Smith Micro Aquazone v.2.0 Oceans of the World - AQZOWOWBX2 -
360 degrees of freedom across 4 ocean environments!
Aquazone 2 - Oceans of the World

This product does everything it says. Just very slowly. However, to get the feeling of really watching a section of ocean, you NEED a very powerful graphics card and at least 2GB of memory. My graphics registers "3.1" on Microsoft Vista's score card. The rest of my system is much faster. For "free" after rebate, it is hard to complain. But I cannot use this fascinating product to the level it was intended. I have heard nothing on my rebate after almost six weeks. Accepted? Rejected?
 
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If you see this for $5 or free after rebate, it's great for kids. Otherwise, it pretty much sucks.
 
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I purchased this for my neice and she loves it. She has fun moving around he different "habitats" and finding different fish. When we change it to follow and display name of fish she learns all the different names! Later she finds them and calls them by name. Might no be as fun for older children but I like just looking at the coral seas as a screensaver - most relaxing. Follow instructions for rebate to the letter and there is no problem - just send what they ask for!
 
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It needs a better clock on the screen, and needs to be a little more life-like. The fish are a little cartoonish. Would not purchase for full price -- not very pretty. Worth the purchase, given the rebate.
 
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For the money (FREE after rebate), I can't complain. It wasn't what I expected. Doesn't have as much variety as I thought it would. Runs well on desktop PC, not so well on Laptop. Unless you can get if for a good price or you really like "fishy" screen savers, I would shy away from this product.
 
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This software is totally worthless. You can get better screen savers free all over the net. It really slows down everything and I finally removed it from my computer.
 
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Runs great with dual 512 sli intel duo core
 
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Since its free ,with rebate, its a good screen saver...But that's it...Not that fantastic,,,as good as windows fish screen saver...
 
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Definitely not life like animation; equivalent to any free download.
 
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It worked, but without my GeForce 7600, it ran super sluggish with integrated graphics. 360 degrees of freedom is a circle, not a sphere, so it doesn't really go up or down too much. Decent detail, but not as real as it seems.
 
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Thought that it will be free after mail in rebate, They praudly sent me regret letter saying why we digged excuse that your rebate was invalid. I sent them original receipt and bar code. They asked please send us original actually original they have and i have xerox. Will plan law suite against this ongoing fraud. If they can not make superior product they come back with plan to rip you off. Just dont take chance of getting or not getting rebate.
 
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Agree with another poster; refused to give rebate because original rebate request not submitted. Will never buy anything from this company!!!
 
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Do not buy this product. You will have a tough time getting your rebate.
 
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very jazzy and colourful sealife. Almost looks like real aquarium and undersea life with amazing real life ocean sounds. Great product! I recommend everyone to buy this product.
 
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After receiving the product I realized how completely useless this software is (AQUAZONE; Oceans of the World). It is truly one of the worst programs I have seen. It is not even worth getting free. I threw mine out 20 minutes after I got it.
 
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Before purchasing this product, I was skeptical about getting it. The reviews were poor. But since it was free after the rebate, I thought why not try it. After the quick and easy installation, the screen savers allow you to pick different types of fish and different amounts of fish. Now the screen savers are 100% real looking but what can you expect for a free program. Overall it's worth the money, especially if you have kids who like to look at fish and not have the mess of keeping a fish bowl.
 
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I bought this thinking it would be great but apparently I am not satisfied with this software because it tends to ridiculously and unecessarily hog up alot of RAM. When you install it, automatically it sets itself as the screensaver. I got bored very fast with it. There isnt much variety in it as it claims it has. Yeah, there are tons of different fish (sea creatures)you can pick and choose from. Now, if your a fish (sea creatures) person then maybe you will like it. Oh, and the graphics are absolutely awful! AWFUL! AWFUL!!!!! Umm, did I say awful? Who designed this software anyways? Its year 2008. Not 1998.
 
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Using an AMD 3200 Athlon processor with 1gb of ram ,i find that the software freezes occasionally. also it allows parts of the task bar to be seen on the screen. I am assuming that my computer is a tad too slow for the software. However, the display is very pleasant to watch. I would recommend it to anyone that has a computer which is capable of handling it
 
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OK graphics; wouldn't pay for software from this company. 3D performance lacking.
 
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It crashed my PC after about a week of use. Computer kept freezing until I uninstalled. Fish are very unrealistic, runs darn slow even on my 3.0ghz Core 2 chip. Is it that hard to make a simple screensaver? Not even worth it for FREE with a rebate.
 
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My Husband is really enjoying this piece of software! He keeps switching out the fish and the different environments.It also created yet another fun thing to do with the grandkids....they love to feed the fish!
 
