Encyclopaedia Britannica 2008 Ultimate Edition (PC DVD ROM) (DVD-ROM)

This is a great reference encyclopaedia for adults - it still lacks Encarta's kid friendly approach though You have to live with an encyclopaedia for a year or two to really get a feel for it's worth, and as Britannica's got 100,000+ articles even then you just scratch the surface. Encyclopaedias were always traditionally bought when older kids were in the household, and kids are frequently still the main users. - provided it gives them what they want, and quickly. Encarta 2007 hasn't got anything like the depth in articles that Encyclopaedia Britannica Ultimate reference suite 2008 has, but I can't imagine many preteen school children wanting a scholarly detailed account of the action of CD4+ lymphocytes when looking up AIDS. Plus Britannica seems to throw up strange search results more often than Encarta, which can be rather off-putting to youngsters with the attention span of a gnat, but quite endearing to adults who don't mind the odd interesting but distracting diversion. Overall Encarta 2007 is still a lot more kid friendly with fun as well as facts - it's simply far more entertaining than Britannica and ideal as a family reference, plus Britannica 2008's new interface is now more confusing than ever. The UK version of Encarta scores very highly for UK kids as it's geared toward the UK national curriculum and UK spelling - whereas Britannica 2008 ironically still has a strong irritating US bias. In fairness you get as much info about Cadbury as you do on Hershey chocolate [under the title 'The candy industry'] and the dictionary has both US and UK spellings. But search say 'tree' under Britannica's Elementary [children's] Library and you get a rather naff picture of the Kentucky Coffee Tree - which is apparently the state tree of Kentucky as if anyone cares. And you find the same tedious image under 'tree' in the main encyclopaedia. With Encarta 'tree' gives a lot of quality deciduous tree photos and informative text, with the oak, silver birch and lime trees listed first. Encarta still presents the information in a more fun way with better use of multi-media content such as instructional videos, games to aid learning and pretty twirling icon links. You need internet access as well though (Encarta & Britannica use it to update as well as web-link), although that's pretty essential for homework anyway. Encarta even goes as far as integrating itself into Internet Explorer (and I often search it by mistake). With both Encarta and Britannica you can also upgrade to Encarta Premium [on-line] & Britannica Online for free for the 'year' (2008 only). If you think you might prefer Encarta for your kids you should really have a look at Microsoft Student 2008 that includes the full Encarta reference library. The Student 2008 package adds much more for schoolchildren though (homework templates/ideas, languages, maths and literature guides), so check it out - but you need MS Office as well. We now have Britannica Reference Suite 2008 as well as Microsoft Student 2007 - Britannica's s greater depth suites well read adults and it has good advice on homework as well, useful if you are helping your kids but still a bit too dry (dull even) for many UK under 16s to use on their own - Britannica is just too worthy for it's own good, and I hope it remains that way as two Encarta's aren't much use. Britannica's better value for adults though, particularly when compared to the £1,500 printed versions (and imagine buying them every year) - although many of Britannica's DVD articles do seem shorter than expected for a massive volumed set. Possibly they are fragmented via links and there is more offered than Encarta. This Britannica 2008 DVD looks quite similar to the 2007 version on first glance, so it's not really a major upgrade to the basic feel of older Britannica Ultimate Editions - but it now needs 2Gb more of your hard drive (which mostly seems to be taken up by slightly naff videos). Encarta and Britannica take 2 Gb and 4Gb of disk space respectively, and both then run without the disk in the CD/DVD drive - pretty essential for most kids who probably couldn't be bothered to look for the DVD case otherwise, plus it speeds up searches and allows a second copy for the laptop. With both encyclopaedias you really need to sit down with kids under 14 and explain what is being said - and I have to say at these times we vote with the mouse and choose Student 2007 [Encarta] every time. Don't forget checking Children's Encarta in tandem though, as it puts things more simply which is ideal as an extra study aid for KS2 and KS3 (age 9 to 12). Why Encarta for schoolkids?: well search 'evaporation' in Encarta and you get the classic school science text book description with links to 'boiling point', 'condensation' and the visual browser, whereas under Britannica you get a detailed treatise on 'refrigeration'. Elementary Britannica still simply edits down adult information, making little effort to repitch it at the intended primary school level (e.g. under 'Greenhouse effect', images of 'The Mossbauer effect: use in a spectrometer' appear). Plus Encarta looks far far prettier as well. Unlike some of the internet, Encarta and Britannica are very reliable sources of information. Granted we do all do tend to prefer to search the internet rather than use these encyclopaedias, as there's many great sites out there for kids and adults. However both these encyclopaedias aren't that expensive at all compared to the cost of raising and educating kids, plus they only need updating every few years. Other than teachers/parents, most adults will probably be content with internet searches or require specialist text books instead, although both encyclopaedias are fine for fun reading and the atlases are quite useful. When it comes to DVD encyclopaedias 'There can be only two' - fortunately really as when Britannica was the first to come out on CD/DVD around 1996 my dad paid £250 for it [whereas this vastly superior 2008 edition has cost me just £25]. So along with web searches and adult help, Encarta/Student and Britannica are a useful aid to any kid's education, although only [Children's] Encarta really suites UK preteens. If you have XP and aren't fussed about the latest news and technology though you could pick up the rather similar looking Britannica Ultimate Reference 2006 DVD for a few quid from Amazon resellers or ebay, after all even the original 1768 Britannica gives a reasonable account of the reign of Elizabeth I [and is a fascinating glimpse of the world as seen at that time]. And finally, although using the Britannica 2008 Ultimate Reference suite DVD is nowhere near as satisfying as flicking casually through the pages of an old leather bound encyclopaedia set, it certainly takes up a lot less storage space.