The Windows 10 Review: The Old & New Face of Windows
by Brett Howse on August 25, 2015 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Operating Systems
- Microsoft
- Windows 10
Photos
Another app that was in desperate need of attention was Photos. The Windows 8 photos app was frankly a nightmare, and it was one of the first things I disabled on any new install. The new version is far superior to what came before, in both looks and functionality.
Once again, we have a Universal Windows App which means that it can scale and reflow to fit any display size or window. By default, it grabs pictures from your pictures folders in your user profile as well as OneDrive, and you can also toggle whether or not to show pictures from OneDrive which are not synced with your PC.
Once in the app, you can browse photos by your collection, which shows all photos, or by albums. Collection is pretty self explanatory, and just contains a list of all photos in chronological order. There is no way to sort any other way, although you can click on a month to jump to another date. The albums view is a lot different though, and the system will automatically create albums based on time and location in your photos, and then present them to you. You can change what photos are in the album if you want to.
The Photos app does some nice things like automatically not displaying duplicate photos, and it can clean up images and remove red-eye in a non-destructive manner. If you don’t like the auto-enhance, it can be turned off.
The Photos app is now the default app for viewing pictures, and it supports most photo and video file types, and they recently added GIF support which is one format that was left out of the previous photos app in Windows 8.
It is a good improvement over the Windows 8 version, and being a Universal Windows App means it supports high DPI and multiple display sizes. I’d like to be able to create my own albums, and that is not possible yet. The change is going to be pretty drastic for those coming from Windows 7 though, and people tend to not like change.
Maps
I’d be curious to see how many people use mapping in an app on the desktop compared to mobile systems. I tend to gravitate to the web on my desktop when I need mapping capabilities. But with Windows 10 going to be deployed on everything from phones to Xbox, having mapping as an app is obviously important.
Microsoft leverages HERE for their mapping technology, and while Nokia recently sold the HERE divisionto a group of automotive companies, the licensing arrangement is likely part of that transfer. Mapping is a very personal experience though, and some people may love HERE maps while others can’t use them because they are missing local information. It’s an incredibly difficult industry to get into and keep up to date. Google is the obvious competitor here, and they have spent a lot of money and time to build up their mapping to the point it is now. HERE has some street view, but none in my area. One thing HERE has been working on though is interior views of places like malls. I’ve used this before on the phone and it is pretty handy although it appears to be missing from the data available right now on Windows 10.
The mapping app itself is fairly well sorted out, and it can easily do directions or searches as you would expect. The views themselves can be either from straight overhead, or you can get a bird’s eye view as well and tilt and pan the camera. On a standard 2D map this can give you a nice sense of direction, but in some locations, the maps have 3D views as well which is a very nice effect. 3D views are only available in select areas, but they are a great way to find your way around when you can use them.
Another great feature of Maps which is built right into Windows 10 is the ability to download and manage offline maps. You can pick your area and have the maps ready to go without having to wait for the lag of your internet connection. It appears to only work with the road maps though and not aerial views which makes sense when you think about how much data you would need to download for aerial views of anywhere larger than a city.
The performance of maps on the devices I have tested it on is very good. Clearly this is all being offloaded to the GPU because the rendering is fast, and rotations and panning is very smooth. Once you get into the 3D maps though it can tax the system quite a bit. I still found performance good even on integrated graphics, but on laptops it is going to create some heat to get rid of since the GPU can draw a lot of power, even on integrated devices.
Maps are good on the desktop, but you can see that this app is one that will be more important on smaller devices running Windows 10, since you’ll be able to have your offline maps available for use on the go.
Messaging
When Windows 10 was shown off in January, one of the apps that was shown was a new messaging app. Windows 8 included both a touch based Skype app, and the traditional full desktop app, but the touch version never seemed to offer as consistent of an experience as the desktop version. For Windows 10, it would be replaced with new standalone apps for messaging, phone, and video.
Windows 10 is now here, but delays in the messaging apps mean that for the moment, people who want to use Microsoft’s messaging service need to use the full desktop version of Skype, since the touch version has been removed from the store for all users except those on Windows RT.
Once the new messaging apps are released, I will check them out and see how well they work. Being based on Skype, the backend is at least well known and Skype itself has improved a lot as a messaging app over the last couple of years.
