Office Vs Office 365

stoofa · 5 Jun 2015 at 08:48

I'll be honest - I'm not familiar with Office 365.
I have an old copy of Office 2010 running on my main PC at the moment. We've added a laptop and want to put office on this too.
I am currently studying with the OU and I can purchase a 4yr subscription to 365 for 2 PC's and 2 phones plus 1TB of OneDrive storage for £59.99.

Seems a good price when comparing to just buying another copy of Office for the laptop.
How does 365 compare to "stand alone" office?
Want to make sure I'm not getting a heavily "dumbed down" version.

Thanks.

Skeeter · 5 Jun 2015 at 09:19

With an Office 365 subscription you get the full locally installed Office apps, at the most recent version (2013 at the moment, with a beta of 2016 available to test).

Its not a dumbed down version, its the same as if you bought stand alone Office, but with the benefit of being updated too.

linktoinsanity · 5 Jun 2015 at 09:35

stoofa said:
I'll be honest - I'm not familiar with Office 365.
I have an old copy of Office 2010 running on my main PC at the moment. We've added a laptop and want to put office on this too.
I am currently studying with the OU and I can purchase a 4yr subscription to 365 for 2 PC's and 2 phones plus 1TB of OneDrive storage for £59.99.

Seems a good price when comparing to just buying another copy of Office for the laptop.
How does 365 compare to "stand alone" office?
Want to make sure I'm not getting a heavily "dumbed down" version.

Thanks.

£60 for 4 years subscription is pretty good, as you would normally buy a new copy of Office after 4 years anyway (on average).

The only thing I would check is what is included in the package compared to what you need. Does it include Outlook? Powerpoint? Publisher? Do you need any of them. If it doesn't include what you need, then you may need to check a higher priced package.

ChrisD. · 5 Jun 2015 at 09:38

That's a good deal. Don't forget that 365 allows multiple installs as well, 5 PC's and Mac's as well as on tablets etc.

TheMightyTen · 5 Jun 2015 at 09:44

S2KIP said:
That's a good deal. Don't forget that 365 allows multiple installs as well, 5 PC's and Mac's as well as on tablets etc.

Depends on what subscription you buy, not all 365 purchases and subs are the same (The clue is contained in the OP if you READ it carefully

)

ChrisD. · 5 Jun 2015 at 09:53

Ah. I bought mine on my iPad when on holiday, I needed to edit a document so it's whatever subscription you get through the App store.

thenewoc · 5 Jun 2015 at 10:02

Just seems to be the number of devices it can be installed on is reduced to 2 vs 5 desktops + 5 tables + 5 phones for Office 365 Home edition.

Not sure about the description for Access as it states you can create web apps but that isn't the case in the Home edition because it requires Sharepoint. Not sure if you get some Sharepoint cloud service bundled with the Uni edition so I would take that Access description with a pinch of salt.

andshrew · 5 Jun 2015 at 10:28

I'm reasonably sure that with 2010 your existing license allows you to install on both a desktop and an additional portable device (ie. your new laptop).

stoofa · 5 Jun 2015 at 10:40

I hadn't thought of the fact my old 2010 license would allow for desktop and laptop installation - I'll check that.

With regards the 365. It is just for 2 devices plus 2 phones as opposed to the "Home" which allows 5 devices.
I'd get:

Word
Excel
PowerPoint
OneNote
Outlook
Publisher
Access

I'll have a think on this. Even if my existing 2010 license covers a second install - £60 for 4yrs of Office 2013 access plus any upgrades in that time seems like a good price.

Cheers all.

thenewoc · 5 Jun 2015 at 11:12

It does seem a good price, the small print also says that eligible students can activate a 2nd licence in year 3, so potentially 8 years sorted for ~£120 can't be bad. You might be able to buy it through topcashback too for an additional 12% cashback.

Skeeter · 5 Jun 2015 at 11:21

With 4 years that will be Office 2013 and 2016 at least. You might even sneak in the next version after that at the end too.

sven256 · 5 Jun 2015 at 12:15

I would hold off if you can until near when the new year starts. Microsoft always put offers on then in the student store, last year I got a £20 voucher for buying the same thing.

gpuerrilla · 5 Jun 2015 at 17:55

I think the newer office offerings give you large onedrive storage for free which is rather nice.

Minstadave · 5 Jun 2015 at 18:03

I'm a fan of 365, I buy the home version when on offer - paid £40 a year last time it was on offer and got 3 years worth.

Have it installed on 5 PCs and tablet/mobile too. The Onedrive space is useful for backups and there's even 60 international skype minutes a month which I make good use of. Storing documents in the cloud is great as I don't have to remember to transfer anything to the laptop.

£60 for 4 years is pretty good.

Amraam · 5 Jun 2015 at 19:07

We use 365 and 2013 at work at it's great. Using 2013 at home, but I got two licenses for Office 2013 for £9

lurkio · 5 Jun 2015 at 21:13

I think the new office 365 feature of crashing when trying to do simple copy paste operations between documents to be the best upgrade feature from office 2010

nightmare99 · 6 Jun 2015 at 07:37

I think the new office 365 feature of crashing when trying to do simple copy paste operations between documents to be the best upgrade feature from office 2010

I don't have this problem.

MichaelAwkward · 6 Jun 2015 at 10:01

Edit: Nevermind

HaloUK · 17 Sep 2015 at 14:28

So to get this straight, if I get Office 365 I am getting the latest office, 2013 and within the 4 years I get any upgrades like office 2016 when its released?

bledd · 17 Sep 2015 at 14:33

Yup

I guess they got tired of the rife pirating many people did with Office.

For my needs, office.com and googledocs cover it all. I do chip in towards a 365 subscription in my family though, I use it for the extra OneDrive space.