Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)Encarta is a great product. If you have never owned it before and are thinking about buying it, do so. It is worth your money. However, if you already own the 2003, 2004, or 2005 version and are thinking of upgrading, forget about it. You will not be impressed.
I judge how easy software is to explore by how many clicks it takes to get somewhere or by how fast I can scroll through a list to get to relevant information. Encarta 2006 is harder and slower to navigate. For example, there used to be a button for the atlas on the header bar over every page. That is now gone and you have to click Tools -> World Atlas to access it. There used to be a scrollable list to change map views (comprehensive, political, physical features, etc.). That has been replaced with large icons that are displayed three at a time. To get to the bottom of the list takes 17 clicks. You can't even hold the mouse button down to get there.
Obviously, the changes were made in an attempt to simplify and refine the layout of the program. I find that they complicate matters instead. Search results are displayed in larger boxes, revealing less information at a time and making it more difficult to scan through them quicly. The only available buttons on the header bar are back, forward, and home. I miss the one-click access to the atlas and the dictionary.
The program runs slower than previous versions and takes up an extraordinarily greater amount of disk space without having added measurably to the content. (It still has 64,000 articles.)
With all that said, I still love Encarta and find it indispensably useful (it just used to be nicer). I first got Encarta when I was starting college, and I used it constantly for almost every course I took. I found the articles to be well-written, interesting, and appropriately in-depth without being too technical or abstract. It fit my needs just perfectly. I remember studying for Humanities and getting completely absorbed in Encarta, clicking link after link as one article would lead to another. It was the same with U.S. History. I would just type in the names of all those people and events I was supposed to know, Encarta would bring them up, and gradually, everything started fitting together.
I felt like I could always count on the subject being included. There was almost never a time when I needed to know about a subject, typed it into Encarta, and came up with no results. I could trust it. Occasionally I felt it showed too much of a liberal political bias, but I forgive it, because Encarta stimulated my interest in learning in a big way.
The pictures and interactivities are numerous and engaging. The atlas is FUN to explore. You spin the world around, zoom in to a surprisingly detailed level (I saw my street), drag to a different spot on the map, and repeat the process. The geography quiz is excellent. My knowledge of geography jumped about 500% just from mere exploration of the map, and then it jumped further when I started using the quiz.
I use the dictionary and thesaurus just about every day. It is much faster and more convenient than visiting a dictionary web site. I have learned the meaning of a bunch of new words, too.
To sum up, Encarta is a useful, powerful tool. I just wish they didn't weaken it this year.
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MicrosoftEncarta Premium 2006 Win32 English North America CD/DVD Mini BoxNot to CHI/HK/IND/MOR/PAK/TUR/TUN
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