Microsoft Encarta Reference Library Premium 2005 CD | 
 enlarge | From: Microsoft
Category: Software
List Price: $74.95
Buy New: $16.99
You Save: $57.96 (77%)
New (1) Used (6) from $9.23
Rating:  5 reviews
Sales Rank: 6219
Format: Cd-rom
Platforms: Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows Me, Windows Xp
Media: CD-ROM
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Operating System: Windows XP
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2
MPN: 844-00784
UPC: 805529833784
EAN: 0805529833784
ASIN: B00027TDQS
Release Date: June 28, 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Features:
| • | Complete learning resource for home or school use | | • | Multimedia encyclopedia and feature-rich reference tools | | • | Explore science, history, cultures, geography, art, and more | | • | Encarta dictionary, thesaurus, and translation dictionaries | | • | Designed for students as young as 7 years old |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
This reference tool offers comprehensive homework and research tools with dictionary and thesaurus, literature guides, homework starters, interactive world atlas, dynamic timelines, chart maker, and more. Also included is Microsoft's Encarta Encyclopedia Deluxe 2005 software. A wealth of knowledge in one box!
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| Customer Reviews:
 Absolute Greatest Encycopedia Yet!! January 5, 2006
Mega Amazon.commer (New Ipswich, NH USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This computer encyclopedia is the best I have seen yet. It is truly multimedia, blending text, audio, and visual. There are interactive maps and other features that are good whether you are just playing around or doing research. I love the dictionary, thesauraus, and translator. It is an excellent tool for homework, or just to know.
The text is very in-depth and thoroughly explains the topic. So, no matter what the use, this is the best encyclopedia out there for your needs.
 Don't Know August 23, 2005
B. Hitomi (Las Vegas, NV USA)
0 out of 5 found this review helpful
I can't review this product because you wouldn't send it to me at the price stated on your website. You claimed it was a mistake and pulled the offer from out under me. You'll have to ask someone else.
Good content, great deal July 24, 2005
Gadgester (New York)
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
Encarta started out about 15 years ago as a premier multimedia electronic encyclopedia, and quickly established itself as a viable computer-based encylopedia to paper ones. Each edition adds a lot of new features, so, in a way, it's become somewhat of "bloatware," but most of its contents are of excellent editorial quality and will please both adults and kids alike. The emphasis on multimedia really makes it shine.
This CD version is less convenient than the single-disc DVD version, but is also much cheaper, so I think it's a great value. Get it while the $20 rebate is still good.
 A very good and convenient reference resource. February 17, 2005
Charles W. Long (Mission, TX United States)
14 out of 16 found this review helpful
Having had Encarta for a few days now, I consider it to be fully as advertised and more. I shall not belabor the excelence of the product more than to say it is supurb.
I now feel that I must have suffered a careless moment when I ordered the CD version. The price I paid for that was to spend well over 2 hours installing it (less the special kid's stuff which would presumably have taken longer). There are 5 CDs. The first 3 finished whatever it is that they do in about 15 minutes each. After becoming impatient with the progress of the 4th CD I started a stop-watch and it ran for about an hour-and-a-half before announcing that it was finished. The 5th CD proceeded without my direct attention, and when I observed my monitor about an hour later, it was awaiting my consent to shut-down and restart my system. Aside from the time involved with the installation, the process was without problems.
I have no idea how long it takes to install the DVD version, but I would hope that it would be shorter.
Encarta versus Britannica June 12, 2004
Billy Budd (Boston, MA USA)
64 out of 70 found this review helpful
I have bought both Encarta and Britannica for years (EB in printed edition too: 32 volumes, 32.000 pages). This is my opinion in brief: Encarta is excellent in all aspects, but Britannica's authoritative text (sometimes outdated) makes interesting to buy both.
TEXT: Britannica is a superb encyclopedia of text (not in visual aid) since 1768 (you know: an article by Einstein and so on...). Contents in electronic version differs from printed encyclopedia (very large articles have been shortened). Britannica claims that it has more entries that Encarta, but this is a joke: articles like "Mexico" are only one (with a lot of subdivisions) in Encarta, while in Britannica subdivisions are unconnected, and you must "jump" from one subdivision to another, which is slow and very annoying, especially if you want to copy it in "WORD". Very often, the text is not updated.
On the other hand, Encarta's text is not bad at all. Most articles have the name of their contributors and their professions, works...: They are not "John Doe". You can find large fragments of literary works, literature guides, a lot of sidebars and thousands of quotations. "Encarta Africana" is included. The Pop-Up (double clicking a word) Dictionary and Thesaurus has sound for correct pronunciation (by the way, it can read aloud, with a robotic and ugly voice, a whole article). The "Translation Dictionaries" to Spanish, French, German and Italian must be improved, because they are minimal. It gives you a lot of "Internet links", even if you are not connected. With Britannica you must be "on-line" and it searches in an EB Web page.
In theory you can update Britannica over the Internet free for a year quarterly (4 times), but this does not work. Encarta can be updated free EVERY WEEK with new articles and additions or corrections to the old ones (until October 2005). With Encarta updating really works. Technologically is amazing to see the changes in old items.
ATLAS Britannica has not a real atlas; only a worlds map whose maximum detail are the States of USA. Statistics are very poor. Encarta's Atlas is like another encyclopedia, with a great detail (1 inch = 10 miles all over the world) and 20 varieties of atlas presentations (statistical ones can be counted by dozens). If you look at a geographical article (city, river...) you can see in a corner where it is placed and, with only a click, open the Atlas. In articles of cities, if you are on-line, you can see in another corner the weather of this place in that moment. If it is a USA place, you can read the latest news.
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, historical maps, diagrams... Encarta devastates Britannica with a lot of photos, paintings, drawings, charts & tables, animations, interactivities, videos, music and sounds, pictures, 2-D and 3-D virtual tours, 360-degrees views, timeline, games... It is 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 is not really multimedia. It has photos and videos, but they make the program slow and sluggish. They should edit an alternative version with only text, as they did with the first edition in 1995. It performed fast and easy in old computers.
INTERFACE AND PERFORMANCE: This is the worst side of Britannica. With Encarta you only have to type a word or the beginning of a word to see all the articles and multimedia that contain it. If Encarta does not find anything, it gives you automatically alternative spellings. Even if you write the name of a small village lost in any country, you see it in the atlas. If you need to copy text or pictures, the integration with Microsoft WORD is perfect. It has additional ways to find content, including subject or multimedia browsing, "related articles" and the standard A-Z method. The "Research Organizer" is very helpful too. Encarta's TEXT FONT is very clear (Britannica's...) and you can choose 3 sizes.
Navigating with Britannica is disappointing. I will only give you an example: if you do not know the exact and correct spelling of a name or word, it does not help you with similar spellings (unless you open a window and "battle" with it). As I said before, the program's performance speed is very slow and sluggish, and it must be dramatically improved. To go "back and forward" you do not find any icon and you need to open a "menu".... One "pro" for Britannica: they say it works with Macintosh.
INTERNATIONAL EDITIONS: Encarta has a lot in different languages. The four I utilize (United Kingdom, Spanish, French and Italian ones) are adaptations of USA version, which is inexorable talking about History, Geography, Literature and other topics. The MISERABLE thing is that articles that equally concern any human being (Health, Mathematics and the rest of Sciences) are a VERY RESUMED translation of USA edition that is, of course, the best of all. Why Microsoft follows such a policy?
I repeat my modest piece of advice: Encarta is excellent in all aspects, but Britannica's authoritative text (sometimes outdated) make interesting to buy both.
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