I have been having so much fun testing Windows 8 , currently I have it installed on the Joojoo , a dual screen Toshiba Libretto and as you can see from the video below , the 64 bit version ,on the Lenovo X220T , this is running from a Runcore basic msata ssd about the size of 2 sim cards , a few days into Windows 8 use and you realise the Metro interfaced IE10 is all about HTML5 and not flash , though the desktop IE10 is fine with Flash . For this test I wanted to show how easy it is to switch between and use multiple browsers using the touch screen , have all your favourite Apps running in the background , I also discovered that you can slide in windows from the left and right of the screen that have other apps open , as well as swipe from the left to switch between apps I also show the instant resume time of Windows 8 , yes it is faster than your monitors wakeup time !
The point of Windows 8 IS touch , this is not a touch layer applied over the top of an OS , touch functions accelerate and enhance your every day benign tasks , from the oh so serious Angry Birds to checking the weather , or your social network life .
So your next laptop should not just be an ultraportable , or ultrabook , it should be an ultrabook with a touch screen and pen input , likewise your next 30 inch 2500 by 1600 LCD should also come with 10 point multitouch and pen input , and if it does not it will ... it will thanks to the evolution that Windows 8 promises ....
With Windows 8 Microsoft is giving PC and Monitor manufacturers , software developers and end users opportunities that Apple have denied them ...
And this is just touch , there is nothing to stop Kinect style control of this OS .. and on the PC platform hardware will arrive that can cope with it .
As the Lenovo X220 T comes avec pen , this also deserves some testing out on Windows 8 , just check the video below , the new handwriting interface looks a lot nicer than the custard yellow Windows 7 version , and more importantly manages to read my impossible to read handwriting as you can see , this is a first use test so the software has yet to learn my writing style .....but it is mighty impressive ....
Remember you do not need an i7 powered tablet PC to do all these things , the Atom powered Joojoo or any Windows 7 slate or netbook will handle the Metro UI and feature set of Windows 8 .
The launch of this preview is so different to Windows 7 , which famously launched sans many drivers , what has changed now is the software and UI is driving hardware manufacturers , thanks in part of course to Steve Jobs , the iPad and the hunger it created in the masses for a desktop Windows touch and cloud based UI .. and yes you guessed right that happens to be Windows 8.... you should see how gorgeous the 12.1 joojoo looks running it !
And yes that is a dual screen Libretto in the picture running the Windows 8 ... just have to get the set up complete for dual screen touch magic ....
My first install of Windows 8 and test was always going to be on that futuristic and rare tablet the Joojoo . Contrary to what you read in Apple Cult Weekly , the Fusion Garage Joojoo got many things frighteningly right , it was just way ahead of the curve , and still is , for the Joojoo is a cloud tablet , and consumers are still a couple of years away from accepting the cloud ..not to mention developers presently chained to iTunes .... The Joojoo is the worlds first tablet , predating the iPad , and packing open hardware that let you mess with it from the get go , for a year now I and others have used Windows 7 Ultimate quite nicely ,as you can see from many videos I have made , today it is a collectors item and that is according to Endgadget !
With the arrival of the world`s first touch and cloud based full OS : Windows 8 , all the problems that the Joojoo launched with have turned into boons for those brave enough to have gotten hold of one , the msata storage , was unheard of when the Joojoo launched , an upgradeable ssd the size of a postage stamp, the desktop nVidia Ion easily paired with 3gb of DDR3 and the X86 ( oh how the blogs laughed) based Atom N270 , and not least the massive 12.1 inch 1366 by 768 res multitouch display . All of these design choices made by 14 people at Fusion Garage now allow a near instant boot of the Windows 8 preview . It is actually faster than the original Joojoo 8s or so boot time : Don`t believe me check it out below :
I installed the 32 bit version after wiping the 64gb joojoo msata clean of Windows 7, it took a night of trial and error and sometimes scary messages . To install set the Bios to boot ( hit del at start up) from USB ( your bootable 32 bit Windows 8 USB) , then when Windows 8s installer claims it wants to reset , and makes the joojoo go dead (yes really) remove the USB stick , set the Bios to boot from the SSD ,and start her up again , and wait and you will see a green screen ...eventually...
The other great thing to note about the install is , you can do it all mouse and keyboard free on a tablet , touch works BEFORE you install anything ! All the language and install menus , just touch and chose .....
