In the past I've embraced new Windows operating systems; I started using computers with Windows 98 and moved to XP, even on my old P3 processor it was a night and day difference in usability; from XP I went to Vista, it wasn't perfect, but it advanced the system to a whole new level, and I never truly understood all the hate for it, it wasn't perfect, but it did a good job; from Vista I went to Windows 7 and found myself perfectly at home, all the features and advancement I'd expect, with better performance and usability than Vista offered. Then Windows 8 hit the market.
I've made no secret of my distaste for Windows 8, it left out useful tools (Virtual PC anyone?) and hid many of the more powerful features under a layer of UI that should have never been considered for an enterprise OS. From the start I've seen the purpose of having a touch interface, and I see that's where the future is heading, but a desktop/notebook environment is the wrong place for it, Windows made a mistake by leaving desktop functionality off its menu system, plain and simple.
Having said that I found a good environment for Windows 8, proving the functionality of the OS in the correct purpose, my media center. About a year and a half ago I dropped cable in my house, upgraded my internet pipe and went strictly online with my entertainment needs; great choice by the way, I watch what I want, when I want. Between Netflix, Hulu, and a bit of downloading I have everything me and my family need on hand at all times.
When I started this I installed Windows 7 as my host OS with XBMC as my media manager, using a couple of plug ins like Navi-X, worked great, no problems. About a month ago my machine suffered a hard drive failure so when I replaced the drive and did the OS rebuild I decided to give Win 8 a shot. I've been using 8 at work for the last 6 months and once I got the Classic Shell app I was happy; it allowed me my desktop functionality that I need to do my job efficiently, while still taking advantage of the benefits of Windows 8 so I thought this would be worth a shot.
Turns out it was a great choice for a media center. Using a mouse to control a TV interface is great and the way Windows 8 is laid out makes it relatively painless. This is largely due to the limited work I'm doing on the system, as I said before, if you're not working it's a major difference. Add in to that the apps from the Windows App store, like Netflix and Hulu Plus (You need a Hulu Plus account for the Windows 8 app, but I was wanting to go plus anyway) my computer is becoming a true media center with no extra configuration. Consider me sold on Windows 8 when I don't need to work with it, possibly even to the point that I'd consider a surface with it, although I still think the surface hardware is oversized, overpowered, and overpriced for what you're getting from it.
Bottom line, if you're building a media computer I'd recommend Windows 8, I was pleasantly surprised with how well it functions.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment