Windows 8: First Impressions

I've used many different computers and operating systems over the years, everything from an Amstrad to your latest generation Samsung Galaxy tablet, Windows 3.1 to Mac OS X 10.7. Without doubt, the best of these operating systems is Windows XP. It is beautifully, simple and easy to use, above all it's quick! Even on systems I would consider to be under powered it still performed admirably.

Earlier this month I had to setup a new Asus X501A that a customer had recently purchased. An aesthetically pleasing laptop, with an Intel i3 processor and 4GB RAM, excellent value for money at around £350. The one drawback however was that it came installed Windows 8 as its operating system. I've recommend many similar spec Asus laptops to customers in the past, all of which have run Windows 7. I was amazed at how much slower 8 appeared to be than 7. Everything took five times longer than normal and it was full of superfluous menus and warning messages.

I should say at this point that this was not the first time I had used Windows 8. An evaluation copy has been freely available online from Microsoft for some time now. The first thing I immediately took a dislike to was the new Metro interface. I recommend you read the Wikipedia article for more information on Metro: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metro_(design_language). It seems totally unnecessary on a desktop or laptop computer. I'm certain it works brilliantly on a tablet though. The traditional desktop environment is still lurking underneath the Metro interface but the Start button is no more.

In conclusion, I see no reason to upgrade from Windows 7 to 8. In fact if you're considering buying a new PC or laptop I recommend you do whatever you can to ensure it's supplied with 7. If you're interested in an alternative operating system to both Windows and Mac OS take a look at Ubuntu. A free operating system used by over 20 million users: http://www.ubuntu.com/

Want To Save Money? Try Linux!

Have you heard of Linux? Linux is a free, open source operating system. It is predominantly used in servers but thanks to the popular Ubuntu distribution it is becoming more popular with desktop and laptop users.

Windows by contrast is not free nor is it open source. Linux operating systems are considered to be more stable by many, i.e. they don't crash as much. Previously it has been the case that Linux versions haven't been very user friendly but thanks to Ubuntu among others this is no longer the case. You can also run the excellent and some would say more importantly free OpenOffice on Linux. OpenOffice is an superb rival to Microsoft's Office packages and it can open all your Microsoft Documents. Linux will also run Mozilla Firefox as well as many other applications.

So if you want to save money on your next PC purchase, then why not try a Linux operating system? At First4Computers we can install Linux on any PC in our range or custom builds.