Oh and once it has installed go to Windows explorer and install the joojoo touch firmware again , and run the tuning software as touch will go haywire until you do , then reset , by swiping back from the right of the screen , touching the settings icon and the power off icon ..and when you start the machine up again touch will have been calibrated and working like a charm as you can see in the video below which is a stress test to show how advanced multitasking is in Windows 8 , and this is on just an Atom powered tablet ,
And remember when they told you your Joojoo was too long? well check out the video below , the 12.1 inch screen looks gorgeous in the portrait orientation and allows enough room to have the keyboard or touch panel docked at the bottom of the screen , again check the speed of browsing , this is the power of your gpu accelerating your web experience
Tomorrow I will have tested Windows 8 on the i5 powered dual screen Iconia , and the i7 powered X220T ,by way of the dual screen Toshiba Libretto ..
Today though is joojoo resurrection day , for me and all the other joojoo owners who just installed Windows 8 onto their 1366 by 768 12.1 screened , Ion and Atom powered tablets , that a year ago Endgadget and the rest were complaining about not even running Flash....
With Windows 8 Microsoft have a product that scales from phones , to tablets to full desktops and workstations by way of giant consumer touch screens in between , they have also managed to unify their customer base , Windows 8 being literally your window if you are a developer to 549 million PC users ... And it is about time ..so say we all !
The way we mess with our PCs and game has changed for ever ... the cloud is ... and here is a demo of multitasking using Windows 8s Metro Style touch interface and streaming games instantly using Onlive UK which brings the benefits of the cloud to gamers in Blighty just in time for those cold cold Winter gaming months .
So let us take a step back here , I am about to play games, full PC games instantly with no install , social network , read news feeds , whilst doing any number of other useful ... multi tasks ... on a 12.1 inch Atom powered tablet ....using a full desktop touch screen OS most of it on the same screen at the same time ... and absolutely NO Apps were synced during the making of this video.....
This is just an Atom powered joojoo , can you see how Windows 8 and cloud based services like Onlive are going to change our lives next year with new hexcore cpus from Intel , and AMD and nVidia duking it out for the crown of fastest tablet GPU?
Till that day my £319 Joojoo is mighty fine and as you can see .... the cloud is not around the corner ... the cloud is .. and Windows 8 together with Onlive are just two of it`s heralds ....
My Windows 8 testing was briefly put on a 12 hour hiatus ... well OK 12 hours of Gears Of War 3 gaming from last midnights launch .... but more on that later back to the serious stuff of messing with Windows 8 ... the preview ...
Windows 8 promises enhanced multi monitor support, but how will it exploit multi touch screens? Well the prospects look good from my first tests using the Acer Iconia. Installation was swift and easy and the Iconia handles the 64 bit flavour of Windows 8. However the thing with dual Screen tablets is you have to flip the orientation of one screen, set the desktop to extended mode and most importantly go into the tablet settings and assign each of the screens as a touchscreen, which is made a lot easier by using an external Keyboard, as you need to hit enter to assign each screen is a touch screen. This of course also gave me the chance to set the Iconia into Portrait mode something the custom Acer Windows 7 install did not allow. So having done all this you should have a dual 14.inch tablet that looks like this:(remember to set the extended desktop).
and so let us start with some browsing : which looks something like this :
and in use this is how we roll : note you will see in the video I can use all 10 fingers ! So the Piano , and Painting Apps , as well as typing with the keyboard really shine on the Iconia , most Windows tablets are limited to 2 point touch ,though in the case of the Lenovo X220T , you have 2 finger touch , 5 finger recognition and the pen input which is arguably more useful on a tablet than having 20 point touch across two 14 inch screens.....
there is always the standard landscape dual screen mode , which you can see in the picture and video below .
these videos show 10 point touch working in Windows 8 , type or play the piano with all your digits ..., check out the speed of the OS , multitasking , and multiple app usage
The second video demonstration explores possible uses of a having a super fast touch based OS with 10 point touch on dual 14 inch screens : vital uses like playing 2 games at once , playing your own soundtrack accompaniment silent film era style using the Piano App on Screen 2 to Mass Effect 2 which I am playing with Gaikai on screen 1
Even in this early state Windows 8 is fun to mess around with on your dual screen tablet , as you can see ,and this is just the preview , roll on the Beta..
No tablet comes close to the speed of the touch interface on the Iconia , it seems Microsoft could easily launch a Courier style tablet , definitely next year as the software and hardware are progressing that way ... so thegameveda predicts there WILL be a Microsoft branded tablet sometime next year , a full Windows 8 tablet , with the successor to i5 or i7 and Intel HD 3000 , with which Microsoft could finally dent Apples rise , come on Bill ...you know Steve would ... wait he probably is already ....if my spies on board the Cupertino UFO are to be believed.....
If you think Windows 8 is simply Windows phone os layered over Windows 7 , think again , yes your first interaction will remind you of a smart phone . But for the first time multi touch and pen input are being used with a full desktop OS , those Apps you are messing with are full programs , not just stuff you spent hours syncing to and from your Mac or PC with a sloooww usb connection .
This video shows me discovering how to open multiple programs and browsers , ok so they call programs Apps now (bow before Jobs) .
Everyone knows you can swipe from the left to move individual apps to the screen , but the cool or wow as they used to term it comes when you hold your gesture , at that point any app or say 5 open IE10 browser windows line up for you to chose from in a small pane on the left , whilst you run Google chrome in the larger pane , swipe forwards and this pane will fill with another app , the app can be re sized , moved across the screen ,and you can do this from the right side of the screen too . So now your IE10 window covers the larger part of the screen whilst your Chrome browser shrinks , both remaining entirely functional ..through the magic of touch ... and pen on the Lenovo X220T . This is far easier to do with touch as you can see than say a laptops track pad ...
And herein lies the real magic :an end to mouse clicking ,picking,swiping glass track pads , and what the cool dudes refer to as a chromeless experience ...
Frankly awesome .. check out the speed , so you can browse in Google Chrome and IE10 at the same time , run apps in small panes ..eg having news feeds run in a small pane whilst educating yourself in a larger pane at the same time , oh and the apps actually function in those smaller panes ,these are not just fancy windows ...check it out
Thegameveda has calculated that there is not sufficient lifetime available to play through all the games that have been and will be , therefore a cunning plan has been hatched to play through games 2 at a time . This plan has been put into action thanks to Windows 8 , Steam and Onlive . And also allows me to test how the Windows 8 developer preview handles gaming . Note we now have a touch based OS that allows us to flick through games and Apps , you have for the first time the power of an i7 powered tablet PC with more RAM and GPU power than IOS and Android Tablets could hope to dream of . So you can do things like run 2 games at once , whilst running Windows 8 and desktop Apps in the background and flick through them as easy as a Build demonstrator on happy juice ...
check out video , this is my first games test using Windows 8 , but if anything it already feels faster than Windows 7 , perhaps because we have a raw os devoid of all the bloatware that may slow it down in later builds .
Test machine Lenovo X220 T 4gb RAM i7 CPU Intel HD3000 GPU running Windows 8 off a 64gb Runcore msata ssd ..
Crysis 2 is running in Steam natively using the i7 and HD3000 , I let the game choose settings (High) , Assassin`s Creed Brotherhood , Saints Row 2 , Mafia 2 all run instantly streamed using Onlive over wifi N .
All in all this test shows that even in the developer stage Windows 8 not only leverages maximum power as they say in Crytek speak from full PC components like the CPU , GPU , pen and touch tablet options , ssd storage , Steam , and wifi N dependent streaming services like Onlive but allows a level of multitasking no other OS or device without Windows 8 is capable of .... and this is just the developer build !
If you are in the market for a tablet hold on ditch Android and IOS before their stores own you , and hold out for a Windows 8 tablet , or just grab one that can run Windows 7 and install the Windows 8 preview ...
It`s 2011 , we play games instantly with onlive , and Gaikai at the same time , on a touch based full multitasking OS , not just any games , Crysis 2 and Deus Ex Human Revolution , from the cloud , 0 discs 0 installs,whilst we play the piano , check out the weather ,and plummeting stocks , and generally mess about with more mundane tasks , all without dropping a frame on the Windows 8 dev preview.
This is on the Lenovo X220 T , control is using touch , pen keyboard and red thingie , the video is recorded using litecam 3 which records at 30 fps , so you may see some dropped frames as the games , and the OS run far faster than 30fps limit set by litecam to record the desktop.The games are streaming across wifi N and neither GAIKAI nor Onlive drop a connection even though they are running at the same time.
The finest Windows 8 experience will come with your adoption of cloud services of which Gaikai an Onlive are just 2 heralds . Could you ever conceive of running Crysis 2 maxed out in a browser WHILST running Deus Ex Human Rev , whilst doing all the other nonsense in the video above , flicking away one game to instantly play another and then going back to the first? .
Windows 8 finally gives us what we really want all the benefits and comforts of a touch based OS like iOS and Honeycomb/ICS married to a full operating system , and one which for me is the killer reason that Windows 8 will succeed allows you access to ALL the upcoming cloud based evolutions of how we work , rest and play . Flash you got it , no need to wait for an App , or Steve to send a imessage from heaven , browser based work and games , you got it . Want to take advantage of your 20 core dual cpu set up you got , or the pen and touch screen on your Thinkpad you got it ..And for those who still believe computing began when someone invented the App , there will be plenty to obsess over as the store kicks in , and you or I can get in on the act which is the point of the developer preview ... not withstanding highly serious and technical multitasking gaming tests like the one above !
