial, My Lai massacre, McMartin day care trial, KAL 007 and Iran Air 655. The measure we will use is the number of bytes (characters) related to these topics. Here are the numbers for Britannica (in the order of events, rounded to the closest multiple of 100): 2500, 0, 0, 300, 0. The numbers for Encarta are 5100, 4600, 1000, 5400, 500. Note that Encarta has more (and better) content on each of the five events. Three of the events are not mentioned in Britannica at all! I used the following search terms in the Britannica: "Rosenberg", "My Lai", "McMartin", "Korean and 007", "Iran and 655". In the numbers for Encarta I included archive articles (which appeared in Collier's Year Book and are part of Encarta now).
Rating:
Summary: Good text, very bad software
Review: I've bought both ENCARTA and BRITANNICA for years. This is my opinion:
TEXT: The Britannica is a superb encyclopaedia in text since 1768. If only its electronic version were worthy of it! Text in the electronic version is different from Printed Encyclopaedia (large articles have been shortened). Britannica claims that it has more articles than Encarta, but this is a joke: articles like "Spain" are only one with a lot of subdivisions in Encarta, while in Britannica subdivisions are considered articles, and you must "jump" from one subdivision to other.
In some areas Encarta is better than Britannica. For example consider "controversial events in modern history" such us "My Lai Massacre": In Encarta one large article and a lot of mentions in others; Britannica does not even know the name.
In theory, you can update Britannica over the Internet free for a year quarterly (4 times), but this does not work. Encarta is updated free EVERY WEEK) with new articles and additions to the old ones. The new articles and additions are included in the next version of Encarta, but this is not true for Britannica. For instance: "Bilbao, Spain": Britannica does not mention the Guggenheim Museum, which opened in 1997, and the population is !!estimated!! of 1982. The same article in Encarta: similar text, 3 photos, 1 map, related articles, sidebar, dynamic timelines and 4 internet pages, plus one specific article "Bilbao Guggenheim Museum". I think Britannica updates its contents very slow, whereas Encarta is completely alive.
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, maps, diagrams ... Encarta devastates Britannica with a lot of photos, paintings, drawings, maps, animations, interactivities, videos, music and sounds, pictures, literature sidebars, new translation dictionaries (not very good though), atlas, 2-D and 3-D virtual tours, timeline, games ... It's 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's Atlas is a joke and statistics do not exist or I have not found them. Encarta's has a great detail: 1 cm/ 4 km all over the world (though you find some mistakes) and hundreds of statistical maps.
INTERFACE AND SOFTWARE: This is the worst side of Britannica. In Encarta you only have to type a phrase, a word or the beginning of a word to see all the articles and multimedia that contain it. If you have typed the name of a small village, you see it in the Atlas without clicking again. If Encarta does not find anything, it gives you alternative spellings and you find what you were looking for. To go "jumping" from article to article is very easy and quick, because you have a lot of links and the "Related Articles" section. If you need to copy text or pictures, the integration with Microsoft WORD is perfect. If you don't understand a word, you can double-click it and the dictionary appears in a window.
Navigating with Britannica is different. You get crazy. I will only give an example: if you do not know the exact and correct spelling of a name or word, it does not help you with alternative or similar spellings. The dictionary does not permit double-clicking of words in the text of articles for their definitions. Once an article is displayed you cannot search for a word within the article. This is extremely annoying: you have to perform this task yourself. One "pro" for Britannica: they say it works with Macintosh computers.
This is my piece of advice: If you can afford it, buy both. If not... read again this review.
| 
