Windows 8 comments

Internet Explorer Consumer Preview 10:

• Generally slow
• Rendering takes some time to catch up to scroll location on an average page (msn.com)
• Nice minimalist look and feel

Windows 8 touch integration:

• Keyboard sounds like a WP7 keyboard
• Keyboard layout is nice and has a lot of options like resizing, changing layout for thumbs typing, handwriting recognition, etc.
•  Handwriting recognition is good and works much like Windows 7... but slower. I find that I can write too fast and overwhelm the recognition system. When this happens, it creates more errors in what it thinks I wrote.
• The keyboard takes up about half of the screen, so if you use overlay mode the keyboard blocks the view of anything under it. Using the block mode to pin the keyboard to the desktop will force the text window to fit in the other half of the screen.
• Auto-correct is much less aggressive than it would be on a phone. Type "lke" won't change to "like" or suggest anything. "wont" will add the apostrophe though (in won't) but only if you add the space after it.
• double-tap on the text input zooms in. Nice touch.
•  Will need a screen with no raised bevel edges in order to use the Win 8 edge navigation. My EeePc has slightly raised edge and my finger can't register close enough to the edge to make the navigation kick in.
• It seems like Windows can't figure out whether or not to select or position the cursor or to focus. Touching a word (to edit) sometimes does nothing, and sometimes it places the cursor where I want it. Not sure if that's lack of cpu or a focus confusion.

Some of the issues I am having is a lack of power. This Atom cpu is just too slow for this version of windows. I'm also sure that the release versions of Win 8 and IE10 will be more refined.