Rating: 
Summary: Some improvements and corrections are needed!
Review: If you are a serious user of reference books and you intend to buy multimedia encyclopedia because of its text content and not multimedia features such as videos and animations, you might be interested in this brief comparison between Encyclopaedia Britannica and Microsoft Encarta (in both cases I've been trying 2002 Standard Edition).One big Britannica's plus
Articles
Articles in Britannica are usually longer and more precise than articles in Encarta, not to mention the overall number of articles (Britannica beats Encarta, especially its Standard Edition). And finally: there are less mistakes in Britannica than in Encarta.
One of the big blunders (in both encyclopedias!) is a false information that Slovenia, a Central European and Alpine country, lies on the Balkans, though the northern border of this peninsula is (in Encarta only) correctly described as Upper Sava River - Rijeka. Slovenia lies north of the Croatian seaport Rijeka and doesn't belong to the Balkans neither geographically or politically!
Another Britannica's slip is its claim that the Slovenian composer Jacobus Gallus was German-Austrian. If editors of Britannica doesn't believe to me (I've sent them plenty of corrections including this one a few years ago), they should take a look at Merriam Webster's Biographical Dictionary (see my review there!) where Gallus is described correctly. Some of the Britannica's minuses
Characters display
Encarta displays practically all foreign characters correct (e.g. Slovenian and Czech c, s and z with a circumflex, other Central European characters, Portuguese a and Spanish n with a tilde, French e with a grave accent, etc.) while Britannica doesn't. In Britannica a Croatian writer Senoa (S with a circumflex) is listed in the very beginning of the A-Z list, and a great Slovenian poet Preseren (again s with a circumflex) is almost imposible to find though he's listed in the Britannica A-Z. A fact that Encarta doesn't list those two men of letters at all is another story (see One big Britannica's plus at the beginning of this review). Interface
Encarta has much more user friendly interface than newer versions of Britannica. In Britannica it's obviously designed for the extinct 14" monitors. Find tool in Britannica has its own window. Therefore you have to make more clicks to choose an article and read it than in the case of Encarta. Thousands of additional clicks mean a lot of extra time. Multimedia content
It's also a (big) plus for Encarta, but for an adult user of encyclopedias multimedia isn't the most important feature. My advice
Probably the best decision is to buy both Encarta and Britannica (of course not necessarily the same year; in my opinion Britannica is the one who should wait until its interface is improved - or even reversed to its '98 version). It may be very useful to have two different sources of information - not only for researchers and students.
If you don't mind about multimedia features and if you'll use multimedia encyclopedia as an authoritative source of facts and information only, you'll probably prefer Britannica. But keep in mind that even in Britannica there are some small and big mistakes, and that its interface and character display aren't as user friendly as in Encarta. PS
I actually gave Britannica 3 stars for its contents and 1-2 stars for its interface.
Rating: 
Summary: Britannica 2003 worst edition yet
Review: The new Britannica 2003 is one of the most disgracefully dysfunctional electronic encyclopaedias I have encountered. It is so poor compared with the 2002 edition (which Heaven knows had its problems - e.g. failure of the DVD to load to hard-drive) that one suspects were the design and production processes being sabotaged by Encarta agents, they could scarcely have made the product more unsatisfactory! It is much, much slower in its searches than the 2002 edition. The dictionary does not permit double-clicking of words in the text of articles for their definitions (the 2002 edition did). The new interface is more awkward to use than its predecessor. Need one go on? Have Britannica released a dodgy beta version for the holiday season or have they quite lost the plot? My advice to potential purchasers is to skip the 2003 offerings and to buy the 2002 Deluxe edition on CDs (it loads to your hard-drive, unlike the 2002 DVD version) and hope that next year Britannica gets its act together. The Britannica is a superb encyclopedia in range and content. If only its current electronic incarnation were worthy of it!
Rating: 
Summary: Tolerably acceptable
Review: The user interface is very marginal. In that I agree with the other reviewers. If I set the text display size to medium or large and exit, the settings are not preserved - when you restart the program you get the minimum text size. Naturally, the search/browse pane on the left does not reflect whatever text display size you specify, period. You always get small text. In my opinion there is something wrong with the fonts, the display just does not seem as clear as it could be? At the end of installation, the Windows FONT folder was opened for some unknown reason. I just closed it. Maybe I was supposed to chose whatever font I want? I have looked and looked and I can't find anyway to change the display font now. When you select an entry to display, the entry is never, ever displayed in a full window, you always get a 3 1/2 x 4 miniwindow. Grrr. You can, at least, manually maximize it. However, if you close it and then select another entry to display, again you get the miniwindow. If you maximize this miniwidnow and select another entry to display, it comes up as a miniwindow again (then again sometimes it gets overwritten with a maximized window, I can't figure why or when this happens). It just seems like you can't get a full size window and keep it that way. Sorry if this seems confusing but the program is confusing. Microsoft Encarta has a much more 'rational' interface. I have all three of the digital encyclopedias available on Amazon.com. This is how I would rate them. If you have the money, buy both 1) & 2). The World Book 2003 Ultra-Deluxe (they must have a sense of humor?)is a total pain in the so and so. Everytime you load it you have to insert the installation CD and I can't figure out how (if?) you can get around that. I submitted a review of it that is so negative I doubt if it will be accepted. 1) Microsoft Encarta
2) Encyclopaedia Britannica 2003
3) World Book 2003 Ultra-Deluxe What is the conclusion of this somewhat rambling 'review'? I decided to fork out the [money] and buy the Encyclopaedia Britannica 2003 Print (Hardcover) Edition. I will use the digital version to look up words or topics and then use the print version to actually read the entry.
