Which microsoft word product to buy

Parent Cafe
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<p>Students were using laptops back when I attended college, especially during the last two years of my undergrad career when notebook prices started seriously dropping and there was more perceived need for them to complete coursework and prepare for the working world. Dorms were just as much shared spaces back then as now.</p>

<p>One major difference I noticed between students of that period or the colleagues at my first jobs and the last several years is it seems students/adults and their parents/employers are much more blase about damaging laptop computers by doing things like dropping them or spilling water on them. </p>

<p>It may have also been a time/generational difference as most students back then would be too embarrassed to admit they damaged their notebook computers by doing things which would have been viewed by many back then as excessive carelessness. </p>

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<p>Cobrat, I’m a lot older than you. I bought my first computer in 1980. Computers have been being damaged by spilled liquids and other issues as long as computers have been around. The main difference is widespread adoption of laptops as opposed to desktop machines. It’s not that nothing ever got spilled on a desktop computer – it’s just that the keyboard was separate and easier to replace. </p>

<p>I will say that laptops these days seem to be better built – it seems like in the past computer parts would give out on their own a lot sooner. I doubt I would have even thought it possible that the laptop my son bought before heading of to college – seems to me in those days that most hard drives gave out in 3 years or less. So it possible that it was less likely then that the computer problem would be a result of external damage and a lot more likely that the problems would stem from internal hardware failure. </p>

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<p>Both my kids had their laptops die in college. S’s lasted less than 2 years, D’s lasted less than 3 years. There was no abuse, misuse, spilled beverages–the machines just stopped working and could not be fixed for any reasonable sum. My understanding is that these issues are not uncommon.</p>

<p>On the other hand, we have some laptops in our home that are about 15 years old and still functioning, though they do run hot. Because they run so hot, I prefer to use my iPad mini and a keyboard instead of the laptops, even tho they are not exact substitutes for one another (especially since I don’t have the Microsoft office programs installed on my mini).</p>

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<p>Calmom–I tried to use Open Office on a new computer and had a lot of problems (which I can’t recall the details of now, but they were frustrating). I need absolute compatibility because I submit writing to publications which have particular standards. I bought a stand alone Word. I needed a seamlessness which I was not getting from open office, though I respect their work.</p>

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<p>Yes, if I had a need to use a particular brand or product for school, I wouldn’t fool around with a “similar” product and risk the ire of my teachers or colleagues of potential incompatibility, especially here where the cost for 4 years looks to be only $80! Just saying it seems the wrong place to economize, to me. </p>

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<p>Freebies and cloud-based programs are fine and dandy if you are not doing any serious word processing or handling sophisticated spreadsheets. For instance, I am working on a 600+ document heavily embedded with special images - using a stand-alone word and specialty programs. There are no freebies that can handle this document!</p>

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<p>@garland, I also have written books where my publisher specified specific formatting. They always want Word. </p>

<p>Again: The cloud-base Office365 is also a stand alone program that can be installed on multiple computers – the student version can be installed on 2 computers and / or devices – the regular home user account allows 5 installations (@$99/year) so it can be shared among multiple family members.</p>

<p>Documents can also be store to the cloud (onedrive) and accessed from there, as well as edited – and can even be shared for co-editing. So for example if a student was working on a group product with other students, the paper could be shared via onedrive and everyone could work on it, just the same as with Google docs.</p>

<p>However, there is more feature-rich array of editing & formatting tools when working on the desktop.</p>

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<p>Yes, calmom! I think garland confused you with aomeone else who recommended Openoffice. I also meant to say “freebie cloud based programs” without the “and” (because that would imply that Office365 falls into that category, but it does not!). Office365 comes with both “stand alone” and cloud programs. I can edit my smaller documents online on a machine that does not have Word, which is very handy at times! I highly recommend it for a student. </p>

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<p>OK I gotta ask. How does an employee destroy not one but several desktops?</p>

