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Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing Platinum V20 (Mac/PC) | 
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| From: Avanquest Software
Category: Software
List Price: £29.99
Buy New: £17.97
You Save: £12.02 (40%)
New (7) Used (1) from £16.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  12 reviews
Sales Rank: 40
Platforms: Mac Os X Leopard, Windows Vista, Macintosh, Mac Os X, Windows Xp, Mac Os X Intel
Media: CD-ROM
Operating System: Windows Vista
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5.4 x 1.3
EAN: 5016488118378
ASIN: B001AZ7Q10
Release Date: July 20, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
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| Customer Reviews: Read 7 more reviews...
 Great. November 17, 2008
To begin with I wasn't to sure if I would find this
product enjoyable or not, as I have never used anything
similar before.
I have now used this product for a couple of weeks,
and I must say I have found it fun to use, and I have
definately improved my typing skills.
I Highly recommend it.
 Great simple software but has a few bugs... November 15, 2008
I haven't realy used many of these typing software packages, to be honest maybe only once before, so the whole program was pretty new to me.
From the start its very simple to setup and run, getting around the menus are a doddle and digging deep into the exercises are easy. It features a ton of exercises and fun games to help you through the learning experience. It features a great tracking feature to watch your progress over the courses and can help give you an idea on what your failing or excelling at.
I have used it a few times now and have found it pretty helpfull, but my biggest annoyance are the freezes, i aint entirely sure why its happening although there are reports online in forums of several freezes, this for me is a bit of a low are hindered the whole experience...
 Excellent but for the dated grapics November 9, 2008
I have been typing for many years, and have know the basics of tough typing, although I have not been able to apply them; so I have been unable to type without looking at the keyboard. One obvious problem with this being that I would not notice mistakes until long after they were made. So I finally decided to do something about it; Mavis Beacon to the rescue!
Once loaded the programmes is very easy to use; and it starts with some quite basic lessons using just a few keys. As the lessons progress so more keys are introduced. Every so often the routine of exercises is broken with a typing "game" of one form or another. There are also tests which assess whether or not you are ready to pass on the next level.
The lessons are tailored to the user's ability based on an initial typing test. The programme also allows the user to dictate to a certain extent, with the choice of taking a lesson, going to the practice area, playing a game, or customising the lessons. There are also various charts which show, for example, ones progress, or which keys one knows well and which ones need more practice. While one is typing an on-screen keyboard shows the correct finger to use for the key required.
How does it work in practice? With spending only about 15 minutes a day and without too much effort, after a week I noticed a marked improvement in my typing. After two weeks I had more that doubled my speed and considerably improved my accuracy. Obviously giving more time daily would mean even faster progress, but one of the attractions of such a programme is that one can dictate for oneself how much time is devoted to it.
While the lessons are not exactly all fun, they are not tedious either and offer plenty of variety. My biggest criticism is the graphics; they are very dated and rather basic, and it's not a familiar Windows format. The on screen font used could have been better chosen; I had difficulty distinguishing between a capital and lower-case "L". Another niggle, this being an American product, the keyboard is set to the American keyboard layout, so the position of the " and @ characters is switched. So on these points as far as I am concerned it looses one star; but otherwise it is an excellent way to improve ones typing skills.
Run of the mill November 9, 2008
I've been using computers for years but never learnt to type. I use one finger on each hand and know the keyboard layout. As I'm not copy typing my typing speed is fair. This product using copy typing gave me 29 words a minute. I suspect I do about 50 normally. I would like to learn to type properly though and a few years ago bought a typing course. I didn't get me much further on.
To be honest this software doesn't seem to offer much more. The problem is that most long-time computer users can type at reasonable speed. Starting from scratch and trying to hit the 'a' key with your little finger slows my typing down to about 10 words a minute and feels unnatural. A way needs to be devised to make learning fast and fun. This software does not advance those aims.
Great for getting your typing speed up to scratch November 4, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I'm very impressed with Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing Platinum V20. I learned how to type more years ago than I care to remember on an old manual typewriter, and that was no fun and it was often very painful! Using the Mavis Beacon software to brush up my skills is very enjoyable and certainly not painful though. :D
Since I already know how to type I can't really comment on how good the software is for learning from scratch, but I suspect that it would be very good indeed. It's certainly good for people like me who just fancy a bit of a refresher or to work on overall speed and accuracy.
The software came in a nice cardboard sleeve, which makes a change from the ubiquitous DVD cases, and it installed easily and quickly for me on a system running Windows XP. Once installed it was very easily configured to suit me. From installation to being up and running on one of the typing exercises was a matter of a few minutes. The minimum requirements are very low, so if you have a machine that can run Vista, or even anything that can run XP without wheezing you'll have no problem running this.
The lessons and exercises are quite fun, and the games are enjoyable. I must comment on the background music as well, the default music that came up for me was some nice gentle jazz, which brought a smile to my face. There's other music to choose from if that's not to your tastes, and you can even use your own music if you fancy it.
So overall I'm definitely very happy with Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing Platinum V20. It's pleasant and fun to use, and it genuinely does improve your typing speed and accuracy.
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