With Microsoft Windows 8 hitting the market, everyone has a review! Well, who are we to argue? Here’s our take on Windows 8 for small to medium sized businesses and home users.
Workstations / Laptops
In a word, don’t use Windows 8. It will be horribly frustrating to have to relearn absolutely everything just to get basic work done, as you’ll be using the Desktop most of the time. Everything about Windows 8 – even the Desktop – is geared towards touch screen users and in many cases is designed to actively frustrate traditional Windows users in order to herd them into the new UI. You could use Metro apps like Office and Skype, but the Metro interface is so counter productive for a normal workflow that you’ll soon be beating yourself to death with your keyboard. The “cause of death” will read “Heart exploded from frustration at not being able to use more than one app one the screen at a time, except for a few semi-useless things like Skype and Messenger”. If you’ve ever had a browser and any other app window open at the same time side by side, Windows 8 Metro apps are not for you.
The question you need to ask yourself if you’re thinking about using Windows 8 for a regular desktop PC or laptop: can you imagine using your phone to do everything you normally do during the workday? For the vast majority of workers, the answer is going to be “hell, no!”.
Tablets & Other Touch Screen Devices
Windows 8 might or might not be a good choice for your touch screen device.
If you need a specialty app, such as a nurse or doctor using a custom medical application, you’re going to run into all the same frustrations as a workstation user.
If you’re a casual user and just need to play media, surf the net and do very basic email and calendaring tasks, then Windows 8 is actually a really good choice – but only if you’re a Microsoft stack user already. If you use any other non-Microsoft platform or Google Apps or the like, all the advantages of Windows 8 disappear as there is no support for anything else in the new Metro apps. The first person to build Google Apps Metro apps is going to make a killing, as Android users will have a clear upgrade path to Microsoft devices. It’s surprising that Microsoft;s own app developers haven’t put something together already as it would sell a lot more devices, but presumably that doesn’t fit in with their overall marketing strategy of copying Apple to lock all their users into their own ecosystem.
All that being said, the experience is pretty good for the casual Microsoft ecosystem user – once you get over the initial learning curve. It will help to pretend it’s a brand new company with a brand new product, as thinking of it as Windows will trip you up more often than not. The UI is smooth and responsive, transitions and special effects are nice, thanks to Microsoft’s long market dominance you get all kinds of hardware support not available on other platforms to give you a huge range of hardware options, scrolling/swiping is pretty intuitive, pinch zooming works well, and the on screen keyboard is good.
Summary
Unless you’re a home user or SMB employee that only uses their computer as an accessory to their life or work flow, rather than as a leisure activity centre or productivity centre you should avoid Windows 8. You should also avoid it if you’re a power user until the app market matures – until there are more Metro apps, you’ll just spend all your time in the Desktop mode anyway. However, it’s a great platform for casual users already in the Microsoft ecosystem, and as new apps come out and the existing apps are polished it will be a decent internet and media consumption platform.
The biggest advantage will be the Microsoft ecosystem integration – all your other computing devices – phones, XBox, desktop computer, etc – will all start tying together very nicely indeed.
Time sensitive tip: Windows Pro users can get the Windows 8 Media Centre pack on for free until January 31, 2013! After that it is priced at $9.99.