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Brett Howse - Wednesday, August 26, 2015 - link
Thanks for the catch on that one :)abhaxus - Wednesday, August 26, 2015 - link
Had a full screen takeover/scrolling ad when trying to read this article. Similar to the Tom's Hardware ads. I don't read that website anymore, and I will stop reading this one if it continues to happen.Anne Druide - Thursday, August 27, 2015 - link
Only 30 minutes in and it is obvious to me that Microsoft has dropped the ball it had picked up with Windows 8.1. (1) Microsoft's efforts at fixing Windows continue to be APITA (a pain you know where)! WHY did they have to completely obliterate the Charms? Why not just have left them along the right side of the new Action Center? I mean really? Did that NOT cross any of the brilliant minds at MS? WHY remove such a distinctive and unique feature of 8.1. Why not integrate it into 10? (2) Furthermore, just as 8.1 had swung maybe (maybe not) too far towards the tiles, 10 has swung WAY too far towards the desktop. Now, to get to the Metro Tiles Menu it takes TWO steps! Why in the world does pressing the offscreen Window button bring up the Start Menu INSTEAD of the Metro Menu? The Start Menu ALREADY has its own Window icon! And what's a TOTAL WASTE is that pressing on the offscreen Windows button while in Tablet mode and on the Metro Menu does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! It does not even bring up the Start Menu which would have been a great idea! Duh! (3) Finally, I feel that MS has lied about BRINGING BACK THE START BUTTON! Clicking on the Windows button located where the Start button was in Windows 7 does NOT bring anything up even remotely close to what we had in Windows 7! When I press the Start button I DON'T wanna see tiles; I wanna see all the practical functionality of what came up in Windows 7 when I pressed Start! INSTEAD, I get a very confusing flotsam and jetsam mish-mash of everything under the sun instead of quick access to the Control Panel and Task Bar content and...OMG there's no longer any user control of Windows Update?!!! All in all, my first 30 minutes with Windows 10 has been, as you can tell, VERY disappointing! WHY is it SO HARD for MS to JUST GET IT RIGHT! This is NOT even close to what Windows 10 SHOULD be. This is a limping Windows 9 with the 10 thrown in JUST not to look light years behind Apple's OS X whose TEN has been a thorn in the side of MS for how many years now?!mapesdhs - Thursday, August 27, 2015 - link
Still looks to me like MS wants people to have a phone interface on a desktop, which is stupid. So many things once again look incredibly unprofessional, and the lack of configurability is just ridiculous. It makes the coding of this latest release look so amateurish. The smiley in the very first review image is typical. I could make a list of everything else which is stupid (eg. no Save As from right-button), but who has the time, and I'm sure the 22 pages of comments have covered them all already.I don't want to use an OS that looks like a phone interface. I'll keep using Win7 until MS offers something sensible.
straighttalk - Thursday, August 27, 2015 - link
Totally useless review. No content, just a lot of opinion. Where's the beef? What are the issues? What problems are people who upgrade having?SteelRing - Thursday, August 27, 2015 - link
WiFi Sense is the antithesis of privacy and security, you should allow it if you are naive or an MS worshipper or both. Should you upgrade from Win8(.1)? For sure... Should you upgrade from Win7? I'd say if it aint broke dont fix it. I'm personally glad that Win10 finally allows me to buy laptop again, laptop that works and not just a toy. I want a keyboard and a mouse with my computer and Win10 finally lets me have it again. People who want to smear their screens with their fingers seem to be happy with Win10 too, none of my business though. If Win10 had not come out I'd be scavanging refurb laptops with Win7, thank goodness I don't have to.Oxford Guy - Thursday, August 27, 2015 - link
Microsoft is apparently doing its best to make sure it is broken. Here is a list I found of patches to avoid, due to things like added in "telemetry" (spying) or bug introduction:KB3075249, KB3080149, KB2505438, KB2670838, KB2952664, KB2976978 (8 only), KB3021917, KB3035583, KB3075249
Notmyusualid - Saturday, August 29, 2015 - link
Thanks, but cleared out a couple of those already.Zak - Thursday, August 27, 2015 - link
"for most people, they will make the trade-off of less privacy if it means an improved experience. The textbook example here is advertising, where in order to deliver relevant ads to the user (or rather not serve them useless ads) the ad service must be able to learn something about the user and their preferences" -- Are you out of your mind??? Trade my privacy for relevant ads? You ought to be on drugs or MS is paying you to post this drivel. Nobody likes to be blasted with ads, relevant or not. If they system really wants to learn something it is this: NOBODY LIKES ADS.jameskatt - Friday, August 28, 2015 - link
The absolutely WORSE thing about Windows 10 is now much it is tracking you - tracking the websites you read, the apps you use, tracking how much time you spend on a web page, etc. And you cannot turn this tracking off. It is totally creepy that Windows includes so much spying.Some parents may love this in that they get a monthly report from Microsoft of every webpage and app their children use.
But for the vast majority of users and parents, this is simply unacceptable.
Someone has to give us a privacy utility to block Microsoft from tracking us so heavily.