So I’ve been playing around with a new Windows 8 (8.1) tablet (Dell Venue 8 Pro Tablet) for about a day or so. It is my first Windows 8 device.
I’ve been somewhat familiarized with Windows 8 through the press and reviews and things of that nature, but never owned a Windows 8 machine, nor used one for any extended period of time. I knew what to expect, especially as far as peoples’ criticisms went. And knowing that, I also made sure my first experience was on a tablet (though non-RT) and not a desktop. In fact I recently got a new desktop and purposely put Windows 7 on it instead of 8.
Hardware aside, I’m finding that I’m liking Windows 8 more than I expected. In fact, as far as tablets go, it feels more capable than either of my iOS or Android tablets. But that should be expected since it is running a full version of Windows 8 under the hood. That alone adds a lot of value, especially for a sub-$300 device.
There’s certainly an odd disconnect between the desktop and “metro” versions of the OS. And by disconnect, I really mean connection. In desktop mode, hitting the start button takes me out of desktop mode into metro mode. This is not what I expect. I am in desktop mode and I may want to launch desktop (or possibly metro) applications. But if I want desktop applications, I would want to stick to my desktop mode.
Along these lines, you have this metro mode as a subset of desktop mode - a less capable variation. Yet, in the combined views, you have metro mode encapsulating desktop mode and not the other way around. In other words, I would expect metro mode to be available in a window of desktop mode, not the other way around (desktop being in a “pane” of metro mode). However, this treatment does seem to work for the tablet context since the form factor favors metro mode. For desktop hardware, this sounds obnoxious (as people have been seeing).
Gestures are a big part of the OS - at least swipe - and this is both convenient and annoying. Every edge swipes to something, sometimes one thing, sometimes something else (swiping down, for example, in the start menu vs in an app means two different things). It’s not uncommon to invoke one of these OS-level swipe reactions when you weren’t expecting to. And sometimes I felt stuck in some applications where I wasn’t sure what gesture I needed to move forward (or back). This could just be my expectations based on other OSes. I know frequently I find myself looking for Android’s “back” button.
Window management is nice in theory, moving between apps or throwing them to the side to dock for split screen. There’s also an active app list you can have show up on the left. Sometimes getting what you want with this can be a little finicky. Dock. List. Close. Sometimes windows jump around like they don’t know what you want (and sometimes I get so confused neither do I).
Browsers. Oh browsers. So you start with IE - two of them, I think. Opening IE from metro lets you open IE in metro. There’s a pinned IE icon in the taskbar by default (that I removed) that opens IE in desktop mode. If you use the “start menu” (metro mode) you can’t open IE in desktop. So what do I do to open IE on desktop? I have to keep a link to IE on the desktop! (But isn’t that what I have a start menu for??) It doesn’t even show up in Search. I did find this workaround which lets me put a desktop link to IE on the start menu which seems to work. But the fun didn’t stop there.
I installed Chrome. As a default browser, it too will open in metro mode (though it’s just a desktop window full screen?). But if Chrome is my default browser, IE ALWAYS opens in desktop. The only way to get that back is to make IE my default browser again… grr. So then can I use Chrome in metro mode? Not if IE is my default browser! What about Chrome’s convenient “Relaunch Chrome in Windows 8 Mode” option? That asks you to set Chrome as your default browser to make it work! So that’s a mess. I take it that’s not a problem for RT? How could it? On top of that, it seems I’m losing focus for the kirupa forum posts text field? Click in, the soft keyboard appears, then disappears. Try again, shows then hides again. Some random clicking around gets it to stick, but even more random clicking around and it happens again. (This was in IE).
Like most tablets/mobile ecosystems, Windows 8 also has a store app for purchasing and downloading new apps. First thing I did was get minesweeper 
In doing this, I found the Windows 8 store much harder to get around compared to others (iOS, Android). The install experience also wasn’t as clear - if something was downloading correctly, or how far along it was which I’m used to with other devices (unless I’m just missing it?).
One last thing I’ll add was that this tablet came with Office Home, which again adds to the value of the already cheap full-Windows 8 tablet device. It runs as a desktop app, but is accessible from the applications list in metro - after all, it is a “start menu”. I have a Bluetooth keyboard which works great, especially for office, which is far less productive when trying to use the soft keyboard. The only complaint I have here is the, again, odd transitioning between versions of the os - desktop and metro. Start in desktop, use Metro as a launcher, and then you’re back to a desktop app. It can mostly make sense when you have apps which are either desktop or not, but with IE and the browser craziness, it really starts to fall apart.
In the end, given the full windows OS, I feel this tablet is superior to my Android and iOS tablets. There is a lack of metro-style apps (comparatively), but I’m sure that will improve over time, and certainly there are plenty of regular windows apps to keep you busy in the mean time - assuming you have nimble fingers :beam: . I don’t think there’s any one killer app that I use for any version of tablet, but I could certainly see that as a determining factor if someone is looking to do something specific. It really does come down to the apps.
