Windows 8 Consumer Preview

So Microsoft released a 'beta' for their newest iteration on Windows earlier this week. I find it interesting in itself their billing of this beta as a 'consumer preview'. This is a move probably designed to bring more awareness to the laymen out there interested in such stuff. The Windows 8 Consumer Preview can be found here.

I've tried the initial developer build and saw the potential, this build is worlds better than the first. A lot more functional apps, and a slightly better tile screen.

The new interface seems interesting, but I've got to ask, who exactly is this built for? The default UI is now a screen of 'tiles' that most certainly geared for the tablet users. But this is now your primary deskop, don't get me wrong, you can still get to the classic looking desktop, but the Start menu is now gone, and when you hit the 'Windows' button on your keyboard, it brings you back to the tile screen. This is all fine and good for tablets, as I can imagine quickly scrolling using your fingers, but for a classic mouse and keyboard user, which I'd dare say, amounts to a large chunk of the Windows user base, this is no good, very hard to scroll around using mouse and keyboard. Also, when you launch an app, say Mail for instance, the usage of screen space is ridiculous, on my 15" laptop screen, because of the layout, I can only see 7 emails at a time, a huge waste of space in my opinion.

Microsoft clearly is trying to stay relevant but at the expense of their bread and butter, as there is no way this will work in a corporate environment. Either way, if you've got a spare laptop or desktop to try it out on, I suggest you check it out yourself, download the iso, and let me know what you think.