I have both 7 Ultimate and 8.1 on my computer (dual boot on seperate SSDs). Her is my positives and negatives of Windows 8 over win 7.
Positives:
- Really fast and smooth compared to Win 7. The difference is noticeable, even in boot up.
- I am not too bothered with metro itself, nor do I care much for the loss of the start menu. Rarely used it on seven other than to open frequently used app, or search for other apps. I rarely even know whats on my start menu aall programs list, as its hardly used)
- Lightweight. It appears that Microsoft have finally got rid of some in built junk
- Metro apps have their uses. I can think of many types of apps that I would rather not have to install into my windows system normally (as an admin no less) complete with the potential to add further junk to my system folders complete with system wide spyware, and being unable to guarentee a clean uninstall. Metro apps seem to be a bit better isolated.
Negatives:
- Metro apps are still tooo touch focused, and certain things are less intuitiuve with KB and mouse only.
- MEtro apps and dual monitors. Despite the improvements in Windows 8.1, there are still huge usability problems still existing for dual screen users. For example, when running a metro app on the left hand screen, its more involved to bring up the charms panel with just the mouse. Whereas with a single screen, you can blindly flick the mouse up and to the right until it gets to the upper right corner to bring up the charms panel, with a dual monitor, the mouse will simply go to the next screen, making the user have to concentrate more in actually positioning the pointer in the exact region to show the panel.
- I still feel the desktop UI is very poor. I enjoyed aero on Win vista, and more so on 7. The transparency effects give me a lot of cues to order, and overlap. The new UI is frankly ugly, and personally a lot worse than win 7.