Microsoft has unveiled the launch date of its new operating system Windows 10: July 29th 2015. For desktops and laptops that is. They have yet to give us the date for phone, Xbox One, or their other devices such as HoloLens and Surface Hub. I am sure they will let us know soon. As for the computer and the phone, I have been using them awhile, and I thought I would let you know what to expect!
For computers Windows 10 is pretty much a streamlined Windows 8. It has a better Start Menu and Notification Center. The settings are finally all in one place, and they are launching a new browser Edge. It is really the Windows 8 we wanted the first time around, so it seems Microsoft is sticking with the every other version of Windows is the one to get. The last couple of updates to Windows 10 have been pretty much bug fixes, and it is running a lot better. If we get a couple of more updates like this Windows will have no trouble hitting their July 29th launch date.
Windows 10 is also including a few fun features as well. There is now an Xbox App that works a little like Steam allowing you to buy games from a store, chat with your Xbox Live friends, control your Xbox One, and also stream Xbox One games to your PC to free up your TV for your significant other. The last feature is the one I can’t wait for! Windows 10 will also see the launch of DirectX 12. Apparently this upgrade to the massively popular API stack can increase performance in games by as much as 20%-50%, and even more if you got a lot of cores in your CPU. We will see, but since I have an eight core processor, I really hope so.
On the phone side, things are not as cheery. Windows 10 Mobile is slow and crashes a lot. I am hoping that with the PC version only two months away from completion we will start to see some updates to the poor mobile builds. You can see what they are going for, and things are laid out better. The Mail, Office, and other apps are way more useful. Having the phone store merged with the computer store should help out the app selection as well. Until there are a few more updates however, I would stay far away from the Windows 10 Mobile test.
As for the Xbox One, I am in the preview program, but there is not a lot to write home about, and they haven’t started the Windows 10 preview. There have been rumors that the Windows 10 test for that platform will launch after it is talked about at E3 this month. Here is hoping. I don’t know what we will see for Windows 10 on the Xbox One, but again the unified store should be cool. I would think they are going to do something soon because they are going to want to have Windows 10 on the Xbox One before Christmas buying season.
There you go. Windows 10 on the computer, good! Windows 10 on the phone, bad (for now)! I will be back in a couple of months with my full review of the PC version of the OS, and I hope that I will have better things to say about the mobile version as well. Until then be sure and reserve your free copy of Windows 10 for computers (if you have Windows 8 or 7) by clicking on the new Windows icon in your task bar!