Microsoft Office 2013 Release Date Prices, Reviews Roundup and First Impressions

The devil is in the details, according to Microsoft Office 2013 critics.

While consumers shouldn't expect a revolution in workplace computing, the consensus seems to indicate that a host of improvements have been made to the program, successfully promoting enhanced productivity. Keep in mind that critics based their critiques off of a beta version of MS Office 2013, which is free to download here. Before we get to the reviews, let's take a look at Office 2013's pricing options.

Microsoft is looking to change the way that consumers pay for Microsoft Office, and to that end has introduced a subscription based pricing model for the program's 2013 version. Under the new model, Office 365 Home Premium will cost $99.99/year, and Office 365 Small Business Premium will cost $149.99/year. If Office users opt for the traditional licensed offering, Office Home & Student 2013 will be priced at $139.99, Office Home & Business 2013 at $219.99, and Office Professional 2013 at $399.99. Office Small Business Premium offers its suite for $12.50/month and can be used by up to 25 employees.

Microsoft has not yet announced an official release date for Microsoft Office 2013. Next, the beta reviews.

Computer World

"Office 2013's streamlined look and feel may take some getting used to, but I believe it's a step forward for the suite. After using it for a while, I found that Office 2010 started to look dowdy by comparison. Add to that a slew of new features in each Office app, including several big productivity boosters, and Office 2013 is clearly a worthy upgrade, even in this initial beta release.

In fact, I found the beta to be surprisingly stable. The only issues I encountered were occasional problems fetching files from SkyDrive and saving files there. (Of course, all the usual caveats about installing beta software on a production machine still apply.)"

TechRadar

"If you look at a list of the new features in Office 2013, you might not see any one feature you can't live without, but after even a few days of using the new applications there are plenty of features you'll miss. This is another big advance in usability, combined with some extremely clever new tools.

There are features for power users, especially in Excel and PowerPoint, and there are far more features that either make it easier to use the power of existing tools or give you whole new ways to achieve what you're trying to do without having to be an expert. And while we'd like to see more true Metro applications (Outlook that you can search from Metro and keep up to date during Connected Standby needs to be high on the agenda).

Mostly Office 2013 gets the right balance between streamlining and oversimplifying; there are some places where we miss specific power user options, though. But the great thing about a subscription service is that you won't have to wait as long to get updates and improvements."

CNET

"The new Microsoft Office tries to cover all the bases for productivity, and in my early tests, it does an admirable job. With the focus on making the suite available on Windows 8 tablets, the company made many actions easier across the suite out of necessity, making it easier to learn how to use by both businesses and individual consumers regardless of the device they are working on.

With that said, one of my biggest early challenges in testing the software was learning how to navigate Windows 8 before I could even get to the Office apps. This is important because if you're going to follow Microsoft into the world of the touch-screen OS, you may run into the same challenges I did. After a couple of days of testing I was able to navigate the OS quickly, but I think it's worth noting that there is an additional learning curve with Windows 8 before you take the leap."

Engadget

"Sometimes it's the little things, like saving documents to SkyDrive, that charm us most. Even more than any actual feature in Office 2013, what left us most enchanted during our testing period was the moment we powered down our Series 7 tablet, turned it back on, launched Word and found the cursor exactly where we left it. The best thing about Office is not what it does better than Office 2010, but how much more nimble it is in following you from device to device, from shut-down to start-up again. Beyond that, no one single feature of Office 2013 is dazzling, per se, but it doesn't matter: everything here, from YouTube embeds to the chart generator in Excel, works as promised and is intuitive to use. At the same time, the interface doesn't mark a radical departure from previous versions, so even casual users with no use for PivotTables should be able to find their way around."