- 330 Personalized lessons, exercises and tests
- 12 Entertaining typing games
- Detailed tracking and progress reporting
- Learn to type with bilingual instruction (English & Spanish)
- New content types: type jokes, riddles, recipes, song lyrics and more!
Mavis Beacon just keeps getting younger and younger. And thinner. :o
Installation was a breeze on my laptop.
Installation was a breeze on my desktop.
You don't need the CD in the drive to run it. (Big Plus)
No online activation. (Big plus)It appears that once you buy it you keep it. ie not a rental like Office.
Needs at least 1024x768 res. So some netbooks that still have 1024x600 may have difficulty.
If you have a widescreen monitor, set your graphics card to keep the aspect ratio and not to stretch it. (I have my Nvidia card set for Nvidia scaling with fixed aspect ratio. That setting seems to work best.) My monitor's native res in 1680x1050. You'll get better results since Mavis is not widescreen. Not a big deal to me. It will be to some.
I've ran this all day on my laptop and desktop with no problems at all. Registration isn't required to run the program. Just x out of it if it doesn't pop. The default music is similar to that in Simcity and Sims games. However, you can use whatever music you want. (Though you could do that in another program anyway.)
I ran with whatever Mavis threw at me. I played for 4 hours strait. With the variety of things she threw my way it didn't grow tedious at all. Very pleasant. I usually type at about 20-25 words a minute with looking at the keyboard. Toward the end of my sessions (2 hours on laptop and 2 hours on desktop), I was at the beginning of the intermediate stage on each installation. I ended up with more than 30 words per minute without looking at the keyboard.
The activities themselves so far seem to be short; not more than a few minutes each depending on your speed of completion. It's good for a few minutes here and there. It saves your progress as you go. It's also good for much longer sessions as well. (One activity leads into another.)
By the way, every once in a while, she detects a problem with the way you type and puts you back to an earlier lesson, then when it's done, she brings you back to the present. This didn't look like a bug to me, though I can see how someone can misinterpret that. It was all cut and paste. She tells you that you are going to go back but once you're back the text reads as if you are there for the first time. When she was satisfied she brought me back to the present. To me it just looked like a way to review a past lesson. Still, it can be jarring if you don't read all of her explanations (They tend to repeat).
All in all I'm satisfied.
Buy Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing Deluxe (25th Anniversary Edition SB) Now
Well, time to break the tie! I mean, this product has received 3 Five-Stars and 3 One-Star reviews from customers [As of the date this review was first written]. I think it's time to weigh in to one side rather the other.First let me share the System Requirements as provided on the product cover (and no where else to be found on the product listing!!!) :
PC users: Windows XP (Home & Pro) SP3, Vista SP1, Win 7, Pentium 4 (2.4 GHz or higher), 1 GB of RAM (2 GB RAM for Vista & Win 7 users), 300 MB free hard disk space, DirectX 9.0c graphics card w/128 MB or more video memory, 24-bit color monitor, 1024x768 resolution, CD/DVD-ROM drive, Windows compatible sound card, mouse, keyboard, speakers, Internet Explorer (7 and later) or Firefox (3 and later) browsers, Internet connection, Adobe Acrobat Reader.
Mac users: OS X 10.5 & later, PowerPC G5, Intel Core Duo or newer, 1 GB RAM, 300 MB free hard disk space, 24-bit color monitor, 1024x768 resolution, CD/DVD-ROM drive, Mac compatible sound card, mouse, keyboard, speakers, Safari (3 and later), or Firefox (3 and later) browsers, Internet connection.
There you have the minimum requirements to dig into. But before we move on with tis review it maybe helpful to know that I'm using this software on a Lenovo Edge 14 laptop which runs on Windows 7 Professional 64-bit with Intel Core i3 (M350 @ 2.27 GHz), 4 GB RAM, & screen res. of 1366x768.
Pros:
* Ease of Installation: Set up was a breeze. Just pop the CD into your drive, follow the on screen prompts & voila!
* No online activation is necessary. It asks you if you'd like to register your product but that's your call. You don't have to.
*Unlike older versions, you don't need the CD to start the program. Once installed onto your computer, you can access it by double clicking its icon on your screen.
*Activities are rather short, for me at least, fun and effective. I'm sure they'll be as appealing to kids as they are to adults.
Cons:
Nothing as of the date of this posting.
Very IMPORTANT NOTES:
* PC vs Mac users: Based solely on the customers reviews posted in relation to this product, I'd definitely take caution & make a careful consideration as to whether or not buy the Mac version. Simply because two out of the three negative reviews given to this product were written by Mac users. One customer at least mentioned there's a persistent problem with this product even with older versions so :-( ?!
* Technical Support: Sucks! But here's why: I've never had a problem with my order & so never had to deal with their Customer Support but like other customers have noted Tech Support is made so out of reach it's ridiculous. I've googled them a little and come up with this link for those of you who wants to reach them (Tech Support phone # is provided at the bottom of the page):
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Bottom Line:
I've used Mavis Beacon products before & liked & so as I upgraded to this version I knew what to expect, and it lives up to my expectations. It has improved over previous versions and it works great on my system. I'd definitely recommend it to a PC user (Kids & their parents alike!) But I won't recommend it to a Mac user.
Read Best Reviews of Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing Deluxe (25th Anniversary Edition SB) Here
I purchased this software (mac version) almost one day ago, and I still can't tell you what its like. Thats because, every time I have tried to start it up, it tells me that the registration service isn't responding, so I can't access the software. It is incredibly frustrating that I purchased this software and have the authorization key, but can't use it because the company hasn't fixed their registration process. I have contacted the company, but even that has been useless. First of all, the support section of the website has no live support, email address to contact, etc. If you keep clicking through, you will find a link to open a support request. After submitting it, you get no confirmation or feedback at all. I still have yet to hear back from them. For all I know, the company doesn't even exist anymore. Its just a website that sells you unusable software. I will update here if and when this gets resolved. Until then, I would assume that anyone buying this software will find it unusable since we all have to use the same registration service.Want Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing Deluxe (25th Anniversary Edition SB) Discount?
I purchased Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing Platinum (25) for the Mac about 3 weeks ago.The product is full of bugs & issues and should not have been released, yet.
Just a few of the problems:
Currently, after 12 hours of typing, my typing speed is -25 wpm. Yes, folks, NEGATIVE 25 WORDS PER MINUTE. Not sure how that's possible??? (About 4 days ago, my speed was 30 WPM...)
I can't access my test results, except for the tests I did on day 1 and day 2. (I've done about 35 tests since then)
Once, when I was in the middle of "Intermediate Training", I was kicked right back into "Beginner Training" -not to help me with my skills, but as a bug (there was no record of all the work that I'd done to that point). After restarting the program a number of times... and then completing a couple of beginner tests, suddenly all my info returned?!?!
I have no idea if the older versions of MBTT fare better, but be warned: IF YOU BUY THIS SOFTWARE FOR THE MAC YOU WILL FIND BUGS!!!
I contacted Technical Support about these issues (and more) and received no response. I'm returning the product for a refund.
I'd give it 0 stars if I could.
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It's disappointing to say this bug ridden software might still be the best there is available.As other posters have commented, your stats start going backwards, making them worthless. Audio transcription lessons start, but with no audio making it impossible to continue. Other lessons will start by saying you'll do classic literature and then present you with something like famous quotes.
The software is full of bugs making the user experience thoroughly disappointing. There has to be something better our there. Perhaps purchase a learn to type book?
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