Win8 Touch Tablet vs iPad #1

First Looks:

Before upgrading my desktop to Windows 8, I thought it would be good to try it out on a small portable device. And, the only way to really test it would be on a touch screen. Two devices caught my eye: the Dell XPS 12 Convertible Ultrabook and  Sony VAIO Duo 11 Ultrabook. Base models in each range are

• Intel® Core™ i5-3317U Processor 1.70 GHz with Turbo Boost up to 2.60 GHz,
• Full HD: 1920 x 1080
• 4GB Dual channel DDR3
• 128GB Solid State Drive
• Intel® HD Graphics 4000
• 11.6 inch screen (Sony), 12.5 inch screen (Dell)
• Windows 8 (64bit) – not the RT version

Both have a screen that flips from laptop to tablet mode. My $$$ were spent on the Sony machine (as seen on the desk on the channel 10 news – so thats why the Channel 10 app was so prominent in the store!!). It’s my intention to compare its abilities against the iPad. So far, there are a few things that the iPad does better

• Touch: The Sony might be a touch tablet, and have much the same touch gestures as the iPad, but many of the regular Windows applications aren’t touch aware (apps from the windows store are different) . It’s annoying when you can’t just spread the fingers to zoom in on such a small screen.
• I wasn’t able to get the Zinio reader to install on Win8
• iTunes had to be the full application – apps vs applications terminology will get messy
• IE-10 was friendlier than Chrome on Win8 (small screen and half-screen keyboard are annoying)
• Narrow portrait mode on Win8 wasn’t as nice as the screen proportions on the iPad. So far i think it’s too narrow.

I’ve only had the Win8 machine for a few days. Part 2 of my adventures will follow soon.

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Windows 7 Installed

Installed Windows 7 pro x64 RTM last weekend. Everything went smoothly, and I now have a dual boot setup with Vista Home Premium x86.

Just a couple of problems.

1. Outlook 2007 doesn’t always exit cleanly. It leaves the exe running in the background, preventing a trouble free windows shutdown.
2. Adobe CS3 wont activate because of “too many activations”. Need to deactivate previous installation first – that’s on the old drive that I can’t access any more due to cluster errors and stuffed registry. Did have an old Acronis backup, but so far that’s a nightmare to restore – will try again when time permitts.

So far, everything I’ve installed, that worked in Vista, works in Win7.

And, so far very impressed with Windows 7. Very fast. Installed it to an OCZ Vertex SSD. Never seen windows start up so fast. Internet access is fastest ever!!

Downloading the RTM iso was the slowest ever!! though, taking 12hrs -ish – maybe downloaded too soon after release.

IE8 Blocker

Microsoft will be distributing Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) via automatic updates, like they did with IE7.  They say it helps make browsing the web faster, easier, safer and more reliable.

If you want to delay the introduction of the new browser you can install their “IE8 Blocker Toolkit”. For more information, goto ie8-blocker-toolkit-available-today 

Note: If you are opted into Automatic updates, IE8 will not get automatically installed, as the installer requires user interaction. The Welcome screen will appear and the installation won’t proceed until the user agrees to install IE8.

IE8 is still in Beta, but the final version may be coming in a few months time.