to think 60£ is rather expensive for a software licence?

[redsummershoes]

laptop came with one year ms 365
is about to run out,
license renewal for another year is 60£
aibu to think that that's daylight robbery!

I’m assuming you mean the MS Office package with Word, Excel, PowerPoint etc? £60 for a year’s use of several softwares isn’t actually much at all. I pay £80+ a year just for LightRoom and PS!

Use Google docs instead

Not really relevant but work pay nearly $10k a year for some software licences (or at least that’s what IT charge back to the business!).
I wouldn’t be too impressed at buying a computer where you had to keep paying annually for a licence for installed software if you weren’t updating it though.

will it still work if I don't update?
will only need a word processor and internet browser.

Just upload all of your work to Google docs and use that going forwards. It’s free. Most universities recommend it.

Use Google docs instead

We are forced to use Google programs at work and they are shit compared to the Microsoft ones. They are soo stripped down they can be pretty useless at times. Apparently making it harder to do basic things on spreadsheets or a word processor is progress and apparently saves money.

Google docs is good if you're just using the basics, but if you want to do complex stuff in Excel then Google Sheets doesn't quite cut it. I've not had any problem with Google Docs or Slides though.

If you think £60 is a lot, try paying for SPSS or Photoshop!

We also use google docs for most things at work - am an investment analyst so my analysis is often complicated with dashboards / forms etc. Google docs works brilliantly. Not sure what the issue is. It’s not exactly the same as Microsoft but just as powerful.

thanks, will have a look.
I wouldn't mind paying 20£ tbh, but 60 is, imo, too much for something this basic.

www.microsoft.com/en-gb/p/office-home-student-2019/cfq7ttc0k7c8?activetab=pivot%3aoverviewtab

You can get Office 2019 - £120 one-off.

Office is a very powerful set of software. It has many more features than Google Docs, Office Online, Libre Office etc.

Google docs is crap compared to Microsoft Word

I'm a bit pissed off tbh.
it's a laptop aimed at learners (i.e. cheap) but with a yearly license it's not cheap anymore.
I only need word processing and a browser to access the internet.
will it still work after the license expired?

Are you a student? You might be able to get it cheaper through your uni/college if so.

Or some large workplaces are given a discount.

Which aspects of word processing do you do that are too complex for Google Docs? Because I really can't think of any. As I've said before I can see the difference with advanced spreadsheet use, but word processing really isn't an issue.

As for browsers I'd take Chrome over Edge any day of the week.

I have never tried google docs. so if that's a basic word processing that's fine for my use if it can be shared without issues with others.
no, I'm not a student.

Plenty of codes on ebay.

I won't make any comment on the legalities of buying them that way, but they do work.

Google.docs is good unless you have a v long complex doc and it gets a bit slow.

Office 365 is online, so it won't work the sake if you don't renew - from their site:

When your Office 365 Education plan expires:

The Office applications enter a reduced-functionality mode, which means that you can view documents, but you cannot edit or create new documents.
Online services associated with the academic email address—for example, Office Online and OneDrive—will no longer work.

If you just need the basics as you say, I'd use open office (free) or buy an ms package £120 as pp said

If you have school-age kids they must also need at least a word processor to do homework and possibly email. One of the options in MS365 is a family pack of 5 licenses which is much better value.

There are other software licenses that have educational versions if you can prove that you have school aged kids, especially Adobe (Acrobat, Photoshop etc). No-one can check that you installed it on the kids computer though .

Given that MS Office used to be £300+ to buy outright and eventually the version you bought was superceded, £60 per year for always up to date software is pretty reasonable IF you need the huge capabilities of any of the MS Office apps and can't manage with freeware.

Suggest you let it expire, try Google Docs to see if you can live with it, then re-subscribe to MS365 if you decide you need it. Consider the version with Outlook, it's a much better email app than the default Mail app in Windoze. MS365 doesn't include a browser, I agree that Chrome is better than Edge and is a free download.

From DH: If you feel £60 is too much to spend then I would use Google docs or libreoffice. Microsoft have loads of people working on this stuff (which is why it is so expensive) and it has more features than 99.99999 percent of people use.

yeah, that's the thing.
I only use word, really. I have no need for the other stuff.

redsummershoes
Apache Open Office is completely free, and compatible with MS Office.

www.openoffice.org/download/index.html

thanks all.
have now installed open office and it works great for my purposes!