As suspected, my old laptop gave up the ghost on Saturday. So, the time came, and I bought a nice, inexpensive, touch screen laptop with Windows 8. I ended up going for a Sony Vaio, low end, cost me $699. Why did I pick it? Because it had what I needed, and didn’t cost a lot. Since I already bought an iPad, I didn’t bother worrying about the tablet component. Though the HP Envy X2 looks very nice, I could not wait until January 15 for a new computer. So here I am.
Amazon, being the amazing company it is, had my new laptop to me a day earlier than expected. It arrived just as I was planning to go on my first grocery shopping trip for my new home. Of course this meant I delayed my trip and set up the new machine.
Setting up Windows 8 isn’t hard. I already have a username and password for my various Windows services, so I just used that. I ran through the same set up that I used when I set up the Surface recently.
Once I really started using Windows 8, I quickly understood why people are so irritated at the lack of a start menu. Why do I have to go back to the Windows 8 menu, on a completely different screen, just so I can load another program? This means I will either need to pin everything to the task bar, or I will need to create a shortcut for every program I want to use. This is annoying. No wonder people are finding ways to create start menus. Stupid move, Microsoft.
Other than the start menu issue, I don’t have too much to say. As I have said before, Windows 8 is made for touch screens. I like the fact I can use the touch screen, because between all of the other touch screens I use during the day, I have moved to a default of wanting to touch the screen to tell it what to do. I like the combination.
I will give more details as I continue to work with the machine and the Windows 8 operating system.