I don't know what OS you've been using, but I'm loving using Windows 8. The desktop is excellent and so is the start menu and the Metro styling. The only things that could some extra polish are the mouse gestures, and even those work pretty well when you get used to them.

For me, Windows 8 is notably faster and sleeker than Windows 7, and just plain better in many ways.

Ouch. I just found a rather good demonstration of the problem with Android's ecosystem. I'm sure these Android apps are functional, but they also uglay:

http://www.pcmag.com/slideshow_viewer/0,3253,l%253D295472%2526a%253D295476%2526po%253D1,00.asp?p=n

Seems to be a direct result of trying to support every possible screen size, density, and aspect ratio.

In fairness, I've stumbled across a few iPad apps with Stretched Phone App Syndrome (SPAS). Just look at the crappy official Facebook and Twitter apps for iPad in that slideshow. Thank goodness for third party Twitter clients.

Anyway, just know what you're getting into.

If I have to spend most of my time in desktop mode because of really heavy multitasking then there is no point to the Metro UI Start Menu, it's just ugly blocks blocking my entire screen. Don't even mention snap, it sucks, big time. It's not an OS built for power desktop users(I'd otherwise be using my phone or tablet, I use my computer when I know I'd have a lot of shit going on besides gaming) and I will never have a 40 inch touch screen to have my finger prints smeared all over the place on. They should have built the desktop and tablet versions not so "seemless" because it's just dumb, the idea might have seemed really cool on paper, but it really is built for tablets and touch devices. They literally layered 2 OS styles together because they don't know what else to fucking do.

As someone that hates Apple just to fit in. I have to say for the ipad. It's a great tablet.

Bolded: exactly. When I'm in front of a computer, I NEVER have less than 3 programs running and it's usually 6-8 running at any given moment. In that environment, what does Metro really add to the equation? Very little, and it creates an additional step whenever I need to open another program to use alongside the others.

I like the idea of Metro (the blending of touch and traditional UI). I do not like the implementation.

But if you're going to do heavy multitasking, then the desktop is exactly there to let you do that and the start menu helps you too. Take live tiles for example. You don't need to keep your e-mail client running to check if you have any mail, just push the Windows button. The same goes for IMs, social networks, and a bunch of other stuff. Searching in the new start menu is also much nicer than with the old start menu (which was frankly pretty terrible).

Snap works well at what it's designed to do, namely allow users to easily have more than one thing going on without things getting messy, while making it easy for developers to accomodate this scenario as well. If you're going to do more stuff, than the desktop definitely has the upper hand, but it's pretty easy to change between programs still.

And the start menu actually offers a generally better way to find the programs you wish than the old menu does, seeing as the blocks are much easier to navigate than the old menu. It's not going to fall in everyone's taste of course, but I'm personally loving it and much prefer it over the old menu.

@ rocketpig

How does Metro add an extra step to the equation?

Because you're flipping back to Metro instead of MS moving more toward a Dock system like OS X (which they already have to an extent in the tray or whatever it's call but it's not as good for multitasking, particularly if you have 2-3 windows open in each program). I don't want to have to bounce back to Metro to find the software/whatever I'm looking for. It should be on the desktop.

Really, I just don't see the point. When I'm working, I'm flying back and forth between Photoshop, Illustrator, Chrome, Sparrow (Gmail client), Tweetdeck, and Evernote, with the occasional stop by iTunes to change what's playing. What does Metro do to make my life easier? Nothing, really. It seems superfluous. Why on Earth do I want a second UI in my operating system? At least in OS X, Launch Pad (which is a more spartan version of Metro, really), I can ignore the second UI if it doesn't work for me. With Win8, MS is shoving Metro down our throats and in its current iteration, I don't feel it's ready for prime time on desktops.

I'd like to point out to most users here, Instead of saying what you dont know about go ad dowload Windows 8 right now.

It is abolutely aweesome. A true revolution in OS.

The snap is so fast. But the most impressive thing is application interaction.

Unlke both Android and OSX or IOS you dont have t have loads of apps open. ach app is already talikng to each other.

Its amazing how all this time multitasking has been done extremely porly in any OS.

Download Windows 8 Now officially from Microsoft .com

Yeah, that's partly why I haven't bought a tablet yet.

Honeycomb is only a year old and it was the first real tablet OS, problem is it was initially completely separate from Androids phone OS base.

ICS is only a few months old and is now rolling out to all tablets and some phones. ICS is a perfect bridge between the phones and tablets and all between. It has SDKs to handle the screen sizes more effectively and allows developers to make one app (not two as in iPad) and have multiple different viewing UIs to best fit the screen size. For Android, where OEMs make a large variance of platforms, this makes perfect sense. But iOS is not as important as there is only a very small set of possible views. So simply putting out a 2nd app for iPad is simple.

Heck ICS is an amazing step up from the previous versions and adds a lot of stuff to begin the correction of fragmentation in Android. From unified menus to simply SDKs to handle any screen size, this is the start of ending the only real drawback between Android and iOS.

At bolded... wtf is the active tile if its not an open app?

They are not different than Androids widgets, except Androids widgets are far more customizable.

Windows did the smart thing in reinventing their mobile interface and Metro is pretty awesome. But Win8 will be confusing to many out the gate as its so drastically different. They realy need to make sure what is shown now continues to be improved and focuses on user experience between the Metro and Aero UIs.