Should I get Windows 8?

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The new and shiny tablets look really cool, but I don't want to make, yet ANOTHER Google Account, just to use the tablet itself! I like to have limited freedom on what software I can use on these devices, but sometimes the limit isn't stretched far enough for me to play my favorite games or music without some kind of payment or third-party software.

When looking for a durable piece of awesomeness, I normally look towards Microsoft... Should I continue doing the same here?

We will start off with 1 big missing thing. There are 2 versions f the surface. The RT and PRO. And the difference is pretty simple. WinRT only runs "metro" apps. Meaning things from the MS store. Win8 (pro) Runs any x86 based software, because its simply a laptop turned into a tablet.

Which leads us to answer a couple of things, assuming you pick the Surface PRO ($1200), Yes you will be able to run any office program and design your own exe programs and run them on desktop mode. Now, how you will go and make them touchscreen compatible is another thing.

And to finish off with there is no such thing as a safe electronic device. And even less one connected to a network. Ever heard of stuxnet? It was used to accelerate the wear rate on siemens products used by iran to create uranium for whatever use they want. The iranians were smart enough to not have those computers on a network, but they werent smart enough to think a USB drive could be infected from a normal computer and when placed in their hidden computers infect them and destroy the costly machinery. In short, no computer is safe. This includes cameras, phones, tablets, etc. How do you think modding these devices works? Its a virus meant to remove the system protection and grant the user full access to the system. It simply is a beneficial virus so we take it for granted.

Good question! The Surface is a really expensive netbook with a 10" screen. For the same money, or less, you could get a really nice Asus laptop with all the bells and whistles. I got a $550 Asus laptop to run Visual Studio 2012 on Windows 8. I can't figure out who Microsoft intends to buy the Surface. Anyone who can afford a real laptop with a 15.6" screen will get one, and the people who can't afford laptops want a cheap netbook at Wal-Mart, not something more expensive than a laptop. Anyone who wants cachet and status will get Apple products, not a Surface. Apparently, since Surface isn't selling well, no one else has figured it out, either. This thing has either got to be cheaper, or have more features, or both.

I have a 10" netbook, and do not share your opinion that it could be used daily. In fact, I haven't used it since I got it because the screen is too small. I mainly use it for testing web pages to see how they look on the smaller screen size.

To run a Windows 8 WinRT program, you must have a license from MS. These are currently free, as you'd expect from an also-ran OS trying to establish itself. (Apple forces developers to pay to play, because they don't need developers.)

I do not have a Surface, so I don't know about "side-loading" your own WinRT apps. I have only built and run WinRT programs on the full Windows 8. I presume you could pull that off with enough determination, if you had a signed binary that the Surface would accept.



The ARM-based Surface runs only code from the Microsoft app store, so it is much safer than an Intel-based Windows PC. (Much like the iPad, from whom MS copied this app store model.)



Microsoft has created confusion here. There is a Surface, an ARM-based tablet, that will not run Intel binaries like Office. There is a Surface Pro, which is a full Intel-based netbook, which will. If running Office and other Intel-based programs is a requirement, you'll have to get a Surface Pro. Obviously, I can't imagine anyone actually doing that when you can get a $550 Asus laptop that blows it away. The Surface Pro costs more, and the keyboard costs even more as an optional extra.



Are you a masochist who likes 10" screens, and has money to burn?

i have windows 8 and on desktop mode it is exactly like windows 7 so i see no reason not t oget it

Except for one startling omission.

Oh goody. It doesn't have one of those either now?

no, all of the things the start menu did are still there. Try right clicking that corner to see.

I've used Windows 8 - the "charm" menu is not the start menu, not even close. Doesn't have anything like its functionality. The "metro" screen is like the Windows 3.1 program manager, only without any way to organize anything. Neither of these comes anywhere close to the start menu.

In the Tablet world, I'd want Windows-anything over anything else! Win8 may not be my favorite thing but I'll take it over Android any day! (For the sake of my favorite apps.)

I upgraded to win 8 this week and I've had zero issues with the interface. It's just learning a new set of menus really.

The os itself is a gigantic leap in performance over win Xp.

However there are a few things that really irritate me. First and biggest is the lack of privacy controls within the os itself. Watch a video or open a pic? It will be flashed as a thumbnail in your interface... Not nice. Then you have practically four different places in the os that remembers what you last opened and what files or programs you most frequently use. I mean, really???

I spent a couple hours finding and applying various registry hacks and obscure settings to be changed to get it to stop doing this crap.

Second annoyance is the apple-ization of the os. It has its own store and a lot of things that remind me of my iPad. If ms thinks I'm going to be buying their crap they're sadly deluded.

As it stands in all honesty, just because of performance boost over xp, this was the first os from ms I've paid for since win95.

you say that you paid for this one because of the performance boost but didnt you have to buy it in the first place to assess the performance boost?

im not talking the charm bar



TA-DA. Everything the start menu did in a easy to use popup. And not a single addon or mod was used.