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<p>No, I didn’t confuse Calmom with someone recommending OO, I was agreeing with her about its drawbacks.:)</p>

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<p>I think MSFT made a mistake by pricing its product so low and not making it very clear that it includes both online and HDD versions. Many look at the price tag and think automatically that they are being asked to pay for cloud service similar to the one they can get elsewhere for “free”. I have heard shoppers ask this question several times while I was picking my Surface at the store, “So, if this runs online, what’s the difference between it and something like Google docs - the $80 I need to pay for it?”</p>

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<p>As someone who hasn’t only used computers, but has also been tasked with troubleshooting/repairing them since college, my perspective differs a bit from yours.</p>

<p>IME, desktop and notebook build quality peaked sometime in the late '90s/early 00’s before desktop/notebook manufacturers cut serious corners across the board. </p>

<p>One notorious example of this was the “capacitor plague” which affected the computer manufacturing industry as a whole from 2002-2007 or thereabouts. Affected dell and apple alike and caused many computers to have premature short lives and lots of class action lawsuits. Here’s an article discussing it:</p>

<p><a href=“How a stolen capacitor formula ended up costing Dell $300m | Dell | The Guardian”>http://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2010/jun/29/dell-problems-capacitors&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>As an IT person, I’ve noticed the general build quality of notebook computers to drop across the board with the notable exception of IBM thinkpads right before they were sold to Lenovo and Apple products in the mid-late '00s. </p>

<p>Another was dealing with some 2005 era dell Inspiron notebook with serious freezing issues because Dell decided to cut so many corners the cheap plastic casing wasn’t thick/sturdy enough to prevent flexing to the point the motherboard itself was flexed enough to cause soldered connections to develop microscopic broken joints. </p>

<p>Another abysmal example was someone who brought in a Toshiba manufactured within the last 5 years and thought he was to blame for “breaking the power jack”. Turned out while he was right about the broken power jack, the real cause of the issue was a manufacturing defect from poor workmanship. Unfortunately, the defect was serious enough that the notebook was a total loss. Really disappointed in Toshiba considering their notebook lines were the epitome of sturdy reliability in the late '90s/early '00s. </p>

<p>In short, I think while notebooks are built to be more aesthetically pleasing compared with the past, most notebooks themselves seem to have worse build quality compared with the notebooks I dealt with in late college and the first few years of the '00s decade. Most techies I’ve chatted with IRL and online and I have been musing as to whether this itself is a form of deliberate “built-in obsolescence” to get people to replace their notebooks more often than was the case in the past. </p>

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<p>The few incidents I know of were accidentally spilling a whole can of coke into the desktop tower while it was powered on, spilling coffee into tower after attempt to use the CD-rom drive as a “coffee cup holder” failed after breaking from the weight of the filled coffee cup, etc. </p>

<p>They were hard to miss considering they resulted in mini-explosions/fizzing and a decent cloud of smoke. I was surprised at how they gave him multiple second chances considering how expensive those devices were and how he violated office rules by even having liquid in a non-spillproof container within his cubicle. </p>

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<p>Is there a notebook brand you WOULD recommend at this point, or is it mostly luck of the draw in terms of getting one that is fairly reliable & just buy on price and features? Just curious as we bought a laptop for dad yesterday. Ended up with a Toshiba from Costco and we are hoping he will get some years of use surfing with it. </p>

<p>Our kids had the Sony Vaio and HP both die on them in a under 2-3 years. S bought another laptop but doesn’t like how hot it runs, so he plans to replace. I’m now spoiled by the iPad mini and how nice and cool it runs.</p>

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<p>I’ve had a Dell and my S two Toshibas. One of the Toshibas and the Dell have lasted a lot longer than 5 years. One Toshiba had trouble with the charger not plugging in anymore after about 4 years.</p>

<p>D has a Macbook Air, new (well, refurb from Apple). As I understand it, the HDD may last longer because it’s flash, not a typical spinning HDD, but it’s too soon to say.</p>