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VERY unimaginative product. The only reason I purchased it was that it was basically free after rebates, THEN THEY DON'T HONOR THE REBATE!!! Kept rejecting my rebate saying I had not included the registration copy (I did twice). I will never purchase an ALLUME product for myself or the company I work for,,, ever!
 
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I was excited the last time this "deal" came up and ordered it. The only thing I can say that is positive is that my rebate (filled according to instructions) DID come and it was completely free minus my time and a stamp. That being said, I would not have wasted my time with this screen saver - it is horrible and looks like it was designed for Windows 3.0 in 1990. Not worth it!!!
 
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After reading other reviews, which were positive, I thought it would be nice to have another aquarium in addition to the one I already have with Windows. The one that came with XP looks absolutely terrific… so this one will probably look the same; not a chance. I do not believe that anyone would mistake the Aquazone 2 fish as being real. The graphics appear to be using outdated software (about five to ten years).
 
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Not as realistic as I hoped, Similar looking to Disney movies like happy feet, or Madagascar. If you use more than three types of fish or higher quantities of same fish the movements becomes jerky. I have a dell dimension 8400 w XP2, a 3GZ processor with 2GB of ddr2 ram and the fish movements are still not lifelike. Will not play in the TV DVD player, for computers only. The price was ok, Free after rebates (still waiting).
 
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There were quite a few negative ratings about this product on the site already. I should have paid attention to them - I paid more attention to the few positive ones. The software is so out of date, so poor in quality, it really has no business being sold. The graphics are awful. I had used a screensaver several years ago that was superb; crystal clear and detailed with features - it cost about $25. Oceans of the World was just the opposite. Thankfully it had a full refund rebate, but it wasn't worth the time - I threw it away.
 
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I would not have purchased this without the rebate - and after seeing what it does/doesn't do, I sure hope they honor the rebate - I would hope that if there's a lot of rebate complaints (which appears inevitable) that buy.com would step in and assist. I'm not impressed with what it does or how it works or looks. The "feeding" is a joke as the food just falls to the ocean floor and sits there - nothing ever comes to get it. The "tap the glass" option is also a joke as nothing responds to it. When changing oceans, you're given a choice of fish that don't exist in that particular ocean so, again, nothing happens. It's still installed (at least for the time being), but I'm very disappointed and will be even more disappointed if I have fight for my rebate.
 
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This is complete garbage, even for free it's not worth the buy.
 
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Good luck getting the rebate from the manufacturer. I went back and forth with them and finally got my rebate after SIX MONTHS. First they denied the rebate stating it was missing the registration card. Well, I had copies of what I sent and proved to them that it was sent in the original submission. After that, they approved it and claimed they sent a check. Several months later after I still didn't receive the check, they sent a replacement check and that finally made it to me months later. I honestly believe the manufacturer doesn't want to rebate their products. I hope you have better luck than me, but I'll never purchase another Smith Micro product in hopes of receiving a rebate from them.
 
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I am really disappointed in this software in that it does not look "real". The description stated that it would look realistic and I do not find that to be the case at all. I purchased this because of the rebate, after the rebate it is suppose to cost me nothing. (I'm still waiting on the rebate.) I would be highly disappointed and upset if I had purchased this under other circumstances, i.e., those in which no rebate were involved.
 
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Clearly at $0.00 your going to get what you paid for. But you can always buy add-ons from the company. I have uninstalled and chucked the disc.
 
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The graphics and effects of this program are kind of a let down. Then you find out it doesn't come with a lot of sealife but you can purchase more... No thanks! The only redeeming thing here is that it's free after the rebate.
 
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The graphic and the animation are not smooth. It is not worth to buy.
 
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I bought this for a real cheap price, but I expected it to be more real, than it actually is. You can still see the animation. I would not use it by myself, but I bought it as a present.
 
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This is the worst product I own. After reading about it,I thought it was going to be better than other software like it. The graphics are just plain cheesy. The fish look like they're just stuck on top of the sea. I don't like it. It wasn't worth the shipping charge. Very, very poor graphics.
 
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So bad
 
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This sw tries hard but does not make it. Performance in Vista is poor , graphics are blury, background is motionless, fish do not respond to tapping as advertised. You should not pay money for something that freeware sw is a million times better.
 
