My wife and I needed a new computer because our Toshiba Satellite laptop was just too old to be of service anymore. We had a choice between a Mac laptop or a computer with Windows 8. After browsing around we settled on the Sony Vaio SVJ20215CXB. Two reasons: 1) we both do a lot of work with MS Word and PowerPoint and 2) we both have iphones and a ipad and wanted something different because Apple seems to have gotten stale.
After a week of playing with Windows 8 we have some questions that hopefully some fellow W8'ers can assist us or at least give us some tips.
First, what we like about windows 8:
1. Programs run very fast
2. Its a very fast startup
3. Live tiles (on the apps that have them) are a plus
4. The Metro screen is like your cluttered desktop from XP but only simplified and exciting
5. The integration between SkyDrive and W8 is great. Very easy to work on a document at work, upload to SkyDrive and work on it at Home and then re-upload it from home so its at your work the next morning. I find Dropbox too buggy and haven't had any annoying issues with Skydrive.
However, here are some problems we have:
1. How do we make the apps split the screen so that we can multitask? (like work on a word doc and check email at the same time?)
2. The integration between the old desktop and the metro is bad. (for example in W8 there are a few pc settings but have to go back to the old desktop to find the rest of the settings. Likewise with documents, if you want a folder to store documents you have to save them on the old desktop). Why not do away with the old desk top? MS really needs to pick one format and stick with it.
3. When viewing photos in W8, they take up the entire screen. How do we make them smaller? Our screen is 20 inches and we don't need to view photos on the entire screen.
4. How do we make the address bar in IE10 always appear? I don't like the constant swiping up inorder to make it appear and likewise swiping down to make my tabs appear. Its very touch-unfriendly.
5. Why is there no permanent clock? Again, we have to swipe up for it to appear? That's silly and gets old.
6. I was downstairs one morning and I heard my computer notification go off. When I got back to the computer there was no notification. Why isn't there a notification page that shows you what you missed? You would have thought that would be a must? If I were a app developer why would I make a app with notifications if you cant store them?
7. The Windows app store is bad. First, they say they have 50,000 apps but where are they? When we select a app store category we see some but theres no way there are 50,000 viewable. Are we missing a feature that shows us more? Also, the icons/layout within the app store category's are amateurish at best. Very ugly. Like something a highschool student created in photoshop.
8. If we have a word document, and its on the old desktop, how do we make it a tile on metro?
9. My final complaint is that Microsoft did not release a tutorial video when we first turned on Windows 8. Its as if MS just expected us to know how to operate and use windows 8?. If me and my wife were struggling with it then how is your everyday user going to react??
Overall, it looks like we are using a beta version and doesn't seem to fit the quality of MS products.
Would love to read anyone else's opinions/tips.
thanks
After a week of playing with Windows 8 we have some questions that hopefully some fellow W8'ers can assist us or at least give us some tips.
First, what we like about windows 8:
1. Programs run very fast
2. Its a very fast startup
3. Live tiles (on the apps that have them) are a plus
4. The Metro screen is like your cluttered desktop from XP but only simplified and exciting
5. The integration between SkyDrive and W8 is great. Very easy to work on a document at work, upload to SkyDrive and work on it at Home and then re-upload it from home so its at your work the next morning. I find Dropbox too buggy and haven't had any annoying issues with Skydrive.
However, here are some problems we have:
1. How do we make the apps split the screen so that we can multitask? (like work on a word doc and check email at the same time?)
2. The integration between the old desktop and the metro is bad. (for example in W8 there are a few pc settings but have to go back to the old desktop to find the rest of the settings. Likewise with documents, if you want a folder to store documents you have to save them on the old desktop). Why not do away with the old desk top? MS really needs to pick one format and stick with it.
3. When viewing photos in W8, they take up the entire screen. How do we make them smaller? Our screen is 20 inches and we don't need to view photos on the entire screen.
4. How do we make the address bar in IE10 always appear? I don't like the constant swiping up inorder to make it appear and likewise swiping down to make my tabs appear. Its very touch-unfriendly.
5. Why is there no permanent clock? Again, we have to swipe up for it to appear? That's silly and gets old.
6. I was downstairs one morning and I heard my computer notification go off. When I got back to the computer there was no notification. Why isn't there a notification page that shows you what you missed? You would have thought that would be a must? If I were a app developer why would I make a app with notifications if you cant store them?
7. The Windows app store is bad. First, they say they have 50,000 apps but where are they? When we select a app store category we see some but theres no way there are 50,000 viewable. Are we missing a feature that shows us more? Also, the icons/layout within the app store category's are amateurish at best. Very ugly. Like something a highschool student created in photoshop.
8. If we have a word document, and its on the old desktop, how do we make it a tile on metro?
9. My final complaint is that Microsoft did not release a tutorial video when we first turned on Windows 8. Its as if MS just expected us to know how to operate and use windows 8?. If me and my wife were struggling with it then how is your everyday user going to react??
Overall, it looks like we are using a beta version and doesn't seem to fit the quality of MS products.
Would love to read anyone else's opinions/tips.
thanks
My Computer
System One
-
- OS
- Windows 8