college students in the US can score 12 months free of Microsoft 365 Premium and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate with the purchase of an eligible PC, plus a free custom Xbox controller.
Wow. A controller for the gaming ecosystem they’re letting die, and temporary access to their online (worse) office programs along with Game Pass access (also temporary)… Where do I sign up!?
Lmao thanks for saving me a read. That’s so trash
This is an idiotic counter to the Neo. Microsoft is in a position it’s not faced before: Macs are cheaper than PCs. Offering a year of “free services” doesn’t change the fact that Surfaces start at more than twice what Apple has on offer.
Microsoft is unaware that students need a reliable device, this also means a stable OS which they can’t offer.
Windows is remarkably stable. Has been for many years.
Then why do they keep having to roll back what seems like every update they release due to some major bug?
“Seems like” is doing a lot of work here.
But to answer the question: To be sure it stays stable. Rolling back buggy updates is a good thing. You don’t want to leave them.The severity of the bugs that they’re having to roll back for does not scream “stable OS” to me.
Of course not. It whispers. You have to lean in closely, and know what you’re listening for. From a distance all you hear is BUG!
When fucking File Explorer freezes a CAD machine for several minutes at a time resulting in explorer.exe crashing and restarting multiple times a day I’d say it’s not as stable as I got used to. Several of us at the place I work at have been dealing with this, although it has been getting better, it never should have happened in the first place.
That’s not the OS really.
Explorer restarting is no different than any app.Becides, It depends on the specifics, but good chance it’s the CAD software doing something it shouldn’t. Specific small market industry software is notoriously quirky and troublesome.
Nope, it happens with literally just a couple explorer windows, outlook, and teams open. The CAD box comment was just to make clear that it is not on underpowered hardware by any means. And I’ve managed to trigger it with nothing but explorer windows open.
Okay. I don’t know what it could be. I’m not gonna troubleshoot your specific company issue blind from a distance . But still not the OS.
I don’t expect troubleshooting, but it’s not isolated to just my company, my home computer did it too, not nearly as often, and it’s been a while since it’s happened there (probably since I only leave file explorer open for 30 seconds at a time).
And even if it’s not technically part of the OS, will Windows even be in a useable state without it? Most things I see call it a “Core part of the OS,” although those are also specific to Windows 10 so if 11 changed it, that’s news to me. I dont see a difference. To most people (myself included), explorer.exe crashing and restarting looks just like Windows shitting itself, and since it’s packaged with every Windows install, that perception really is hard to argue against despite what some technicality of it being an executable says.
“has been” is right, lol
Or just a Framework and install Linux, skip Microslop
The only thing is that the 8GB Framework 12 is a bit more expensive than the (8GB) MacBook Neo, and if you get it to 16GB it starts getting close to MacBook Air territory. But if you can sacrifice the nice build quality and nice screen plus spend some extra £, you can get Linux and a repairable laptop.
In any case: Windows is just not a value proposition anymore. Why pay extra to deal with Intel, MS and Copilot?
To be fair to Framework, the 12 is a 2-in-1 with a touchscreen, which is not something that’s currently offered on any of Apple’s laptops and at least partially accounts for the extra cost. Of course, economies of scale play a part, as well.
college students in the US can score 12 months free of Microsoft 365 Premium and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate with the purchase of an eligible PC, plus a free custom Xbox controller.
Saved you a click
Which is really funny because most (all?) students get 365 free from their school already
Ok, so students can select either:
- A computer that they can study, work, (light) game, edit photos, and do much more on, without a digital use by date.
- An admittedly excellent office suite, a collection of games, for a limited time, and an Xbox controller, but only if they buy a specific computer.
Yeah, nah Microsoft, nah.
An admittedly excellent office suite
Every time some colleague uses office and I’m forced to hop on as well it feels like my whole workflow just grinds to a halt and there’s nothing that I’d want more than to throw my laptop out the window… There’s not much else that I hate with the same passion like ms Office. “Admittedly excellent”? What?
without a digital use by date
What? Apple just drops devices at some point.
You must have a pretty specific workflow that fails so completely using Microsoft Office.
The second point is that as has already been mentioned, you can keep using the computer after the software support ends, that doesn’t really work for most subscription software.
You must have a pretty specific workflow that fails so completely using Microsoft Office.
My company provides latex templates, so I’m using those. They also provide a gitlab instance, so working collaboratively is easy and reliable.
The second point is that as has already been mentioned, you can keep using the computer after the software support ends, that doesn’t really work for most subscription software.
Fair point.
Regarding the second point… the offer from Microsoft is good for 12 months. The Apple software does not expire. Sure, the support will end in about 7 years, but that’s a completely different story
That was exactly my point.
The subscriptions are only available to new subscribers.
