CCENT/CNNA Book

Is this one better than the official guide for cisco?
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1118749618/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?qid=1385337755&sr=8-2&pi=AC_SX110_SY165_QL70
I heard the official cisco guide u have to pay more within the cd for more service and the other book offer more for less.

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Comments

DoubleNNs

Personally, I think if you have no experience, you should go w/ the Official Guide. if you do have experience, go w/ the Todd Lammle - it's a more interesting & engaging read, tho harder to follow if you're brand new to the topic.

rowelld

I've used Todd Lammle's books before but found the official guide to fit my studies better. It just depends on who's learning style you prefer. I tend to stick with Cisco Press books because that is my preference. I also think they follow the objectives quite well. It doesn't hurt to get both books either. Having multiple sources to study from is beneficial.

JoseJimenez

Also looked at both books and went with Wendel Odom's OCG. Much better pedagogy and layout of material.
I also bought eBook version which is in color (you get 70% discount) with exam simulation software.

7255carl

In my opinion, the Official study guide is the more concise and well structured book for those who have little or no previous knowledge, the Sybex book works well but for me left one or two holes the Odom book didnt

Hope this helps

Carl

DoubleNNs

I don't know about concise - at least the newest edition of the Official Cisco study guides rambles a lot. I don't remember the 3rd edition of the 640-8xx exams being that bad, but the new version has an introduction paragraph for every single section - even if that section is already only 1 paragraph.
It's quite frankly annoying and makes the book longer than it has to be. Also makes it harder to keep my focus.

Not saying that it's a bad book overall, but arguing that I think it's way less concise and way less to-the-point as the Todd Lammle book. Even still, I'm using the Official Study Guide myself to study for the ICND2 now.

7255carl

I think concise was a bad choice of words, i meant complete

late_collision

7255carl wrote: »

In my opinion, the Official study guide is the more concise and well structured book for those who have little or no previous knowledge, the Sybex book works well but for me left one or two holes the Odom book didnt

Hope this helps

Carl

I feel exactly the opposite.

I agree with what was said above about Odoms book being easier to digest for those without previous networking experience. But I also feel like there are some gaps between Odoms book and what you will actually see on the test.

I read Odom's book twice and failed the ICND2 test last week. More than a few times, I remember looking at questions and thinking, this wasn't covered in the book.

One example: I encountered a few questions about RIP, not specifically the inner workings of RIP, but RIP related questions. Odom pretty much goes out of his way to avoid talking about RIP, other than acknowledging its existence. Whats even more fun is that RIP is absent from the Exam Topics.

I found it somewhat humorous that Lammle, in the IP Routing chapter, wrote in the overview: "We'll also discuss RIP because you just never know when Cisco will toss in exam questions that include topics they haven't bothered to list as a bona fide objective either!" It makes me think Lammle knows something Odom doesn't...

arrogantbastard

^that is exactly why I believe in using multiple sources for your studies. As nice as it would be to be able to rely on just one source, read it a few times, and be good to go that is just not the case it seems.

jvrlopez

I liked Lammle's Sybex CCNA 640-802 Study Guide.

The writing style was easy for me to follow, I liked the humor, liked the questions, written exams, and labs.

Id recommend it, but like others have said, it probably works better if you had some experience with networking.