Having used Windows 11 a few hours now I’ve had a good play now and got a good sense for how it works. Here’s a quick review of this soon to be released operating system:
What works
The window management changes is great, this was drawn from a powertoy they offered previously for Windows 10, and has been extended by visually adapting the maximise button to show layout options. I’m not sure yet whether you’re able to create your own layout options as was the case with the powertoy as a few additional layouts may prove beneficial over the defaults.
The new start menu is simple elegance, it does away with complexity that was created with Windows 8 and simplifies. This along with icons being centred on the task bar gives the old girl a nice pair of new pins.
Windows update appears to be faster; yes, there was already two updates if you can believe it. Rather than the Windows 10 experience of sitting there an eternity, the updated experience did feel as though a few added cylinders were added to the engine.
What doesn’t work
Handwriting recognition still sucks. I don’t know if this windows tablet noob is just writing wrongly, I doubt it, but windows 10, and now 11, have just plain failed to understand all that well well written text. I have clearly printed text only to have it intelligently write something that draws the most perplexed look from yours truly.
Windows 11 is still a missed opportunity for tablet users, rather than adjusting the interface for tablet users, increasing element sizes as you might expect in this mode, you must struggle to click Screen elements. it is also slow to react to requests to open browser items in another tab via a long press (right click).
Related to handwriting mode, I found it difficult to swap away from handwriting mode to specify let’s use keyboard as ya plain just can’t understand handwriting. it shouldn’t be difficult to swap modes, but it was, it didn’t appear to have been considered.
Generally though, it’s a nice update.
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