ThinkFree Mobile for MacBook

On the surface, it looks good. However, the UI is quite muddled. Opening documents quickly creates mess between the launch window, the online browser window and the actual document(s) window. There's no easy way to see or switch between these screens when set to full screen; tabs would be a help. Plus, there is a plethora of ads on the main online screen that I guess one should expect but since I'm paying for the office suite, it would be nice if I could bypass this with direct logins. Also, the PowerPoint-like Show choked on the first PP I asked it to open. It did not handle the text & graphics transitions within a slide, thus you missed entire information contained. Not a very complicated presentation, so I'm a bit disappointed in that aspect. Overall speed is rather pokey, too. This, I'd imagine, is inherent to Macs and poor Java support as well as the expected trade-off for using online productivity access. FYI, the "MacBook version" is only an acknowledgement that Mac users can work with the programs due to Java; in fact, ThinkFree's web site refers to it as the Netbook Version. For me personally, if they created an iPhone app that worked in conjunction with this (like they've done for Android phones), then it would be the killer office suite for me. It just needs more overall work to become highly recommended. For now, it's a good 3rd or 4th option to MS Office alternatives.

On the surface, it looks good. However, the UI is quite muddled. Opening documents quickly creates mess between the launch window, the online browser window and the actual document(s) window. There's no easy way to see or switch between these screens when set to full screen; tabs would be a help. Plus, there is a plethora of ads on the main online screen that I guess one should expect but since I'm paying for the office suite, it would be nice if I could bypass this with direct logins. Also, the PowerPoint-like Show choked on the first PP I asked it to open. It did not handle the text & graphics transitions within a slide, thus you missed entire information contained. Not a very complicated presentation, so I'm a bit disappointed in that aspect. Overall speed is rather pokey, too. This, I'd imagine, is inherent to Macs and poor Java support as well as the expected trade-off for using online productivity access. FYI, the "MacBook version" is only an acknowledgement that Mac users can work with the programs due to Java; in fact, ThinkFree's web site refers to it as the Netbook Version. For me personally, if they created an iPhone app that worked in conjunction with this (like they've done for Android phones), then it would be the killer office suite for me. It just needs more overall work to become highly recommended. For now, it's a good 3rd or 4th option to MS Office alternatives.

For those needing a lightweight but full-featured office suite, this might be a better alternative than you think. It's not free like NeoOffice/OpenOffice, but neither is it HOPELESSLY BLOATED and FUGLY. And it's not MS. Personally, I enjoy the iWork suite too much to switch, but if you don't have that or prefer something more "MS Office" like, this is definitely worth checking out. Before iWork came around, I had good experiences with ThinkFree both in terms of usefullness and compatibility.