Windows 8

So I decided that in the Samsung Slate 7 I had the perfect device to test windows 8 out.  I made a system image then went ahead and did the upgrade, really to see what the difference would be.  If I was being honest I expected it to cause me issues and I was not disappointed.

Unlike the touch elements of the iPad the touch elements of Windows 8 were not particularly intuitive.  Initially I struggled to get anything I wanted to do done, but gradually I discovered the gestures that would give me the control I needed.  With a little work I manage to tease the device back to a setup that will nearly let me use it as my day to day computer, but I am still not quite sure if I will use it at work tomorrow or whether I will restore the windows 7 image.

Perversely my problem is the touch!  It does work brilliantly if all I want to do is consume media or browse the web.  Alas where it fails is in making the creation of new documents as easy as the windows 7 pen/touch combination.  The reason for this is that the handwriting input box is now huge, non re sizable and worse the touch stays active while it is in view.  This means if you touch any part of the screen with any part of your hand everything falls apart.  Using this on the train, as I usually do every day, is going to prove quite a challenge.

The Dell tablet I used a while ago had a great solution to this.  There was an option that allowed the touch to be turned off as soon as the pen was detected.  It stayed off until the screen was double tapped with a finger restoring the touch sensitivity.  When I got the Samsung this was missing and I struggled with the tablet so I wrote my own program to allow me to turn touch off.  This made everything work well for me, but alas this program does not work for Windows 8.  Not only does the program not actually do anything if you turn the touch off in the registry then you completely loose the ability to have the keyboard pop up (which could be a Samsung driver issue?).  If Windows 8 had the Dell solution built in by default then just by using Ritepen 4 the computer could become useful again.

So now I am not sure whether the Pen/Touch powered computer of my future vision is ever going to come.  I am however going to keep my hopes up and assume that as Windows 8 moves to release it will mature and become the operating system of my hearts desire.