[Qagak]

I like the idea of the Consumer Preview. It's something different from MS. (I'm glad.) It did give me a bit of a start/shock at first, much like my first Android phone I got about 2 months ago now..... (I haven't gotten any new computers, since the Mini 9.)

I like how I'm able to interact with the desktop.... (I hope MS doesn't get rid of the desktop entirely, though. What would happen to all those fancy wallpapers/backgrounds & themes?! For now, I think the Start Screen is way too drab & borderline annoying/fugly.)

I can't stand the fish, though..... >_< However, it would be a toss up if I had to choose between it & previous MS characters (e.g. the paperclip).... Anything, but that please! T_T

If drivers & programs/apps aren't going to be a problem, I would love to install it on my desktop when it's released..... I'm just hoping it won't break the bank or my hard drive....

I installed it on a Mini 9.... It was okay to me.... To use it on a laptop/netbook, I definitely would want a much larger screen....

Speaking of hard drives, the drive I installed it on got an Operating System Not Found message, when the system crashed, but I figure the SSD was old anyway.... (I was using it with Snow Leopard, & it had given me the same error, too.) The only difference was that after the Windows 8 crash, the drive was not recognizable with all I've done thus far. (In the BIOS, the Fixed HDD says None!!)

Ah, but what the heck...? I just reinstalled Windows 8 on a smaller SSD to keep on testing it out, since I'm curious to see how I'll feel about it later. Now, if that crashes also, then I'm done....

[holmes4]

The fish is Microsoft's beta (betta) joke.

[Qagak]

Indeed.... Well, I like their sense of humor.

It's just.... I don't like how it looks. I know it's beta & all, but I just feel it could have looked better. With everything else that is so great, it just sort of detracts to me (just a humble opinion).

Anyway, I reinstalled Windows 8 Consumer Preview, & I am surprisingly blown away by how fast it is--on a Super Talent 16GB (which is noted for being slow). Maybe I have one of the better ones or something; I don't know.... I am running out of space, though. There's like 2.96 GB left... (What the heck can I do with that?! I'll probably go see if I can grab a better drive, though.)

[TheCritic]

Win7 was always pokey as hell on my Mini9 (with 2GB), spent yesterday trying to get Dell's April 15th build of Chromium working properly (best I could do was get it to boot off USB) but was not impressed with it's speed or the limitations I encountered. And I had to spend much of a day pounding my head against the Linux wall for little return. Feh!

Windows 8 CP feels pretty damn good. Install was pretty painless, graphics/chipset drivers downloaded automatically, once those were installed and I did the regedit to run at 1024X768 all the metro stuff started working fairly well (and the scaling doesn't look nearly as bad as I expected). Had about 4GB free once installed, tried turning off some "features" like media center but didn't reclaim any noticeable space. This is on a "16GB" drive (tends to show up closer to 14GB as I recall...).

There are still 3 unknown devices in device manager (not sure what, everything I've tried so far seems to work including sound and webcam), and I'd love to have 2-finger scrolling...

Otherwise, though, fairly impressed given all the whining from the pundits.