My current MacBook is a 2011 model. Over the years I have replaced the battery and touchpad and added RAM. But I think the lifespan of this computer is coming to an end.

I will get a new 13" MacBook Pro. Current price of $1,299. I considered doing this last year, but held off. When I considered it, Costco had the 13" MacBook Pro on sale for $999, which was $250 off. I think that was back in the fall. Do I have a chance of catching this sale again? Or since the MacBook is a new 2020 model, the sale will not happen?

I also need MS Office (Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook) for work purposes. I use Outlook and Excel everyday. Not a heavy user, or detailed stuff, but I use them. To purchase outright is $250. For office 365 it is $70 per year. I am leaning towards the outright purchase, because if I keep the new machine for 9 years, with the subscription I would spend $630 for Office 365 over 9 years. Pros and cons?

As far as a deal on one, I would check the refurbished apples. I bought mine there and have had no issues.

https://www.apple.com/shop/ref...shed/mac/macbook-pro

For office, I would go with the subscription. Excel changes every few years. Outlook adds new features as well. Being able to keep these up to date, especially if you’re a daily user, would be my preference.

I get my Macs from Apple's refurbished program. Here's the latest Macbook Pro, if you can get a brand new one for $1,299 you should jump on it!

https://www.apple.com/shop/pro...f2a626936210117cdc5a

I'm with you,I purchase Office for Mac outright and don't want a subscription for Office 365.

A couple of suggestions:

For the computer, check the Apple website for refurbished units. These are really 100% as good as new retail, with the same warranty from Apple.

If you are not doing any heavy duty video, you might want to consider the MacBook Air instead of the MacBook Pro. My wife bought a refurbished MacBook Air through the Apple website a couple of years ago and it has been absolutely great!

https://www.apple.com/shop/ref...book-air-macbook-pro

As far as Microsoft Office, if you really need that, the trade-off on buy vs. rent, if you use the 365 option you will always have the latest version available; if you buy the desktop version, you do get updates, but not version upgrades. I believe that the 365 version also includes a fair amount of cloud storage.

Before spending any money for the Microsoft product, I suggest that you might want to download LibreOffice and give it a try. It is totally FREE, so if it doesn't work for you, just toss it in the trash. I have been using it for years and find that it does the job for me just fine, for documents and spreadsheets.

I would 2nd Apple refurbished program although I know sometimes you want the newest version when you're going to keep it for a while.

Hard to predict Apple sales and this model is brand new. Maybe around the holidays but I would just buy it if you need it.

Make sure if you need more memory of HD space you know if it can be upgraded down the road or buy it now. In my first Macbook, I was able to save money and upgrade all that stuff myself.

Last one I bought they had started to integrate everything onto the motherboard. Memory on mine if tough to upgrade because it's not a standard size. If you're not doing any photo or video editing likely not an issue.

For the 13" MacBook Pro, make sure you get the most recent one. The keyboard is much better.
The saga of Apple’s bad butterfly MacBook keyboards is finally over

Sales on new Macs usually occur to clear inventory for the new models, and the prices go lower after the new model is introduced. Go to https://www.macrumors.com/ and check the buyers guides to see when a model is about to be replaced.
The few times I've been to Costco, most of the electronics they sell are "Costco Only" versions or the previous generation at a discount.

As for Office 365, I log in to my work account and install it on my Macs (and Window partition on my MacBook) for free. This is completely legal per the license. Apple iWork apps can open Office files so if it works for you, it's free. The Mail app can work with Outlook accounts so that's not an issue either.

That said MS is rather brilliant with their Office 365 scam. It is basically an annual tax on everyone with a PC and thus is very reliable revenue that will last essentially forever. No need to convince people to pay to upgrade to the new versions, or the associated file format changes to force people to upgrade, and no need to update them so often to maintain revenue.

I pretty much refuse to pay this tax. But between college, work, and grad school I've always been able to get Office for free.

quote:

Originally posted by V-Tail:

Before spending any money for the Microsoft product, I suggest that you might want to download LibreOffice and give it a try. It is totally FREE, so if it doesn't work for you, just toss it in the trash. I have been using it for years and find that it does the job for me just fine, for documents and spreadsheets.

Agree -- before I retired, my last work used LibreOffice -- so much like Excel (and the rest of Office) I couldn't really tell the difference.

Tinyman

quote:

Originally posted by comet24:
I would 2nd Apple refurbished program although I know sometimes you want the newest version when you're going to keep it for a while.

Like you, I have an older Macbook Pro (2014 in my case). I have done the battery replacement and received a replacement screen under warranty after they had coating issues, so it's still working well and in great shape.

It still works fine but in a year I will replace it with the top of the line, best I can reasonably buy and keep it for 5+ years.

The laptop I'm on is a refurbished macbook air. It replaced my 2009 macbook, which got smashed in a taxi. The refurbished program is great; mine was for all appearances, brand new, and had as much memory and storage as possible; good deal for the price, considering macs.

I use microsoft office; I don't use 365. I want everything on my computer, and I don't want to rent it yearly. Gone are the days of partitioning. It runs seamlessly, and I use it a lot. It's the primary reason I have a laptop.

Just my US$0.02.

Monitor 9to5toys.com for sales. I've seen quite a few says on MacBooks over the past several months. You might find a better deal that the refurbished store.

Personally, I'd go with MS Office 365 over outright purchase. Microsoft typically updates Office everything three years and I don't want to be using old software for compatibility purposes. 365 also gives you some other perks which you may or may not like. A 365 license also allows you to use the full blown versions on an iPad if that matters to you.

A couple of weeks ago I upgraded my Macbook pro to the latest operating system. Opened it up and my "MS office for Mac" was gone. Tried to open some documents and opened with some new MS office program that wanted payment to use. I wiped the machine and re loaded my old system.