"Early reviews hail Windows 8 preview as ‘thing of beauty’"

Microsoft released a preview of its Windows 8 operating system ahead of its full release in December, and so far the critics have been unanimous in their praise.

Most critics gave the preview a positive review

“The Windows 8 Release Preview is among us and, boy, is it lovely. It’s so much dreamier than the Consumer Preview and makes the Developer Preview look like something cobbled together out of two-by-fours, electrical tape and rebar”,said Matt Honan of Gizmodo.

The Next Web wrote a monster 5000 word review in which it said, “Windows 8 is a promising fusion of metro-style touch applications, and the Windows experience that Windows 7 made popular once again”.

CNet meanwhile likes the preview but is cautious in its praise saying, “Windows 8 remains a much harder sell to the public than any other operating system because of its ambitious changes to workflow, and its reliance on new, unseen, untested hardware.”

The Windows 8 preview copy (which can be downloaded here) runs on the Windows Metro interface which is designed for touchscreen input similar to that in the Windows Phone and on the Xbox 360. It features a new tile-based Start screen similar to the Windows Phone operating system. Each tile represents an application, and will be able to display relevant information such as the number of unread messages on the tile for an e-mail app or the current temperature on a weather application.

And in case you’re worried that you wont be able to use Windows 8 on your PC  because it sounds like its too touch focused, never fear. The ‘swipe’, ‘pinch to zoom’ and other touch commands can also be done on a trackpad.

Gizmodo states, “Microsoft sent us this build on a Samsung laptop with a boring, old-school, non-touch sensitive LCD screen. Using it side by side with another laptop running the Consumer Preview was revelatory. The gesture support built into the trackpad made the experience far, far better. It was more navigable, less likely to launch inadvertent actions, and just all-around easier to use.

And The Next Web says, “Here is why the touch edition of Internet Explorer 10 is better than expected: Microsoft removed the chrome. By that we mean that when on a web page, there is no ‘application’ surrounding it; the browser itself disappears. This helps smaller screens, on tablets for example, to be effectively larger.”

Tech sites have also praised the speed of the Operating System, and the innovativeness and intuitiveness of the apps.

But with the good, there is bound to be a little bad. Gizmodo says that for all its features Windows 8 is ‘quite boring’, and CNet(which is possibly the most harsh review) says “There’s a long, narrow road ahead for Windows 8, and the Release Preview hasn’t gone as far down the path as we were hoping.”

Either way it looks as though Windows 8 will definitely give users something to talk about in December.