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The program is simple to install, but performance will depend on your system. On my year-old XP with 1 gig ram and dual core processor it ran well; on my 3 year-old XP with 512 ram it didn't. My 10 year-old naturalist daughter loves it, though I found the lack of information on the wildlife disappointing. Species are identified by name, but no further info is given. Graphics on my wide screen are excellent and the program morphed into a screen saver automatically. With the promo rebate this was a fabulous, inexpensive Chanukah gift for my daughter -the price was right, and she loved exploring the scenes. In "night view" some of the creatures are luminescent - really cool! Changing scenes is easy, though since you populate the chosen environment the result is technically inappropriate at times (e.g. tropicals don't mosey around the Arctic as far as I know!) Now, if only they'd make the program more factually realistic and educationally informative, maybe with links....
 
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Has not interfered with any other software on my PC. Not as good as the shareware Dream Aquarium.
 
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Once I receive my rebate, the only money that I'm out on this software is the sales tax. I'm still upset about that! This is absolutely the worst software purchase that I've EVER made. The background graphics look like random bits of clip art pasted together. The fish look realistic, but trying to actually use the software is hilarious. My system more than doubles all of the system requirements, but just moving the mouse is a lesson in futility with the choppiness of movement. Reading the other reviews, if other aquarium software packages are even only slightly better than what I experienced with this one, don't waste your money - sorry, but this program didn't even meet a small fraction of my expectations.
 
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Imagine you are in water without your gargle on! A few occasional fish to swim around! Not worth a dime!
 
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OMG. it sucks! Not so real. Nothing fun. Regretful.
 
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This sounds like a very cool screen saver, and would be if they had invested more effort into quality and testing. When the animals are close, it's very obvious that they are a bunch of polygons with texture maps; they lack that "organic" look. Often it seems as though animals and elements like corals are painted onto sheets of not-quite-clear plastic, and so you see a vague cut-out shape just around the object. Corals and things in the foreground appear very pixelated on a high-res monitor. The deep sea environment just has a bunch of spindly crabs that move gently with the surge, but never really DO anything. Often when the screen saver kicks in, you get a semi-illiterate message about the fish for the camera to follow not being found. Crucial for something to be a true screen saver is that it run on all your screens. But Aquazone 2 only takes control of your primary monitor, leaving whatever is on your secondary monitor still there. Even the free screen savers in XP or Google Picasa handle dual monitors properly. The 3D environment and the idea of a "live" camera following the animals is very cool. It's just that this implementation wasn't done with high quality. I'd recommend waiting to see whether Aquazone 3 is any better.
 
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I've seen much better aquarium screen savers. The fish do appear small on the screen. You can hardly see them unless you zoom in, and then you loose most of the background - and this was at 600x800 resolution. It would probably be worse at a higher resolution. I guess they are trying to keep everything in relative scale. Since you might see a whale on the screen every so often, you can imagine how small the regular fish (like the clown fish) actually appear. Personally I'd rather see the program designed for the regular fish and not even have an option for the larger species which don't appear very often. I haven't played with it much after the initial disappointment. Perhaps I can eventually find a background that I like when it is zoomed in a lot, but other fish aquariums I have played with had a better out of the box experience. I got if FAR (Free after rebate with free shipping), but I don't think it is worth it if you have to buy it.
 
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A fun product with endless configurations. I bought it for a fun screensaver, but its ended up being a learning tool for my kids as they love to play with the settings and learn about marine life. It takes a few seconds to switch back to your desktop, when taking it out of screensaver mode, but this is a minor irritation which does not affect operation of the software.
 
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Unfortunately, it cannot be installed to my son's computer (Dell Latitude C600 notebook with 1GB RAM). I'm very surprised that it requests a high-end graphic card. Even under my Latitude D600 (with 1GB RAM), some feature cannot work because it requests more VGA RAM. Check your graphic chip before you purchase it.
 
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I got this product for free (after rebate) and it was still overpriced. The fish and the backgrounds just don't look realistic and viewing them gives me a headache. For this type of screensaver, the original Microsoft version is MUCH better.
 
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Really great aquarium. Fish and backgrounds very realistic. A little time consuming to set up the type and number of fish but final result is worth the effort.
 
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This has lots of different settings for different fish and different backgrounds. It seems to suck up some memory and causes the cooling fan to run on my laptop. But I use it on my desktop computer and it looks great. Overall very pleased with program. I paid about $31 and got a $28 rebate. Can't beat that!!
 
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This is a pretty cool program. It's not quite as life-like as they make it sound, but it still has really good graphics. It seems to take a lot of memory to load and unload it, but then again... it has a lot of stuff in it. I never bought extra fish or anything, they have plenty.
 
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Originally, it was purchased for a Windows 98SE system. Not knowing this was not supported, I installed it on a Windows XP Home system. My 12yr old daughter tweaked it easily and she loves it. There are several scenes to choose from and many options to pick from. There is some animated flow which makes it a bit "framy". We enjoy having it for a screen saver!
 
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