Norman Verona Posted March 19, 2013 Share Posted March 19, 2013 HM's new laptop arrived today. Ordered in the UK but shipped from France. With a French keyboard! My first impressions are it's a huge backward step. I see their reasons, make it like a phone. But I find it long winded to from one screen to another. Also I keep getting screens that tell me information but with no options so it's back to the tiles and start again. What do the esteemed members think? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman Posted March 19, 2013 Share Posted March 19, 2013 Not tried it for any length of time, and the only go I've had was on a Surface device, so worked OK by touchscreen. Didn't make me want to update any of my Windows 7 installs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doug Dastardly Posted March 19, 2013 Share Posted March 19, 2013 GF's father bought a new laptop with it. I hate it. Couldn't get used to it all, but that might come if I used it more, which hopefully now that it's all set up I won't have to. My over-riding feeling was that it was a system made for something else that had no business on a laptop. I mean, it took me 15 minutes just to turn it off Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pistonbroke Posted March 19, 2013 Share Posted March 19, 2013 Sign of the times , everyone wants touch button operation these days with minimum user input to make life "easy" down side is it results in massive overcomplication plus the enormous amounts of memory required to run the programmes only work well on the faster more expensive machines and not the run of the mill stuff sold over the counter in PC world Tesco & Asda , they may seem OK until the user starts adding programmes that constantly call for upgrading and virus checks slowing the whole thing down to a crawl . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AidanPlace Posted March 19, 2013 Share Posted March 19, 2013 Had a play with the demo a while back..............I wont be updating from Win7 any time soon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Meakin Posted March 19, 2013 Share Posted March 19, 2013 Cracking OS once you get used to it. Common misconceptions - it only works with touch I have it on two laptops one touch one not. Works well on not esp if you know that to run any program from start screen you simply start typing its name and all programs appear, simple. Equally you can find any files just as easy. Yes it looks different and yes M$ are trying to amalgamate all their OS's together but the memory handling, and speed of machine are much improved. Certainly worth the jump from awful vista, and worth a thought for windows 7. IMHO Doug don;t know what went wrong with yours its never taken more than a few seconds to turn off. ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stuart Posted March 19, 2013 Share Posted March 19, 2013 Funny you should ask Norm, 'cos I was only investigating an hour ago the cost of upgrading my laptop from XP to 8. By the sounds of it a no-no then? I upgraded to Office 2013 recently. That was a mistake so should probably have made me wary of 8. Slower and full of cloud-orientated stuff and context menus neither of which I need. Hey ho........ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doug Dastardly Posted March 19, 2013 Share Posted March 19, 2013 On win 7 you just click start button and then shut off........no start button on win 8! Just a case of getting used to it I suppose, but even when I got it off I couldn't help thinking it was a backwards step Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Meakin Posted March 19, 2013 Share Posted March 19, 2013 They are all going cloud now, stuart , quite agree can be a bit of a pain, esp if like me the internet connect is very poor. Doug often people just press the power button to turn the computer off/on so the start button has gone. It was one of the features I first noticed and yes its annoying for a while. I've been using windows 8 for about 3 months now and now I'm used to it I think windows 7 is clunky. Another tip is to move the desktop tile to the top left. Then to get to the start screen you press the windows button to get back to the desktop you press enter. I actually like the way the menu appears as you move the mouse to that area, so the bottom task bar isn't taken up with extra rubbish. It definitely is different and takes a while to get used to it. I cursed it a few times when I first started using it, so can understand some of the comments made here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johngill Posted March 19, 2013 Share Posted March 19, 2013 The apps from Stardock: - start8 fences modernmix revolutionise win 8 for the few £'s they cost. www.stardock.com. However win 8 really comes alive with a touch screen monitor, I use a 23" Acer touchscreen with two separate 19" std screens for work unbelievable with multiple documents open for research and report writing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Norman Verona Posted March 19, 2013 Author Share Posted March 19, 2013 I think it would be OK if it was a touch screen, but it's a laptop hence no touch screen. It's all working now, but has taken ages to set up. I've got her live mail, Skype video, Facebook and Google chrome working. However, and I'm not sure why, it appears that if you close, say, the live mail window you have to re-enter the username and password again even though I've ticked "remember me". We've given up with the start screen and are using the desktop screen. I think I'd persevere with the start screen but HM wont and I don't use her machine. I also think I may be better with it if I had an iphone but I use an android phone Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stuart Posted March 19, 2013 Share Posted March 19, 2013 They are all going cloud now, stuart , Yea but they should perhaps also consider that there might be a big market now for us oldies who don't need it/understand it/want it. I'm quite advanced for a guy approaching 60 I think with a houseful of wireless streaming media from a NAS, but it ain't that long ago that I moved away from vinyl and VHS. I have no interest in the cloud and I am sure I can't be alone. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Williams (Panda) - Joint Manchester AO Posted March 19, 2013 Share Posted March 19, 2013 and if you feel home sick and want windows 7; startisback from a russan fella for 3 euros! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Norman Verona Posted March 19, 2013 Author Share Posted March 19, 2013 I had some photos on my Motorola Atrix which were in the cloud. They got lost as did all my diary entries. I complained on the Atrix forum and someone from Motorola asked me to check this that and then other all to no avail. There were many other problems with stuff not doing what it supposed to do. Then Google took over and it got a large download and it's all working now, but I still don't trust it to store anything on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Norman Verona Posted March 19, 2013 Author Share Posted March 19, 2013 Using the desktop option and the right click in the bottom left corner is fine for a start button. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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