When will Windows 8 ship? The answer is October 2012 according to this source. Will I be getting it? On my PC, probably not, but on a tablet, probably yes.
Windows 8 boasts 300+ new features, but a huge amount of them are tablet and touch-related. That’s not necessarily a problem, but it doesn’t give me any solid reason to go with Win8 on my PC specifically.
I’ve been researching Windows 8 for a while now. Fortunately, it has the the same hardware requirements as Win7, so this is one of those instances where you don’t have to upgrade your PC just to run it if WinVista or Win7 already runs smoothly on your existing computer box. The tighter integration of Windows Live cloud storage is good as well. For those who live in a mobile world, Win8 does thin the wall quite a bit between PC and smartphone as it will be easier to connect mobile devices to the Win8 desktop platform (whether running a Windows-based mobile OS or not).
At the end of it all however, I can’t really see any good solid reason to upgrade to Win8 on the PC because there’s no real "wow" feature of it I can actually use. And it’s safe to say that most who read this won’t have a solid reason either.
On the tablet however, it’s a totally different story.
I’ve been biding my time and waiting for the right tablet to come along that I can use as a good mobile computing tool. Tablets do run mobile OSes, after all.
What I’ve seen for offerings in the mobile market so far I consider fair. Apple has their iPad with iOS. With the Android platform, one of the best right now is the Samsung Galaxy Tab – but if you thought you were going to save any money going that route, that’s not the case. The Tab is awesome in pretty much every way, but oh yeah, you’ll pay for it. What you can take from this is that there really isn’t much of a price difference between an iPad and a premium Android-based tablet. This is sad but true, because it’s so easy to blame Apple for having overpriced products, but not when it comes to tablets.
What I’m hoping will happen is that when Win8 hits the tablet scene that it will drive down tablet prices enough to be considered reasonable. And by "reasonable" I mean $300 for what a $500 tablet is now. Generally speaking, most people would consider the $300 price point reasonable for a secondary tablet computer as a companion to their primary PC.
Other than price, I personally prefer the Windows experience. This makes both Linux and Apple fans wince to hear me say this, but the Windows experience is a selling point for me. I don’t like the way Android does things, and I certainly don’t like the way iOS does things either. If you like iOS or Android and get things done with it to your liking, that’s fine. Stay with what you have if you feel it works for you.
I’m an unabashed Windows guy, much the same way our illustrious leader Dave is an unabashed Apple guy. If in October a $300 tablet with the right hardware appears and has Win8 bundled as the OS, I will probably buy it.
For you, the PC person that has no intention on upgrading to Win8 at all, I understand. For your future tablet purchase however (and believe me, you will buy one eventually), if you were less than impressed with what’s out there right now with Android or iOS, a Win8 tablet in the near future might be just what you were looking for.
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I totatlly agree! I think I won’t upgrade either…
window 8 is noting but a update ver of window 7 and metro touch screen– noting new— im not buying window 8
“unabashed Apple guy” who started a PC website
Dave was running PCs until Vista and switched to Mac then. Were it not for Vista he’d probably still be using PCs.
Is he aware that Win7 rocks?
Best Windows OS ever made IMO.
Agreed, but he made the switch to Mac well before Win7 was released (and as you know, asking a Mac user to go back to Windows is like asking a Linux user to do the same, it’s just not happening). He does run Win7 virtually in VMWare Fusion on the Mac for the Win apps that aren’t on the Mac if that’s any consolation.
Agreed . Won’t upgrade either . Win 8 is just a ploy .
We’ve been playing around with Win8 at work and I’ve seen all I need to see to know I won’t be using Win8 on my PCs. The reason? Metro.
Metro is nothing but a poorly hacked-together shell replacement for explorer.exe, and even then, it doesn’t completely replace it, because there simply isn’t a Metro replacement for everything. As a result the PC Metro experience feels like navigating through a sludge of incomprehensible, extremely underpowered front-end GUIs that accomplishes nothing more, if not LESS than using the underlying Win7 interface.
In short it’s there for touch-screen purposes and touch-screen purposes ONLY and only detracts from the OS when used on a non-touch-enabled device, or indeed on any device where you have any input method besides touch. What’s more, while you MIGHT be able to largely ignore Metro by using primarily the desktop “app” (yes, the desktop is an app now) almost exclusively, there appears to be no way to actually disable it, short of possibly replacing the shell kernel or something equally complicated.
Replacing the Kernal or having choices will never happen with MS. It is always, here it is, it’s the best, deal with it…
Certainly kernel modification will never be supported by MS per se, but it is possible.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernel_Patch_Protection
[Oop, replied to wrong comment]
So now we have three OS choices for tablets. But only one choice at this time if we want a tablet with the higher resolution, the “New iPad”. It may be better to wait and see what is available in the higher resolution tablets that will be running Windows 8 and Ice Cream Sandwich, when they come out sometime this year.
Windows 8 is a huge disappointment on the PC. In fact I believe it will be the biggest Microsoft failure to date. I think you will see an unprecedented return of PCs because of W8. So get ready Dell. HP, Best Buy, Staples, etc. W8 PCs will hurt your bottom line.
Of course if MS changes the final OS……….. But I doubt it.
I doubt it. People just seem to take whatever if given to them. MS will not miss a beat. I have never had an issue with Vista but in reality, it should of brought the house down and it didn’t.
Not this time! I had no problem with Vista either! In fact I use many OSs. I can jump on anything (I distro hop linux) and figure out how things work pretty quickly. Not with Win8! I got angry! Good luck M$!
Sounds like me on a Mac.
Sounds like me on a Mac.
Sounds like me on a Mac.
It happens everytime such as
< Windows 2000=success
< Windows me = not successful
< Windows XP = success
< Windows vista = Fail
< Windows 7 = success
Windows 8 = Desktop fail Its a pattern!!!
< Windows ME: Fail
FTFY
From a purely PC experience perspective of Windows 8 the best addition or change from Windows 7 was the logo redesign. This will be like the Vista before Win7 scenario I think, Nothing great to offer out of the box for a normal computer, then again we are moving into a touch and voice action based future at the moment.
Tablet wise I think its great, I’d most likely break the bank and buy a Win8 Tab if one with the right specs came along.
I’m upgrading to Linux. I saw the lure of turning the PC back into a mainframe slave where people pay for time or as they so nicely call it, subscribe now, years ago and I am not going there. I remember when all the programmers at Microsoft used to whine about not being able to go back to the good old mainframe days and ever since Bill had his epiphany about the internet Microsoft has been slowly nudging users in that direction. I tested their junk for years and when the first versions of Linux appeared I jumped on it. If I am going to pay for junk with service packs sometimes larger than the initial software why not use free junk and I have found many applications in all the free junk “stuff” to meet my needs, thank you very much. Don’t get me started on that boat anchor of a GUI they are using for Windows 8. If it is so good why is there a thriving industry of third party apps to make Windows Vista-8 look like Windows circa 2000?
I don’t and won’t own a tablet, or any device that requires me to fondle the screen, I don’t and won’t subscribe to anything and I won’t and don’t use any cloud junk. I don’t even like WiFi, I have all my computers wired. With all the people bitc^&%$$ about cable why they can’t see the same thing coming with their cell phones, and all this other crap is beyond me.
I have been collecting the necessary software and hardware to cut the cord to the Internet if I have to down the road. You know what, for the most part Windows Office XP or 95 work just fine and when you make hard copy looks great. People can take twitter, facebook, youtube, the cloud, subscription and all that other garbage and put it where the sun doesn’t shine.