I still cannot get over the detail and speed of GAIKAI , the one caveat of course is whether you make it past the queue for a server and the likelihood of java playing up in your browser. Onlive is well into full swing even in the UK , all consoles selling out , and weekly offers kicking Steam in the nuts and bolts..
What I really need is an ultrahigh res tablet screen , maintaining the 12 inch ultraportable screen size but with a 2500 by 1600 res , roll on next year....
Onlive is the awesome cloud based gaming service that let`s you play Assassin`s Creed Revelations or Batman Arkham City faster than your gaming rig on your netbook ! or tv!
Onlive also has awesome game deals , including free play for up to 5 days for certain games , and of course it has its sales . Today after no sleep from playing the Star Wars The Old Republic Beta over this weekend I was too tired to purchase anything from Steam or any other traditional route , ok I am too lazy to go that way . And why should I when I get free games , games for £1 and too many games on sale ...all to play instantly across all my pcs and tablets :
But we also need to test Windows 8 , so here we see thegameveda using onlive , the notes app , paintplay and writing onto the screen using the Lenovo pen , and managing to train the handwriting engine of Windows 8 whilst checking out some cool games offers from onlive... so we surf through and can instantly play AAA games in one frame , whilst compiling a potential shopping list of bargains in the notes app , by writing directly onto the screen with pen which Windows 8 translates from scribble into real typed words as you can see:
We control the horizontal and the vertical ... of your joojoo Windows 8 Consumer Preview running tablet that is ... let's take a look at how the joojoo and Windows get on together ....
So much has happened this week in our world of tech and games , the Raspberry Pi launch (and order delay just like the good old days of self assembly Sinclair ZX80s) , the EA and GAME mess up of Mass Effect 3 , and another delayed preorder announcement of the siliconmicrodisplay ST1080 ... as well as of course the very quiet launch of the Windows 8 Consumer Preview .
In between sourcing some UK Mass Effect 3 N7 Editions , ordering 2 ST1080s and crying over the sold out Raspberry Pi I managed to test out and install the Windows 8 Consumer Preview on two of my Windows 8 tablets... on the lowliest ( but still mighty fine ) Atom N270 and Ion powered Joojoo to the fastest an i7 Lenovo X220T . Both machines fyi have been running Windows 8 dev preview for several months , and both have identical Runcore msata SSDs running the OS .
And without further ado here are my first impressions .
We start with mine joojoo tablet which looks nice in Landscape mode but shines in the Portrait orientation which makes for a very nice Pinball machine as you can see:
Earlier.... a Windows 8 tablet taking a bite out of apple
the closest Apple kind has come to a full OS running tablet .....come on Mr Ives....
that deaf dumb and blind (and dead ) Joojoo tablet sure plays a mean Pinball with Win 8 CP!
As soon as I saw the Pinball game I had to turn the Joojoo round ,et voila : using it this way is something you are meant to do , you can also play in landscape as I will show you later , but for now check out the Windows 8 Customer Preview in portrait mode , along with new and shiny content selection panel ( insert fancy correct name that cost several million dollars to come up with) The pint is the experience is intuitive , no one told me the pane was there , I just felt it should be and it was ... hey I'm a PC and I made Windows 8! ......Amazing to think people used to have to read telephone directory sized manuals to operate an OS none to long ago......
As you can see many more Apps are designed to actually exploit the portrait mode , incidentally when using the 16:10 1366 by 768 joojoo screen in this manner I get a lot more work done scrolling through 50 ebay items at time or as you can see below I am able to see more news and data plus it really does feel more like a magazine or news paper than all those dinky 9.7 inch tablets ....some of which cannot even run Flash ...tsk tsk....
the left thin selection pane shows all open apps the right larger pane shows you present choice
All these Apps are live and working simultaneously you can instantly flick from one to another , multitasking is even more impressive in the landscape mode more on that later....
Windows 8 in browser less browsing mode
Traditionally you would boot up a browser search for your content and observe it in a browser pop up. Windows 8 App delivery system gives you a totally browser less experience bringing your content to you without you even typing Google , now that is evolutionary! Apps can still track your data though ... there is a long term plan there somewhere...
the revolution will be tabletized .... Hiiiiiii YAAAAA!
the App Store App in portrait ... there's too many of them...and free too!
and
And now let's check the landscape orientation out ....
let's play and watch some more ....
notice something?
