Though
Windows 8 feels somewhat clunky when used with a mouse, the Modern UI
really shines on a tablet. When we installed Windows 8 on a Samsung
Series 7 slate, we were able to navigate around the interface with a
number of sleek and intuitive gestures that aren't available with mouse
or keyboard. (Better laptop touchpads should mirror the touch-screen
experience.)
We enjoyed flipping through open apps by swiping inward from the left edge, bringing up the app bar by swiping up from the bottom or down from the top and launching the Charms menu by swiping in from the right. We found the gesture for launching the Switcher was a bit more difficult to execute, as it involves two motions: swiping in from the left a little bit and then back to the right. Swiping down to close apps was sometimes frustrating, too, requiring multiple swipes. Hopefully, final hardware built to run Microsoft's OS will perform more smoothly.
Like other tablet operating systems, Windows 8 works in both portrait and landscape modes. However, it's clear that the apps and UI are designed for landscape viewing because most scroll horizontally.
News apps like Bing Sports looked particularly attractive on our tablet, because they format their articles into scrollable columns. We enjoyed reading articles about baseball and then swiping down to choose from other sports.
The virtual keyboard has large, well-spaced dark gray keys that were very easy to target with our fingers. It doesn't support tracing between keys like Swype does on the Android platform, but the keys do make a pleasant typing sound when you hit them. We do wish that Microsoft included a number row above the letters instead of forcing you into a secondary menu.
When we tried to use the desktop on the tablet, we ran into many of the same problems we've experienced on Windows 7 slates. Icons were much smaller and harder to target than tiles on the Start screen, and tapping widgets like the close button or menu items in applications was a bit of a challenge because our fingers were often thicker than the object we wanted to touch. When we wanted to copy photos to our tablet from a USB key, we had to use file explorer and drag the tiny file icon from the window pane over to the tiny Pictures library folder. This action proved difficult and resulted in several unwanted taps.
Any time tablet users need to browse the file system with Explorer, change a setting in the control panel or run a desktop app, they'll be back on the desktop, dealing with these challenges. However, we were able to effectively drag windows around with some practice, and we found the desktop virtual keyboard as accurate as its Modern UI counterpart.
We enjoyed flipping through open apps by swiping inward from the left edge, bringing up the app bar by swiping up from the bottom or down from the top and launching the Charms menu by swiping in from the right. We found the gesture for launching the Switcher was a bit more difficult to execute, as it involves two motions: swiping in from the left a little bit and then back to the right. Swiping down to close apps was sometimes frustrating, too, requiring multiple swipes. Hopefully, final hardware built to run Microsoft's OS will perform more smoothly.
Like other tablet operating systems, Windows 8 works in both portrait and landscape modes. However, it's clear that the apps and UI are designed for landscape viewing because most scroll horizontally.
News apps like Bing Sports looked particularly attractive on our tablet, because they format their articles into scrollable columns. We enjoyed reading articles about baseball and then swiping down to choose from other sports.
The virtual keyboard has large, well-spaced dark gray keys that were very easy to target with our fingers. It doesn't support tracing between keys like Swype does on the Android platform, but the keys do make a pleasant typing sound when you hit them. We do wish that Microsoft included a number row above the letters instead of forcing you into a secondary menu.
When we tried to use the desktop on the tablet, we ran into many of the same problems we've experienced on Windows 7 slates. Icons were much smaller and harder to target than tiles on the Start screen, and tapping widgets like the close button or menu items in applications was a bit of a challenge because our fingers were often thicker than the object we wanted to touch. When we wanted to copy photos to our tablet from a USB key, we had to use file explorer and drag the tiny file icon from the window pane over to the tiny Pictures library folder. This action proved difficult and resulted in several unwanted taps.
Any time tablet users need to browse the file system with Explorer, change a setting in the control panel or run a desktop app, they'll be back on the desktop, dealing with these challenges. However, we were able to effectively drag windows around with some practice, and we found the desktop virtual keyboard as accurate as its Modern UI counterpart.
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