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Windows 8 Release Preview out, download now

Microsoft has finally revealed its public preview edition of Windows 8. This release is the almost complete preview of Windows 8 before its final release. This release gives the chance to get Windows 8 beta-tested by millions of users.

This OS by Microsoft gives it a chance to strengthen its place in the market and to compete with other innovations like iPad from its competitors. Acer, Toshiba, and Asus have said to reveal their Windows 8 tablets next week at the Computex show. Tablet sales will, MS hopes, win it a share of the booming mobile apps economy (said to be worth $58 billion).

Till now as reviewed by lots of people, some pros and cons have emerged about Windows 8.

What most people liked:

  • The Metro interface provides a different angle than Apple and Google. Live tiles are actually useful. Apart from that you can create tiles for individual e-mail accounts, or follow updates from specific contacts, and it presents a nearly non-existent learning curve.
  • Semantic zoom is the ability in Windows 8 to access different levels of content via zooming. On the Start screen, zooming out gives a bird’s eye view of tile groups. In an app, the user can zoom out to see different kinds of related content like in the Bing Travel app, categories like Today, Featured Destinations, Panoramas, and Articles are visible on zooming out.
  • Picture password impresses everyone at the very first look. Everybody loves it. You create a series of gestures on a photo of your choice, and use those to login instead of a typed password.
  • The three S’s: Search, Sync, and Share provide a solid skeleton to Windows 8 experience. The search tool lives on the Start screen and it lets the user drill down into Apps, Settings, or Files with ease. Sync synchronizes enormous almost whatever you do in Windows ranging from browser history to settings to apps. Share allowes sharing of content across apps with little effort (powered by Microsoft’s innovative Share API). App makers only have to code for that API, and other apps will be able to “talk” to it for sending content. A great example of this is the Evernote app.

What most people hated:

  • Learning Windows 8 doesn’t take long, but it will require a quick tutorial for most people. The Charms bar that slides out from right edge or the level contents from zooming are some features that a user can’t even guess at the first look. Switching from Windows 7 to Windows 8 is not that easy and it takes some time.
  • Mousing through the Metro interface feels irritating, despite Microsoft’s efforts to make it accessible. The interface is designed for touch. However it is compatible with mouse, but using a mouse makes you feel awkward sometimes.
  • Sync, again. Synchronizing is not that powerful, apps and start screen tile groups don’t sync yet, and nor does the picture login. MS says that it would happen until the final release, but it’s not there till now. We just have to wait for it.
  • Jumping to Desktop mode from the Metro UI is a total switch. Its like Metro captures your mind and when you switch to Desktop it feels like totally different. Same happens when switching vice-versa.
  • Apps, where are they? It’s a nice OS but it lacks in useful Apps. There are so few native apps to test on it. MicroSoft says that there would be lots of apps by the time of final release. But now? Aside from the default apps like Mail, People, News, and Travel, there are just Evernote, Slacker Radio, and Cut the Rope and a handful more. It takes time to build a deep bench of apps, and Microsoft’s on a tight schedule.

There are some good points and some bad points. Lets see what does the Final Release brings to us. Till then have a look at the Release Preview here or you can download Windows 8 Release preview here.

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