The Browser is dead :Windows 8 represents a seismic shift in the way we connect to our media at the moment many of reach our media through a browser window , whether it is watching videos or social networking you get there on a PC through a browser.. with Windows 8 use you can find yourself doing everything you would normally get up to but without ever having resorted to typing anything into google or bing or whatever browser you were enslaved to , thus Windows 8 can be a totally browser less experience. Google should worry.... As Windows 8 delivers content through the OS App interface your need to even go near a browser window is gone ....
When your video games and social media are so well presented and attainable without worrying about installing java , flash etc who needs a browser any more check out some multitasking below : Oh and of course all your browsers still work , but you are not going to use them so much . Side effect : no more ads or pop ups and nothing nasty downloading without you knowing it ...although you will have to keep an eye on the Apps you select and what they have access to ... yes tablets of Android and iOS have had these features for ages , but it is Microsoft that is giving consumers what they want , and they want the desktop experience to be an evolved tablet and phone experience ...with no Apple type excuses that we do not want touch enabled Mac Airs and Pros ....
Installation is effortless , no USB or DVD rom ISO nonsense just go to the site and download the installer then does everything , including keeping your personal files . No need to uninstall Windows 8 dev preview. You just need to make sure you have 20gb free on the install partition.
The joojoo I use has 4gb DDR3 , a 64 gb SSD , an Atom N270 and desktop nVidia Ion , it can run any classic pc game quite happily and even the likes of Star Wars the Old Republic . Windows 8 just looks stunning on this thing , a couple of years ago now , I told the CEO of Fusion Garage , that he should have launched with this configuration and with Windows 7 , he could have done this at a time before the iPad launched, I also emailed him to ask if his next tablet could be based on Windows 8 . Instead Fusion Garage went into the custom Android OS business that yielded the Grid10 , which killed the company dead . In attempting to ape Steve Jobs , by not listening to customer demands and feedback Fusion Garage went two for two with failed tablet launches. There can be only one Steve Jobs....
Meanwhile with the arrival of a gift from Microsoft the Windows 8 dev preview last year suddenly every joojoo owner had a 8s booting Windows 8 tablet in their hands. with a tidy desk top Ion accelerating proceedings , and a fancy msata ssd to run the whole thing from ...
Microsoft you see had been listening to all the Apple customer feedback that Apple had not , being too busy making billions and building it`s UFO headquarters.... We love the iPad , but why can`t we have a full OS tablet with the power of a desktop or laptop ,and most importantly the freedom of a desktop ... And that is what Windows 8 gives you , a portal to your games ,social and business web haunts , a market of 500 million laps and desks onto which to forward your own Apps if you should chose to do so.... And a lot of those are going to be Apple Mac Airs ,Pros , and Book Pros ... hands up who bootcamped Win 8 last week?
Last week millions , yes millions of Apple Mac Air and Book owners will have installed Windows 8 Consumer preview only to wish that the screens on their silver dream machines could handle multi touch like those magical iPad devices.....
On the joojoo , which is just Atom based , the Windows 8 Consumer Preview runs mighty fine , and the 16:10 screen ratio with a 1366 768 res looks stunning and is unique , no one is going to come out with an Aluminium shelled 12.1 inch Ion powered tablet again . Of my 4 PC tablets this one is the most visually striking even if it does have the lowliest hardware. Plus it is thin and light enough to hold , in portrait and landscape mode . And they said it could not even run Flash...!
If Windows 8 runs at this speed on Atom powered hardware from 2 years ago , then things look great for the up and coming generation of specially developed tablets . Clearly though if you are running Windows 7 or Vista on your netbook or desktop you are going to be delighted with Windows 8`s speed and features.
In a few months though you will own a Windows 8 tablet for the price of a netbook , and this is where Microsoft is going to bite Apple hard , it is very easy to produce even a sub $300 tablet that will run Windows 8 .. I know I have been using one for 4 months...
The beauty is that the already highly optimised and scalable nature of Windows 8 means YOU get to choose your hardware , you could have the fastest ivy bridge , quad gpu desktop running this booting in 3 s off the ssd of your choice , and you could run the same OS on your atom powered joojoo , and have access to all your apps and media across platforms.
With the announcement of an Arm based iPad HD on March 7th the race may be on to install Windows 8 ARM preview on Cupertino's magical device .... more Win 8 CP demos to follow on the i7 Lenovo X220T and the dual screened Acer Iconia 6120