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<p>It is a bit of a luck of the draw, especially if you’re buying a budget/consumer-line notebook from a given manufacturer.</p>

<p>Also, some brands I’d avoid totally are Sony* and HP**.</p>

<p>Personally, I try to mitigate my risk by buying a corporate-line notebook where prices range from $1200+, especially if I was going to be using it for mission-critical stuff like school and work. </p>

<p>I’d also take a serious look at the corporate Lenovo or ASUS line of notebooks. The former only seem to cut corners on their lowest-end consumer-grade lines and ASUS seems to have developed a great rep within the computer tech community. </p>

<p>As for Apple, it seems their quality peaked in the mid-late '00s as I’ve read about and dealt with more problems with Apple notebooks from the 10s onward. Graphic chip/motherboard issues, overheating, and WIFI/ethernet port failures are some issues they seem to be suffering from. </p>

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<li>Overpriced with poor build quality. Lost count of how many internal clients and friends had issues with that brand.<br></li>
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<p>** Their reputation among computer tech folks took a dive after their merger with Compaq which by that point had a LOWER reputation for reliability and quality than Dell. Even the recent ones have issues ranging from poorly designed cooling systems to graphical/motherboard issues. </p>

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<p>Thanks. We hope dad’s Toshiba gives him many years of use, as he bought the best one Costco had and just wants to surf with it at his workplace. He uses his desktop at home. </p>

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<p>Good thing with Costco is you/your father has 90 days to decide whether to keep or return it for a full refund no questions asked. </p>

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<p>Yea, plus we used his Costco AmEx CC, so he has an extra year of warranty protection as well. He was waffling between an MacBook Air or some other Apple products or a PC. We told him that if he gets an Apple product, he needs t oget someone else to help with tech support as H only services PCs (has done so for decades). Dad ultimately decided to stick with PCs, since it is compatible with his desktop and he likes my H’s cheery door-to-door tech support. ;)</p>

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<p>With Dell, it really depends on whether you bought the corporate line(Latitudes/XPS) versus the consumer/budget line(Inspiron/Vostro). This also applies to some extent with Toshiba as the Tecra is geared for corporate users versus the consumer/budget Satellite lines…though I was really disappointed in the workmanship of a few recent Tecras I’ve tried out/examined. </p>

<p>Even saying all that, there can be lemons with the corporate line as I mentioned above with Toshiba and some Dells…just that the likelihood of lemons are reduced. </p>

<p>As for SSD(Solid-state drives) versus regular hard drives, the benefits of the former are faster boot/retrieval speeds, lower energy consumption, greater resilience from drops as there are no moving parts, etc.</p>

<p>The negatives of SSDs currently are mainly cost per gigabyte and how the SSD drive operates somewhat like a DVD/CD-RW drive with an exponentially greater yet finite set re-write cycles before the information stored becomes permanent. </p>

<p>The latter is one reason why operating systems need to be configured to run a low-level sector leveling program to ensure all sectors of the SSD have even wear to prolong overall service life. Fortunately, SSD/flash memory technology has advanced to the point you’re likely to be looking for a new notebook well before the SSD’s maximal sector rewrite cycles has been reached under normal office/consumer level usage. </p>

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<p>The current version of Office for the Mac is 2011 - 2013 is for Windows computers.</p>

<p>The difference between the subscription version (Office 365) and a perpetual license is that Office 2011 has Outlook in addition to Word, Excel and Power Point.</p>

<p>I’d be cautious of Google docs if your school is recommending Office. We had a prof just this week not be able to open a Google docs document from a student - he was invited to share the document from a student but the prof didn’t have a gmail account and didn’t want one. We tried to convert it to a format he could read but weren’t able to. Ditto the Pages program that comes with a Mac. It’s often not readable by Office (I’m sure by design). If you don’t need Outlook the subscription is fine and $80 for four years is a steal. </p>