Windows 8 on Acer Iconia Tab

19 September 2011

#BLDWIN envy got the better of me, so I downloaded the Windows 8 developer preview bits this weekend.

Running Windows 7 on the Acer Iconia has been, well, crappy to say the least. It's just not been in the same user experience league as my iPad, so I figured that I had nothing to lose by wiping it.

First I plugged in my Keyboard and DVD drive via USB (that's something you can't do on an iPad) and having worked out how to boot to the BIOS (Power + Windows key together) got it to boot. The installation was completely painless. Only the Bluetooth driver was missing, everything else just worked out-of-the -gate.

My initial reaction? This is what Metro is made for. Readers will know that I never really "got" the Windows Phone 7 thing with its text falling off the edge, but Metro looks fantastic on the tablet. It's simple, intuitive and it works. Most of the time you forget that it's Windows under the covers. (That is until you click something that's not yet implemented and you get dropped back into the old style desktop).

It's disappointing that the prerelease seems to be missing some of the keynote demo material (notably the Windows Live integration).

It's given the Iconia a whole new lease of life (in terms of performance and usability), and I've been surprised how many hours I've spent with it this weekend. I'm really taken with the joined up thinking - the device and the cloud really working together. This is the release of Windows that will properly integrate Windows Live rather than making it seem like an afterthought.

The Iconia hardware (and all the Intel tablets I've seen) seem a bit clunky (too thick, too heavy), but I really think that ARM will cure that problem next year. I hope that this is the bridge to ARM that will hasten the decline of power hungry Intel chips.

I'm not ready to give up my iPad yet, but I am inspired to try my hand at writing a Metro application. I've seen enough to suspect that I'll be investing in a serious slate at Windows 8 launch time.

This is a platform that's worthy of developer time and investment.