Once installation was complete I ended up with five new icons on my desktop:

Once installation was complete I ran the updater and got a few updates, added a few more minutes to the total time. I recently checked for updates again and found more to be had. It looks as though Nero is very much supporting this version with constant updates, which is a good thing of course.

On the start menu you’ll find links to all of the programs that come installed and a link to the instruction manuals.

You’ll most likely want to start with StartSmart which is an interface that has links to everything in it and actually has programs built right in for copying and ripping. StartSmart has quite a bit to see, across the top you’ll find five choices for Music, Video+Photo, Data, Tools and Knowledge Center. On the left side you’ll see the shortcuts for Data Burning, Audio Burning, Audio Ripping and Copy Disc.

Here’s the left side shortcuts, Audio Burning has three choices actually for Creating an audio cd, MP3 Jukebox Disc and Nero AAC Audio.

Here’s the top choices, these are essentially lists of shortcuts to everything for those categories with descriptions of them.

At the top is a very small arrow that opens up a drop down menu for Options, Updates and some other basic stuff.

At the bottom is a another little arrow that opens up a pop up menu with links to all of the programs.

If you’ve got a Blu-ray drive in your computer you can burn and play blu-rays right though the Nero player. There’s Nero MediaHub which will search for media on your computer and have it right there for quick access.

Nero BackItUp is a great back up program so you can make sure all of your stuff is protected. It takes a bit to figure it out, but the manuals explain everything for you. The program allows you to backup or restore files with just a single click.

Nero Vision Xtra is your center for creating movies or even capturing video right to your hard drive. You can make DVDs, Blu-Rays, CDs and even record right to a disc. There’s plenty of choices here for your creation needs.

The actual movie creation program is rather complex and not exactly something for the beginner, there is tons of things you can do when creating a movie. With the creation program it’s highly advised to read the manual first.

There are some tool included that can be helpful like DiscSpeed, InfoTool, ControlCenter, EraseDisc and Analyze Disc. All of thee can be useful at times I’m sure.

Included also is Nero SoundTrax that let’s you mix and basically create your own music.  It’s a fairly easy to use program for the budding DJs out there.

Then there’s Nero ReCode which basically ReCodes Movies and DVDs for you. One of the things you could do with this is to rip a movie from a DVD and only rip the movie without the previews etc.

The Heart of Nero is of course the Burning Rom, here you can burn anything you want basically. If you’ve ever used Nero then I’m sure you’re familiar with this.

A bit has changed since Nero 9, at least aesthetically anyway. The interface has changed for the better I think, but it’s still similar to the last version.

Some people feel Nero is bloated, well you don’t have to buy the whole suite, you can just get the basic version if that’s all you need.

The software loads fast and it’s fairly easy to use, if you’re used any of the earlier version then you should be able to jump right in and start with Nero 10.

Conclusion:

Nero 10 is your one stop source truly for everything related to your media. No matter what you want to do with your media Nero can do it surely.

As for being bloated, well yes there’s a lot of stuff here, but I wouldn’t call it bloated at all. I like having access to all these programs and tools in one program. Sure it’s not for everybody, but that’s why there’s other choices out there.

Pros:
+Full suite of tools in one place
+Simple to use interface
+Your all in one source for creation and entertainment

Cons:
-A lot of stuff to explore and discover
-Some things do require learning

Grades:
Overall
Design
Performance

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