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Rating: 
Summary: Encarta, brand-new every year.
Review: I buy ENCARTA every year, and BRITANNICA from time to time. This is my opinion:
TEXT: Britannica's writing style is more sophisticated, and its authors are very well known. However, Encarta is not bad written at all, its authors are good and the contents are more or less the same, or better in the last versions.
You can update Britannica over the Internet free for a year, but only quarterly (4 times). Encarta is updated EVERY WEEK with new articles and additions to the old ones.
MULTIMEDIA and FEATURES: Encarta devastates Britannica with a lot of animations, interactivities, videos, music and sounds, pictures, literature sidebars, new translation dictionaries, 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, multimedia and features are completely integrated.
NAVIGATING: Encarta wins again. You only have to type a phrase, a word or de beginning of a word to see all the articles and multimedia that contains it. If you have typed the name of a small village lost in Senegal (e.g.), you see it in the Atlas without clicking again. If Encarta does not find anything, it gives you alternative spellings and you meet with what was 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's WORD is perfect.
Navigating with Britannica is different. You do not get crazy, but ... I only say that, 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.
My computer is Pentium III 1000 Mhz 256 RAM, and I have copied Britannica into the hard drive (the same with Encarta). The fact is that it is very slow, and that takes a lot of RAM (50 % more or less). If you have other programs open, perhaps Britannica does not work. With Encarta, you do not have any problem.
I hope my opinion is helpful for you.
Rating:
Summary: Encarta, brand-new every year.
Review: I buy ENCARTA every year, and BRITANNICA from time to time. This is my opinion:
TEXT: Britannica's writing style is more sophisticated, and its authors are very well known. However, Encarta is not bad written at all, its authors are good and the contents are more or less the same, or better in the last versions.
You can update Britannica over the Internet free for a year, but only quarterly (4 times). Encarta is updated EVERY WEEK with new articles and additions to the old ones.
MULTIMEDIA and FEATURES: Encarta devastates Britannica with a lot of animations, interactivities, videos, music and sounds, pictures, literature sidebars, new translation dictionaries, 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, multimedia and features are completely integrated.
NAVIGATING: Encarta wins again. You only have to type a phrase, a word or de beginning of a word to see all the articles and multimedia that contains it. If you have typed the name of a small village lost in Senegal (e.g.), you see it in the Atlas without clicking again. If Encarta does not find anything, it gives you alternative spellings and you meet with what was 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's WORD is perfect.
Navigating with Britannica is different. You do not get crazy, but ... I only say that, 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.
My computer is Pentium III 1000 Mhz 256 RAM, and I have copied Britannica into the hard drive (the same with Encarta). The fact is that it is very slow, and that takes a lot of RAM (50 % more or less). If you have other programs open, perhaps Britannica does not work. With Encarta, you do not have any problem.
I hope my opinion is helpful for you.
Rating: 
Summary: Not for Serious Students
Review: I have purchased two earlier versions of Encarta and this is my last. The African American section is denigrating to both AAs and women. Young students have ample opportunity to view video clips of rock concerts and nightclub performers elsewhere. For serious students who need basic information without 2.2GB of distracting trivia, I'd recommend keeping Encarta 99.The two hours I spent loading this software were completely wasted. I've reloaded '99.
Rating: 
Summary: Not Suggested, Too Much of Something Is Not Good For You!
Review: I'm a big fanatic when it comes to ease of use, but when it comes to this edition of Encarta I don't see ease of use anywhere, I see problems all the way. How can someone actually think that five cd's is gonna make things run smooth? That's just too much! It's a waste of hard drive space to support this program, I recommend the Deluxe edition, it is enough to give you all the detailed information you will ever need. The program is not bad, but most of the information, will never be looked up or referenced. Too much of something is not good for you and Encarta Reference Library defines that very well!
Rating:
Summary: A downgrade from Encarta reference suite 2001
Review: If you own Encarta reference suite 2001, don't bother purchasing the 2002 version. Many features are missing and I was very disappointed after I loaded up the latest version of Microsoft's Encarta. The 2001 version had catagorized CDs. Two for the encyclopedia, one for the world atlas, one for the dictionary, and one for Africana. This allowed you to load each or any module separately on the hard drive. I always loaded the dictionary module. No longer. Now you can't tell which CD contains what information! You can no longer load one module (the dictionary or world atlas for instance) on your hard drive without having to load all 5 CDs (over 2 gigabytes!) The 2001 version gave you a full sized window and was feature-rich. The 2002 version gives you a small pop-up window (which is not expandable) with minimal features and very brief definitions. Is this innovation the Microsoft way??? If you can still get the 2001 version do it (this was a 5 star item), stay away from Encarta 2002, it is a waste of your hard earned money.
Rating:
Summary: Great Reference Package!
Review: If you've ever needed to know something and just couldn't find the information, then this product will be great for you. It is frustrating sometimes to try and use the internet to find information, because you have to swim through lots of results, and then how do you know that what you found is accurate? Using Encarta Reference Library, your worries are over. You will be able to look up information that is as accurate as an encyclopedia and cost a whole lot less. This is also more interesting than an encyclopedia, because multimedia features like video and sound clips make learning fun. Travel around the world using the included atlas, look up words using the dictionary, and find accurate facts fast using the encyclopedia. Another advantage of this over a traditional encyclopedia, is that Encarta will stay current! Get the latest information added seemlessly into your encyclopedia! This will work until a set date, when a new version will need to be purchased. Use the fact finder to quickly view information without opening Encarta, and use the researcher to organize everything you've found (including internet sources)! This is a great reference product for the money, and one that will continue to pay you back time and time again!
Rating:
Summary: Not convinced?
Review: The CD that contains the virtual globe alone should be convincing enough for everyone who wants to know anything else than news, soap-opera and whatever is currently being shown on the usual media.
Of course, you can also buy an atlas, and for that purpose there is excellent atlases around (National Geographic among my favorites). But this product beats the odds:
Zoom in, zoom out, see coordinates, fly around and so many more features. One of the features I most like of this program is that if you right-click anywhere on firm land of the globe, you can access a databse with the wild animals living in that particular area of the globe. And even hear the sounds of camels, wolves, anteaters and hundred of other cute and not so cute beasts. My opinion: Fantastic!
By customizing the map I was able to make my own virtual globe, where there would be no roads, no towns, no boundaries and no labels displayed, at a fascinating scale of 60 miles across the width of my monitor. Browsing around the globe in such a way gives you the feeling of being able to roam aroudn the earth as it was created by God, even before man appeared and filled it up with fields, bridges, highways and houses... My sincere congratulations to this product! A raredisplay of generosity of Microsoft!
Rating:
Summary: Use it to replace your browser
Review: The FactFinder program requires you to go online to look up the definition of word in dictionary (...). Why do you want to buy it? Even though the definition is already in the Encarta reference library program, you still need to be online. If you want to work offline, you have to run Encarta program to just looking for the word definition. The program waste the area of your screen and your memory. AND, worse, there is no short key feature in encarta. You have to use copy and paste across programs. Bother doing that, I recommend you buy a paper-based dictionary, which is much better.
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