Aqua Real Screensaver Review

I like fishing. Unfortunately I can’t do it very often, and the winter weather does not help much. An aquarium, although a poor substitute, could keep me around fish, without the smell of the fish market. However, a decent aquarium requires a lot of money and work, two commodities not exactly available here.

So, I settled for an electronic aquarium, and decided to install Aqua Real. The installation was easy and quick. No baits, nets or rods were needed.

The screen is very beautiful. The colors are peaceful, the fishes are pretty well designed and the flow is smooth. There are many options (although limited in the demo version) to adjust the aquarium to your liking: light color, aquarium effects, background music, type and quantity of fish, etc. It also allows you to run it in a “windowed” mode, keeping a window always open instead of working as a screen saver, if you are really addicted to fish.

However, I was disappointed with the lack of options to add, change or move stuff around in the aquarium. On the other hand, the designer was well spirited when created the small hand that allows you to tickle the fish. I also could not find the user manual or any documentation. Although the software is very straight forward to set up and use, it bothers me a publisher that doesn’t take the time to document its product. The website has a FAQ with 2 (you read right: two) questions and answers.

One thing I noticed: you can save your screen from burning using this screen saver, but you may end up burning your CPU: when the software was active the CPU utilization jumped to 100% on my Pentium M 1.6 GHz. This is a common characteristic of this kind of software. If your CPU gets too hot and burns, you could use it to fry the fish…

If you want a simple, easy to setup and use electronic aquarium, Aqua Real is a good option. If you want something more sophisticated, either try other more expensive competitors, or buy an actual aquarium.