It is a few days to the official release of Windows 7, but in true tech media tradition, we managed to lay our mitts on a copy of Windows 7 (the Ultimate edition, no less) a few days ago and have been putting it through its paces. These are early days but we must confess that we are really liking what we see and that Microsoft might finally have closed the gap on the Mac crowd and buried the Vista legacy with Win 7. We could write reams on why we think so, but this being a blog, we will simply stick to seven reasons why we think Win 7 is a winner:
- Speed: Vista was damned for being a bit of a laggard, but 7 definitely turns on the speed. We tried it on a Thinkpad and a netbook and were gratified to see sub one minute start-up and shut down times. Also, the OS did not seem to stutter as often as Vista and XP did. You are not going to be spending too much time twiddling your thumbs waiting for an app to open or save in this OS. At least, based on what we have seen so far.
- Ease of use: Win 7 has a number of good touches to improve your computing experience. We love the new revamped taskbar which seems inspired by the Mac OS dock and allows you to pin applications to it. You can preview content (even video) in open windows of an app by running your mouse over the app in the task bar and right click on an app to access the Jump List which shows recent files or sites opened as well as most commonly used functions. Top that off with the fact that you can plonk widgets (or Gadgets, as MS prefers to call them) wherever you wish on the desktop, and our cup runneth over.
- System resources: When was the last time a new version of Windows did not ask you for a system upgrade – be it in terms of a faster processor, more RAM or hard disk space? We just love the fact that Win 7 will run smoothly on almost Vista machines and quite a few XP ones (provided they have a gig of RAM handy). Even our Asus 1000h eeePC netbook ran Win 7 without any hitches whatsoever.
- Appearance: For all its popularity, Windows has never been a contender in the looks departments, as far as operating systems go. Win 7 does change this very significantly. The icons are polished and smooth and the option to plonk widgets all over the desktop (rather than in one specific area) does add a lovely touch. Finally, the Mac’s got competition, and not just from snazzy Linux distros.
- Style: No, this is not just a rewording of the “appearance” point. Windows users have long envied the little touches that Mac OS users used to enjoy, such as the double click on the toolbar to shrink it to the taskbar and so on. Well, Win 7 has a few quirky tricks up its sleeve. Grabbing the toolbar of a window and shaking it (using the mouse) will minimise all other open Windows; and the aero peek feature will give you a look at the desktop, reducing open windows to transparent tabs. All without affecting system performance. We likes!
- Compatibility: One of the albatrosses around Vista’s neck was that it has compatibility issues with a lot of hardware. We have not really thrown too many hardware items at our edition of Win 7, but barring some issues with the Wi-Fi driver on our Thinkpad, its Device Manager was able to handle our printer, scanner and digital cameras, the newest of which is a year and a half old, without any hassles. We also like the fact that the Device Manager has a more graphic element to it, with pictures of the product itself.
- Multi-touch: Our humble Thinkpad came without a touchscreen, so we cannot really claim to have tried to do this, but judging by the demos we have seen, Windows 7 supports some very nifty multi-touch functions. So you can zoom in and out by pinching your fingers, just like you can on that phone!
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