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Review written by Jamie

America Online has grown to be the largest ISP (internet service provider) in the country. Almost about each year they come out with a new and *improved* version of the software. The newest is AOL version 7.0. The is, by far, the best version of that they have put out.

Each and every year AOL adds new features. The service has about 31 million members. Version 7.0 sports the sharpest-looking AOL interface yet, armed with the best content of any ISP. For both longtime AOLers and those looking for an ISP that hands over tons of content, it's a great deal. Savvy surfers who are comfortable digging through the Web on their own, however, should steer clear.

AOL 7.0's interface is much cleaner than that of previous versions. The Welcome screen is more streamlined, with less text, larger graphics, and more white space, but you still have to contend with serious screen clutter. Version 7.0 opens a new window every time you head to a different section, including when you leave AOL itself and go to the Web. Before you can say "You've got mail," AOL litters your desktop with a slew of windows. Until AOL develops an integrated, one-window interface, longtime Net heads should stick with plain ol' browsers such as Internet Explorer or Netscape.

Worse, you'll have to pay more for AOL this year than you did last year. In July 2001, AOL increased its fees from $21.95 to $23.95 per month, making AOL the country's most expensive large ISP for dial-up users. And AOL's broadband prices--$54.95 for DSL and satellite and $44.95 for cable, all of which include the cost of a membership to AOL--are $5 to $10 higher than most ISPs, too. Mac owners...well, you're out of luck. This new interface works for Windows only. You're stuck with version 5.0.

Think globally, surf locally
If you're more interested in finding out what's happening in your own backyard than in wading through national news, put AOL at the top of your ISP list. AOL puts a new emphasis on providing local content in version 7.0, but it really succeeds only at providing content for those of you in large metropolitan areas. From the top right of the Welcome screen, you can jump to sites packed with information on services and current events in your hometown--from personal ads to restaurant reviews to local news and upcoming sporting events. This bounty of information is a huge deal; no other ISP comes close to delivering this kind of content. AOL gathers and presents the info for you, so you don't have to hunt for it yourself. However, non-AOLers can get much of this same localized content from Digital City or Citysearch, and savvy surfers will probably find AOL's coddling annoying.

Another standout new AOL service is AOL@Radio, a one-stop site where you can listen to more than 75 different digital music channels organized by genre, such as classic rock and classical. It's not quite real Net radio--the channels are commercial-free (yea!), the lineup is skimpy on talk and news (nay!), and you can't "tune in" to online stations the way you can using Internet Explorer--but it's a solid start at a comprehensive and accessible music service. Again, it doesn't take much for Net pros to find online radio broadcasts, though commercial-free ones are as rare as hen's teeth.

Broadband bonanza
AOL has changed several tools and features, too. Our favorite update: broadband content improvements. If you connect via cable, DSL, or satellite, a new banner with links to movie clips and music videos now automatically appears at the bottom of most screens. The content is extensive, with clips from outlets such as CNN, CBS News, HBO, and E Entertainment. On a fast connection, playback is close to what you see on TV.

However, most of the rest of AOL 7.0's enhancements are just tweaks or attempts to catch up to the competition. AOL's e-mail still lags behind the rest of the POP3-standard world. You can't grab AOL mail from a third-party program, such as Outlook Express or Eudora, but it now features little graphics that tell you which of your AOL buddies are currently online (and thus reachable by AOL Instant Messenger) and offers an autocomplete feature for addressing messages (AOL automatically fills in the rest of your text based on what you've previously typed). Both "buddy awareness" and the autocomplete feature have been part and parcel of programs such as Outlook Express for some time.

AOL 7.0 also now lets you drag and drop appointments from day to day within the online calendar, play CDs (as well as downloaded music files) with the bundled AOL Media Player, and get help faster from its redesigned online support section of the service. Slick audio-enhanced tutorials walk you through basic chores such as sending e-mail. As always, AOL's tech support is available around the clock via toll-free calls, e-mail, or live chat. Response times vary wildly: one evening, the lines were so jammed that our call wouldn't go through, while on another night, we hooked up with someone in support within seconds. During prime evening hours, head to the live chat, where response is uniformly fast. Skip e-mail: answers typically took between 36 and 48 hours to arrive.

And for all of AOL's talk about anywhere access--via everything from cell phones to pagers--there's little AOL content you can grab when you're away from an AOL-software-equipped computer. All you can access is your e-mail.

Faster than ever
Under the hood, this version runs faster than before. In our head-to-head time trials, AOL 7.0's software loaded much more quickly than 6.0's after we established an Internet connection (between 15 and 20 percent faster). Plus, version 7.0 is one of two editions of AOL that works with Microsoft's new OS, Windows XP (a customized edition of 6.0 also operates in XP).

Not so fast, though, is AOL's actual performance when accessing the Web. Our tests showed that 7.0 often pulled pages from the Web slightly slower than other ISPs, such as EarthLink. AOL lags--sometimes as much as 25 percent longer--in part because requests for Web pages go through AOL's servers, adding another step to the page download process. (This slower speed doesn't apply to AOL's own content, which is stored on its servers and pops up fast.)

AOL sports hundreds of dial-up nodes (head to AOL.com to check your local access numbers), as well as a $6-per-hour 800 number that you can use to connect to the Internet while you're on the road. We rarely ran into busy signals while using AOL's access numbers, and broadband users can still fall back to a dial-up if their big bandwidth connection goes kaput.

AOL 7.0 still looks messy; we prefer a one-window interface along the lines of the new MSN to this window-spewing monster, but that doesn't seem to have stopped millions from signing up. If you're using an earlier version of AOL, update ASAP. Looking for a reliable ISP and a glut of content? Despite its heftier price tag, AOL is a good dial-up and broadband bet for those who want the Web organized for them. Don't need help like this? You don't need AOL.