Rating: 
Summary: Perfect for running around.
Review: You'll learn more from a Lonely Planet guide, but damn, those things get heavy. The Eyewitness guide looks like USA Today---bright colors, lots of pictures and charts---but contains a surprising density of information. All the tourist highlights, and enough back-alley weirdness to keep all but the most world-wise traveler interested and involved.
Rating: 
Summary: This book made me a DK convert
Review: Before moving to London for three months (summer of 2001) to finish up my graduate degree, I went to the Rand McNally store in Boston to find a good guidebook to take with me. I figured I would go there, because it specializes in travel and maps, unlike a regular bookstore. The clerk, when I told him how long I would be living in London, suggested this book, and since then I have been a huge advocate for the DK Eyewitness Travel Guides.
When I travel, I am either staying with friends or already have my accommodations arranged, so there's no need for the Fodor's or Frommer's hotel section that their guides offer, and for restaurants I prefer Zagat's, or, better yet, asking the locals or friends and family for suggestions. And, for plays, musicals, concerts, the club scene, movies and shopping, get the Time Out London weekly magazine.
If all you have for your trip to London is the DK Eyewitness Travel Guide and the most recent Time Out London weekly magazine (and I highly recommend its sister magazine, Time Out New York for trips to the Big Apple), you will have everything you need.
Every tourist attraction has listed the nearest Tube station(s), the most popular sites have schematics labeling what's in what room and the most interesting things to see, and the layout by neighborhood makes it easy to make the best use of your time. I know I would not have visited half the places I did had I not found out about them in this guidebook.
While over there, I bought the DK Great Britain, since I was taking some trips outside London. In the past few years I have gotten the DK Washington, DC (where I now live) and the DK New York, gave the DK Greek Islands and DK Istanbul as gifts, and every time someone asks about guidebooks, the first recommendation I give is DK. So far, I have been equally impressed with each DK Eyewitness Guide, and I plan to purchase one for every trip I take.
Rating: 
Summary: Nice graphically, but in terms of utility...
Review: I think the title of my review wraps it all up: the eyewitness guides are a work of graphic art. Their highlight is probably the great work on the maps, both small and large scale, which are of great help as you navigate around the city looking for sights. As a tool for reaching all of the sights you want to see, I would say that the Eyewitness Guide is among the best, with its street map, neighborhood maps and Metro/subway guide. In addition to this, as another positive comment I would say that it is a great guide to take on a trip if you don't have much time and you need information presented in an easy-to-read, simple manner. The drawings and photos, and the way they are laid out, is very appealing. In fact, this guidebook is almost better just for getting an idea of what London looks like than as an actual guidebook to be used in the city itself.The advantages stop there, however. If you really want to get to know a city, you simply need more in-depth historical and cultural information on the sights you are seeing. Most of the locations described in the Eyewitness Guide do not stretch beyond a paragraph or two, which is quite superficial in my opinion. If you really want to know about the history behind the church, monument, museum or park you have traveled so far to see, you will definitely need another guidebook to give you any kind of detail. This flaw becomes far worse when you read the sections on sights outside of the city or in the suburbs (which are many!). The descriptions become utterly superficial. Harsh critique also for the hotel and restaurant information, which is limited to places designed for the rich and famous, or at least the very upper of the upper-middle class. The best guides give you a little info. on all styles of lodging and food, from low budget to luxury, but these guides make little effort to do so, and even the information on the laps of luxury is limited to little symbols, instead of providing descriptions like other guides do. With this combination of characteristics, I think Eyewitness is good to take along for a short trip in which you have little time to spend seeing the city and you don't really care about getting any deep information on what you're seeing. Otherwise, keep looking for another guidebook.
Rating:
Summary: Eywitness Travel Guide to London
Review: I had a 23 hour layover in London, and decided to do some sight seeing while I was there. So I went to the book store and I picked this book from several to help me get the most out of my time in London. It helped me understand the subway system, gave the best advice to get from Heathrow to 'downtown' in the quickest manner possible (the Heathrow Express), and was broken down into sectional maps of the major regions of London so that you can navigate to your destination. This book's made of thick paper that will not tear easily, and it's small enough that you can carry in around with you, to reference as you go. It also explains things like the mail, the money (study the coins from the pictures), the telephones, the buses and the taxis. So it has practical information in additon to places of historical or cultural significance. It's very well organized, easy to use, and the pictures are outstanding. In additon to this book, I'd also advise the popout map of London, because it's so compact, it's self folding and it's made of thick paper that will not tear very easily (unlike most maps). Both the book and the map a printed on glossy paper, so you don't have to worry about the damp weather ruining them.
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