Win8 on Tablet and MPC

[lifeblood]

I got to sit down and use a Surface RT tablet a few days ago and I really like it. I want the Pro version so I can run my legacy apps, but the feel of the Surface with its keyboard cover was good. The keyboard was so close to the tablet it was not a problem lifting my hand to touch the screen. I found it easier to just use the touch screen then the mouse. The Metro interface made good sense on such a small screen, it was easy to find things by swiping and tapping. Once prices become reasonable I am absolutely getting the Surface Pro or equivalent device.

Last week I upgraded Win7 to Windows 8 on my Media PC. It has an Athlon 64 X2 (Socket 939), 2 Gb RAM, and a Radeon HD 4830 GPU. It’s hooked via hdmi to a 32” LCD TV in the living room. A wireless mouse and keyboard are used to control it. The computer is used to watch Netflix and Hulu, play lower end games like Guild Wars 2, my daughters Barbie games, or flash games, and occasionally do web browsing and office productivity.

The good news is that Windows 8 is very snappy even on this old PC. Everything from Media Center to MS Word to Firefox launched relatively quickly. No complaints there at all.

Used this way, Windows 8 ranges from “meh” to “crappy”. Touch out of the question for this TV as 1) the TV doesn’t support touch, and 2) its half way across the room from the couch. And it’s not just Metro, it’s also the metro apps. Using the Metro version of Internet Explorer with a mouse is an exercise in aggravation. Win8’s split personality is annoying, I have to go into Metro to launch control panel which then sends me back into explorer where Control Panel launches.

In short, this confirms what I’ve said before, that Win8 is great for tablets or other touch devices, but not for desktops. I will definitely be buying Start 8 to actually make it productive.

 

[BrightCandle]

I have found a productive setup without resorting to start8 by mostly ignoring that the new UI exists. I don't use any of the apps in it, I have got programs to deal with the extensions separate to the new UI like PDF and JPG so that I don't end up their accidentally and I map many applications to my taskbar. Anything I don't have mapped I just press the Windows key and type the name as I did in W7, then press enter. Works exactly the same as W7 did in that regard except its full screen.

The control panel is via the charms bar but I can add a shortcut etc, same with the power settings. But honestly I don't use those enough to care about optimising them. I think you can productive with Windows 8 on the desktop if you just use its desktop mode for everything. The new UI is just a waste of space on a big monitor with keyboard and mouse and is less productive but you can completely avoid using it.