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#31
Those who shout the loudest aren't always those that are right.
Win8 made more sense on touch-screen devices. To use Win8 on touch-screen was to really 'get it'. But touch-screen on regular laptops will add to the price significantly. And as netbooks, undercooked smartphones and tablets have shown us, people will tolerate poor performance if they didn't pay a lot for the device. Only if you have high brand name such as Apple, will people pay more for better.
Win 8 wasn't hard to use on keyboard and mouse. If one wanted, you could pretty much ignore all those live tile modern apps and continue using Windows 8 in desktop mode, which itself had a number of improvements over Windows 7 (copy dialouge window, mount iso's and native pdf reading without needing adobe reader). But they complained how it was too different, so Win8.1, and then 8.1 update 1 after it, took multiple back-steps to accomodate more familliar menu interfaces for keyboard and mouse users.
Now, with Windows 10, we see a desktop mode more geared towards keyboard and mouse, and a ''tablet mode'' which doesn't run anywhere near as smooth as windows 8 did with touch-screen gestures. For me, tablet mode keeps having glitchy problems with it, to the point where I just never use it at all.
Ongoing Positive Win8.x Impressions as I use it again:
- screen brightness on Charms > Settings menu has a slider, and screen lock icon on it. No need to have seperate screen brightness and rotation lock squares on Win10, and having a slider is easier than going up in 25%, 50%, 75% and 100%.
- Volume slider on charms menu. This is quicker and easier for touch than using taskbar's volume tray icon in Win10.
Win10 Positives which I actually miss so far:
- The more expanded modern settings menus. Currently I'm on Win8.1 and I realize how quickly I had grown accustomed to the Win10 placement of different settings.
- "Snap Assist" - i believe it's called this officially. This is the thing when it autmoatically shows your other open apps, when you snap an app to half the screen. Similarly I preferred the Win10 visual style of alt tab / task switcher, which is activated with the swipe-in from left touch-screen gesture.
- "Media Connect" or "Connect" on/off toggle square on the Action Center fly-out which enables quicker access to turn on Bluetooth headsets etc, than having to dig into Volume > Playback Devices from the taskbar tray icon.
Last edited by ksdixon; 11 Jun 2015 at 16:10.
Win8.1 has the highest user satisfaction rate of any Windows version ....... among touch users. I forget what the percentage falls to for desktop users.
There should be a poll.
I fall into the Win8 is Great ... Win10 Redstone is When pigeon hole for most of the reasons already stated by people who, at this time, prefer Win8.1
Edwin and a few other members have installed the 10.0.135 leaked version and have initially raved about it - so the jury is still out.
I'm guessing 'redstone' is Build 10130, or another recent build which seemed to take a few step-backs from earlier Win10 Tech Preview Builds? Do we have an estimated time of arrival for 10.0.135 on the fast ring? I'm not writing-off Win10 entirely, but it's surprising how much smoother overall Win8.1 feels for me right now, now that I've gone back to it.
Sorry, I should explain things better when I use MS code names
There are two release planned for 2016 - both code named Redstone Spring (q1) and Fall (Q3). All Windows releases are really hardened after the first major update (Win 7 SP1, Win8.1 Update 1).
I'll keep playing with the TP, but will wait until the Spring to upgrade my machine. We have a full year to take advantage of the Free update offer - I spent too much of my life on the bleeding edge - I'll wait until Win10 matures.
The next drop will probably be 136, not 135 - no idea when though. There were just 3 WU today, so who knows ... if the telemetry is good, Friday might be the day.
Thanks for the review, its a good read, i've just installed win 10 ,so going to be interesting to see how it compares to win 8.1, i'm liking it so far i think its a big improvement on win8.1