High speed low drag, just avoid the Tiles
I’ve been running Windows 8 on my primary laptop since the day it was released. I purchased it through Amazon via a pre-order deal that let me buy the boxed Windows 8 Pro for around $68 and included a $30 Amazon credit. Not a bad deal if I say so myself.
My first impression was that it was MUCH quicker than it’s predecessor Windows 7. Of course a lot of that speed was probably due to the new “clean” install I did. The second thing that struck me was that I don’t care for the new Metro tiles it has. I’m sure if I have a touch screen tablet / laptop then my reaction would be much different. Also the absence of the Start button was a little more than a little disconcerting so my second step was to buy the Start 8 replacement application from Stardock. This is a cheap $5 application that effectively and cleanly installs a Start Menu substitute. The look is very very close to that of the original Start Menu button and I think it just might be the best $5 I’ve spent in ages.
Update: So after having used the OS for over a month now I can safely say I’m a fan. I still don’t care for the stupid Metro tiles, hince the “hate” part of the title, but the OS is rock solid and in my humble opinion, it’s much faster than the old Windows 7 still. Interestingly enough all of my applications loaded with no problems and some that had problems on Windows 7 actually work great on Windows 8.
Honestly for the upgrade price of $40 and the Start 8 price of $5, there’s no reason not to give the OS a shot, if for no other reason than to say you tried it out.
12-10-12 Update: Two months into the Windows 8 and I have again had few if any issues. The only one worth mentioning was strange. I bought a game called Faster Than Light which is not very video intensive but for some reason it was a dog on my laptop (Dell XPS-1647). Turns out the video driver that came with Windows 8 needed to be updated and that solved the issue.