Britannica Standard Reviewer's Comments
Britannica's reputation for quality in the encyclopedia industry continues with the Standard edition. This program has all of the great features Britannica's suites are known for including an easy-to-use search bar, a diverse database of timelines and research organizer, so you can keep all of your notes and information tidy.
The big difference between this product and Britannica's other encyclopedia software, the Ultimate Suite and Deluxe Edition, is the number of articles, photos and maps. However with a drop in material comes a drop in price—the Standard is only $16.99.
Quick icons at the top of the screen allow you to navigate between the dictionary, atlas, timelines and organizer with just a click. There is also a dropdown bar where you'll find extra tools and a link to the Britannica homepage.
Feature Set:
This product includes many of Britannica's quality features like their dictionary, thesaurus, research organizer, specialty timelines and article updates, so you'll always have current information. About the only thing that is missing from this product is a report wizard—you'll only find that in the Ultimate Suite.
Search Capabilities:
The Standard comes with the same search bar and capabilities as Britannica's higher-end products. You have the option of doing a regular or advanced search on a particular topic. Within the advanced search, you can search for exact phrases, partial terms, entire terms, matching titles or even matching the text.
After searching a topic, the program will pull up everything on that topic and list it down the left side of the screen. Then it will list any encyclopedia entries, images and multimedia files associated with your topic.
Ease of Installation:
We didn't have any problems during the installation and setup of this product.
Help/Support:
Britannica offers a support phone number, email address, knowledge base, FAQs and a quick link to the product homepage to help consumers with questions and problems. However, since the 2006 version of this product has come out, Standard is no longer on the Encyclopedia Britannica homepage.
Summary:
If you're looking for an inexpensive, yet high-quality reference suite, you won't find a better package for the price. Encyclopedia Britannica Standard offers the same quality as Britannica's other suites but has a significantly smaller library.
