Microsoft Office Home and Student 2010, 1 User [Product Key Card] (PC)

This does what it says on the packet, but you need to read the packet carefully. The following things are stated clearly:

1)This version contains Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote but not Outlook, Access or Publisher
2)It is designed for use with a new PC preloaded with Office 2010 Starter Edition, which will have you tearing your hair out very quickly indeed, unless you have never used Office before, don't have any existing documents or spreadsheets you need to work with again, and can live with adverts taking up a quarter of your screen.
3)It is only for use with a single PC - if you need to install it on more PCs you should buy the CD 3-user version.
4)You need to activate it within 30 days of receipt.

The packaging is excessive for what's inside it, this could have been sent without the plastic case and the cardboard sleeve, which are clearly designed to hold a CD.

Installation takes a few minutes but is trouble free. However once installed, if you look at the Office item on your start menu, ALL the Office suite is there including Outlook, Access and Publisher. You don't find out until you open one of these and complete setup, that these are 30-day trial versions and you are now invited to buy the Professional version. There is then an option to uninstall them if you don't want them - not difficult, but why are they there in the first place when this isn't mentioned on the packaging or anywhere in the original setup process (I presume unless you choose Custom setup). If I had wanted Office Professional, that's what I'd have bought. It's a marketing ploy which I find annoying.

Apart from that, it's the same old Office with a few tweaks, assuming you have already used Office 2007. If you are upgrading from Office 2003 or earlier, there are major changes in appearance which you may and may not like. Personally I find the Ribbon cumbersome, it takes up more of the screen than the old dropdown menus and things seem to have been moved for the sake of moving them, like when supermarkets rearrange their stock to make you buy more. I'm used to it now after a fashion, but the principle of "if it ain't broke don't fix it" seems not to have been heard of by Microsoft as always.

The Amazon price makes the product good value for money providing you are aware of all the above.

I thought i was ordering an official product key for Microsoft office Home & Student 2010. Instead all I received was an A4 piece of paper with a 25 digit code, not recognised by Microsoft, and some instructions to download which did not work.

Also, the download, if successful, would be for Microsoft standard - not what I ordered or was advertised on the Amazon site.

Since Amazon does not appear to have a returns policy for Digital Downloads I have sent a message via the original order link but I am not going to hold my breath.

So just be very careful if you are considering buying the product. Yes, it is a lot cheaper than going to another outlet like Comet or Currys, but if I am unable to use this product or get a refund it is still an expensive lesson.

Update:16th June 2012
Amazon sorted out a refund for me so many thanks to them.

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REVIEW SUMMARY - If my review was tl:dr for you, this will give you a quick summary
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Office 2007 is pretty perfect for my needs, its simple to use with the ribbon interface,
has all the excellent programs a home/student user would need and is quite cheap these days.

Office 2010 is a very minor upgrade, everything remains in the same place mostly, there are
minor additions to the programs such as in Word, you have more picture options, and in Excel
can make graphs inside cells. But for the price, it is not really a worthwhile upgrade if you
are working well with Office 2007. My advice would be to avoid this until an inevitable price drop.

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STARTUP & APPEARANCE
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Office 2010 does start up a bit quicker, but only by a second if that. That being said,
on a powerful PC it is nice to see your blank document open up almost immediatley. For the
majority though, the difference will be non-existent, or will not amount to anything useful.

Appearance is almost identical to Office 2007. Classic ribbon interface above. However, the
Office 'Orb' button has been replaced with the old File menu. This now provides a list to your
left with all the common tasks of opening, saving, sending, printing, and recent documents. On
the right handside is the detailed options of the menu selection, on the Print section for example
you now have a nice preview without needing to open up print preview, all the printer options now
have nice big icons, everything seems a tad more user friendly.

You can also customise the Office program colours to blue, silver and black. It's a nice touch i think
as i can now blend the Office suite into my dark Windows theme. Nothing major, but im easily pleased!

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NEW FEATURES
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- Ribbon interface is now in all Office programs including Outlook & One Note
- You can now fully customise the ribbon to add your own buttons and tabs
- More user friendly file menu with left navigation pane has replaced 'Office button'
- In Word 2010 you can now easily make screenshots with a few clicks using the ribbon
- Office 2010 has more artistic effects and styles to use on your photos (e.g colour correction)
- Videos can now be edited within PowerPoint, very simple editor but works well, includes effects too
- Outlook now has an ignore button which gets rid of conversations you don't want (both
current and future messages relating to that thread)
- Easier control options over conversations in Outlook using right click menu
- Using the custom ribbon interface you can add common tasks you do in Outlook
- New Smart Art designs
- Excel sparklines and slicers. Sparklines are tiny charts that fit into cells. Slicers are objects
you can use to filter data in pivot tables
- Existing documents opened up for the first time use Protected Mode. There is no ribbon available,
and you cannot edit them. Click enable editing to turn to the usual mode. Nice safety feature.
- Simulatenous editing. Now 2 people can edit the same document at the same time. Great for collaboration.

Not a great deal, but some genuinely handy features in some applications.
I would see if you really could make some use out of them before thinking of buying.

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WEB APPS
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To try and compete with the monster that is Google, Microsoft are now offering Web versions of
its Office programs with each desktop version you buy. These are like Google Docs, but are the familar
Office programs you have come to love. They simply open in your web browser, and allow you to share your
work with others online. Good for people who travel a lot, and the Microsoft SkyDrive (online storage space)
should come in handy. There a few things to consider though:

1. Only available for Word, Excel, PowerPoint (and OneNote, but this will be at a later date)
2. Only compatible with Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari (no Chrome, wonder why)

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PRICE TAG
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As above, it's a bit too expensive right now. For what you are getting, which is a very minor upgrade
i don't think it is worth it. However, a price drop is almost inevtiable. And when it happens, i think
Office 2010 would be a nice upgrade.

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CONCLUSION
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I know i am happy with Office 2007, it does everything i need it to do. 2010 was nothing special,
some of the features did seem useful but i can live without them. I think for the majority of people,
Office 2007 will more than suffice for a few more years, or until 2010 comes down in price.

For those of you who use the suite day in and day out, most of the day, then this could be worth looking
at definitley. The small upgrades and few new features won't seem like much initially, but after a while
you will start to like them. Again, that's only if using something like Word is your day job.