Windows 10 – A First Weeks Verdict – Grasp 15′

Windows 10 – A First Weeks Verdict – Grasp 15′

We’ve lived with Windows 10’s first proper outing for a whole week now. Using a combination of both feedback from some 14 million public users that upgraded in the first 24 hours of its release and our own tests we give our first impressions of Windows 10.

What’s good…….

MS Edge, our new built in browser has ditched the malware welcoming Active X elements and is a sleek, simple and rather nippy browser! Who would have thought? What’s more, we found Cortana (Windows take on Siri) integrates well with Edge and will find you even the most obscure of requests with relative ease. Cortana is easily accessible and usable in its own right Edge or no Edge also for the record.

Windows 10 has a start button that makes sense! Yes for all Microsofts millions of investment all we really wanted to was a sensible start menu that wasn’t “”charm” or touch screen orientated and we got our wish with the new “Action Centre” menu. Windows 10 hasn’t abandoned its multi platform approach instead its made Windows 10 more customizable and common sense to various environments in a way we can all get on board with, this is what Microsoft refers to as “Continuum”.

And…….gone are the rather dictatorial full screen apps from Windows 8 that lost us all a year of our lives in rage alone. Instead apps are windowed and a lot more functional as desktop apps. Windows 10 feels more like a return to usability and a swallowing of pride from Microsoft. But its not all there yet…….

What’s not so good…………..

The general feel of Windows 10 is that it isn’t quite as quick off the mark as Windows 8.1. We of course have to keep in mind this is only the first build of the public release of Windows 10 and that Windows OS’s undoubtedly get sharper with time and of course, updates. But this first outing has a slight initial sluggishness to it. What’s more, Windows 10 has even lower minimal system requirements to run Windows 10 than 8 or 7 so you’d be forgiven in a) chucking it on your older devices and b) thinking in doing so it would be every bit the quick OS relative to its size. This isn’t quite the case yet.

Despite our Kudos for Microsoft Edge, our new browser, we still however are having the “Bing” search engine rammed down our throats once more. Its annoyingly bland and old fashioned aesthetics aside it simply does not compete with Google or otherwise in all round comprehensiveness. The “Bing” brand is purely associated with basically online aspects of Windows we didn’t ask for or want in the first place, but unfortunately Microsoft has spent a lot of cash on its inception over the years so it seems we’re stuck with it. The latest version isn’t all that bad, its quite efficient, but the stigma of “Bing” is there still and it is a country mile away from Google standards so for now its -> browser options -> default search engine change as normal for users we feel.

Moving on, there are some of those MS classic driver issues that were supposedly a thing of the past. Windows has improved over time in identifying hardware in your devices that require specific compatible standard drivers but despite the assurance that anything Windows 7, 8 or 8.1 should function as normal on 10, this isn’t proving to be wholly true. In particular many Nvidia users (of which there are quite a few) are experiencing issues with some of their higher end 4K GPUs simply not being usable due to lack of windows standard driver support. What a lovely scenario that throws up, you spent a fair old whack of money for 4K capable graphics and you have to boot into low res Windows safe mode just to be able to use your computer! Doh!

So………..

Really we have a good starting point. A good, secure, simple, stable platform that with time could emerge as the operating system we’ve needed to be free of the debilitating aspects of Windows 8 and 8.1. Its a return to common sense and usability which is enough to at least justify trying the free upgrade and peak curiosity. But speaking in the present tense Windows 10 will need to wake up a little and down a few strong espressos because in these very early stages Windows 10 lacks the raw immediacy we require in 2015 something we hope forthcoming updates will address.

If you want advice on upgrading your OS to Windows 10, please give Grasp a call on the contacts page of this website. Or visit us at: