The Windows RT Review
by Vivek Gowri & Anand Lal Shimpi on October 25, 2012 12:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Windows RT
- Operating Systems
- Microsoft
- Mobile
- Windows 8
- Tablets
Skype for Windows RT: The New Messenger?
I decided to give Skype its own page, because it’s kind of a hybrid first-party/third-party app and I think it’s going to be very important to Microsoft going forward. It’s not pre-installed so you need to install it from the Windows Store, but Microsoft’s ownership of Skype means that the service is very well integrated to the Windows 8/RT platform.
The new version of Skype runs within Modern UI and has been redesigned from the ground up, with some critical changes being made to the Skype platform. You can login now with any form of Microsoft account, including Skype, and your Skype ID will be linked to your Windows ID. Your Skype contacts can be found either from within Skype or from the People application, so you can just call people directly out of the People application where the rest of your contacts are.
Skype’s new UI is clean and relatable, for the first time in quite a few revisions. Metro has more than done its job here, taking what has become a clunky and archaic interface over the years and really turning it into a modern, streamlined application. There are four areas, showing recent calls and conversations, favorited contacts, and a list of all your contacts as distinct panes. The fourth area, actually the first one you see, is an advertising column for Skype Premium with the sell being “More Skype. No ads.” How tempting. If you’re a free Skype user, like almost everyone I know, it’s just something you ignore but it really does bug me, because it mars what is an otherwise great looking app.
The edge swipe context bar brings up options to add contacts and numbers at the bottom, as well as thumbnails of recent contact history at the top. Once you enter into a contact, you’re free to chat with them, call them over voice or video, or add participants for a group chat. Overall, it’s well organized and very straightforward to use.
The cool part is that you can snap video chats to the edge of the screen, giving you a slice of the chat window. This is actually a really awesome way of doing things, since as long as the other person is generally in the middle of their webcam field of view, the 320 pixel width is actually more than adequate to carry on a good Skype conversation. I’m a big fan of using snapped applications for multitasking, and I think Skype’s implementation of it is very sleek. For the first time in a while, I’m very pleased by the design and responsiveness of Skype.
Eventually I think MSN/Live Messenger will be folded into Skype, paving the way for Skype to become the default messaging client for the Windows platform. The first step in this was combining the Skype ID with the overall Windows ID, and in time we will see how important this was for Microsoft to get right.
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munsie - Thursday, October 25, 2012 - link
I would love to see more detail on this as well. The filesystem is completely open, which means that anyone can extract existing EXEs off the system and place new ones on there as well. This is way different than the iOS model, for example.I'm predicting that we'll shortly see the ability to build desktop apps for ARM and the ability to sideload apps on RT. There are tons of people who know Windows inside and out, along with a huge desire to bypass this restriction.
zepi - Thursday, October 25, 2012 - link
I'm sure that if executable is not digitally signed with MS certificate, it wont run. And they wont be releasing that certificate with Visual Studio, so in theory nobody will be able to compile binary-applications that will run on WinRT.There are definitely going to be people looking ways around this restriction from various kind of cert crackings to fullblown jailbreaks, so actual situation for 'tech enthusiasts' remains to be seen.
mcnabney - Thursday, October 25, 2012 - link
Yep, no digital signature from MS - no installation.RT is the Embrace with some Extend aspects. I'm not sure how they will try to pull off Extinguish - but I'm not going to give them my money to help them.
I can envision a world without Microsoft now - something unimaginable in the past.
ricardoduarte - Thursday, October 25, 2012 - link
Hi,Can you please, post in a couple weeks, how the windows 7 folder and user folder size increase. Windows have gone fatter and fatter out of control, even my win7 gone from around 10gb to 20gb with tmp folder cleaned.
I this happens i think it will be a mood killer to a lot people when they have 32gb or 64gb available on tablet. I think It would be interesting to see if performance decreases overtime (like most of the time happens with windows), something that doesnt really happen with android/iOS tablets and if the system folders size continue expand out of control.
CaedenV - Thursday, October 25, 2012 - link
Win Vista was the king of the bloat. Win7 was smaller than Vista, win8 is smaller than 7, and RT is even smaller than windows 8. The only real big balloons in size were from 3.1 to 95, and then from XP to Vista. I obviously have not played with RT myself, but win8 on the desktop side of things runs pretty smooth on even the most limited of hardware. The slowest thing I have tried it on so far was an old Pentium 4 (no HT), with an ancient 60GB HDD, but I did cram in 2GB of ram. It seems that so long as you have that magic 2GB or more of ram, it will run on just about anything. It even made my old netbook work great, and my slightly newer touch screen netbook really flew (though I was annoyed at the resolution requirements for multitasking and metro apps).Anywho, that's my 2 cents.
Great review Ananad and Vivek!
MadMan007 - Thursday, October 25, 2012 - link
He is talking about install size creep, not initial install size. "...even my win7 gone from around 10gb to 20gb with tmp folder cleaned."It's a very good question. Hopefully reviewers use these devices for weeks or months and check it out.
GnillGnoll - Friday, October 26, 2012 - link
If that bloat is limited to the winsxs folder, don't worry. Windows creates so-called hardlinks to other files there, such that those files will effectively exist in multiple locations in the folder structure at once. Additional hardlinks only take a small amount of extra space, but they make determining "the size of a folder" tricky, because files no longer uniquely belong to a folder.Instead of looking how much the windows folder grows, look at how much space is left.
plopke - Thursday, October 25, 2012 - link
i am not really metro pro or metro con since I havent tryed it out yet. but if i look at reviews i can just use my desktop as in windows 7 but I have one particular question about the desktop mode in windows 8 namely how is the old search function from the start menu implemented. I mean 60% of the time i just start stuff from pinned programs on the taskbar but the other 40% of the time I just do the following:-windows key , type and launch program/document , this has been for me the fastest , is that still there?
-and does my fatefull old windows key + E stil work xD?
cappasay - Thursday, October 25, 2012 - link
Both of what you described, are available in Windows 8. I use them all the time.plopke - Thursday, October 25, 2012 - link
thank you :)