Rating:
Summary: Tolerably acceptable
Review: The user interface is very marginal. In that I agree with the other reviewers. If I set the text display size to medium or large and exit, the settings are not preserved - when you restart the program you get the minimum text size. Naturally, the search/browse pane on the left does not reflect whatever text display size you specify, period. You always get small text. In my opinion there is something wrong with the fonts, the display just does not seem as clear as it could be? At the end of installation, the Windows FONT folder was opened for some unknown reason. I just closed it. Maybe I was supposed to chose whatever font I want? I have looked and looked and I can't find anyway to change the display font now. When you select an entry to display, the entry is never, ever displayed in a full window, you always get a 3 1/2 x 4 miniwindow. Grrr. You can, at least, manually maximize it. However, if you close it and then select another entry to display, again you get the miniwindow. If you maximize this miniwidnow and select another entry to display, it comes up as a miniwindow again (then again sometimes it gets overwritten with a maximized window, I can't figure why or when this happens). It just seems like you can't get a full size window and keep it that way. Sorry if this seems confusing but the program is confusing. Microsoft Encarta has a much more 'rational' interface. I have all three of the digital encyclopedias available on Amazon.com. This is how I would rate them. If you have the money, buy both 1) & 2). The World Book 2003 Ultra-Deluxe (they must have a sense of humor?)is a total pain in the so and so. Everytime you load it you have to insert the installation CD and I can't figure out how (if?) you can get around that. I submitted a review of it that is so negative I doubt if it will be accepted. 1) Microsoft Encarta
2) Encyclopaedia Britannica 2003
3) World Book 2003 Ultra-Deluxe What is the conclusion of this somewhat rambling 'review'? I decided to fork out the [money] and buy the Encyclopaedia Britannica 2003 Print (Hardcover) Edition. I will use the digital version to look up words or topics and then use the print version to actually read the entry.
Rating: 
Summary: Loads of info with three encyclopedias
Review: This 2003 Britannica CD is a wonderful reference tool for users of any age, now that it contains three different encyclopedias. So much information is provided at the touch of your keyboard and the Britannica application contains the same information as the leatherbound version. The features that I find most useful are: Interactive Timeline, Knowledge Navigator, World Atlas. Each of them are packaged to help the user find certain information quickly. Another reason why this product is handy is when multiple windows brought up during research can be save in the Workspace feature. I am definitely impressed with it esp. when I have 15+ windows opened to various Britannica articles and need to save them so I don't have to go thru the torture of searching for them again. The only improvement this software might need is to speed up the installation time. It took me about 45 minutes to install the whole product on my Win98 computer.
Rating: 
Summary: Easy to use plus great content
Review: We recently purchased the Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite because we wanted an encyclopedia that could be useful for the kids doing homework as well as adults doing research. The Britannica has so far proven outstanding! Every search we've done has provided the needed information from the encyclopedia plus many have also shown great internet sites for even more info. The interface is clean and uncluttered which makes it very easy to use. I especially like the separate "libraries" for each level, because the kids can find what they need in the younger encyclopedias without having to wade through the more difficult articles of the full Britannica. I highly recommend this product to families and adults, alike.
Rating:
Summary: Great product, good interface - only real option.
Review: While I agree with some of the comments regarding the interface - it seems clear to me (having seen most of the past versions) that Britannica finally decided to depart from the flashy, but ineffective and time wasting interface that has been driven by Microsoft and poorly copied by everyone else for years.
It is very easy to get to whatever you are looking for in Britannica and more importantly the information is comprehensive and trusted. There are different age levels and libraries that allow this to work for a much wider age group than others. I agree with the reviewer that says - If you want flash without substance than Encarta or others will do - if you want trusted, comprehensive content in a good (if not flashy) interface than Britannica is the one - without question - to go with. I am looking forward to the second version (2004) of this new interface and direction Britannica has taken and anticipate great improvements in all areas.
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