Mobile Tech Minutes: Windows 7 UI for the netbook
I am more impressed with Windows 7 the more I use it, and I am especially happy with the UI changes that make it easier to work with small resolution screens like those on netbooks. In this video I show several of those features that work extremely well on netbooks and other mobile computers.
Watch this in HD to get the full impact of these changes in Windows 7 on a small screen.
i actually find the new maximize & vertical-tile features to be quite obnoxious. i can no longer resize windows to go to the edge of the screen because they will automatically maximize. i wonder how many other users will report to MS that they dislike it after extended daily use. hopefully MS provides a way to disable it in the final release.
I’ve ordered a new Wind and it should arrive later this week. I gave the old one to the family. The new one, a 422, has a larger hard drive, Bluetooth and 802.11b/g/n. Win7 and OSX are going on it to be sure. Not certain if I’m going to put Linux on it or not…
Can’t see the video here at the office, but will certainly come back after I get home to take a look.
James, don’t know if you read that YouTube embeds now have a HQ (high quality) toggle right in the video itself. It may not be HD, but I don’t need to leave your site to see better resolution. While the video is playing, hover over that triangle in the low right, click on HQ, and the better stream arrives.
It does Dave but it doesn’t show the bigger video window that way. Makes it a bit harder to see a full screen capture like this but I’m glad that YouTube realizes that HD is here to stay.
@ zFrame :
I already use this drag to the corner/resize thing in Vista (a freeware AeroSnap). And I really like it, especially the possibility to put two windows side by side.
I don’t think it will be an issue. Because the resize will only take place if your mouse is within a few pixels near the edges of the screen when you release the left click.
So it won’t be an issue for high resolution screens. For lower resolutions it might be an issue, but I hope that they will let us choose the size of those “resize borders”.
Windows 7 minimum requirements (according to Microsoft):
* 1GHz processor (32- or 64-bit)
* 1GB of main memory
* 16GB of available disk space
* Support for DX9 graphics with 128MB of memory
Ubuntu 8.10 minimal requirements (according to Canonical):
* 700 MHz x86 processor
* 384 MB of system memory (RAM)
* 8 GB of disk space
* Graphics card capable of 1024×768 resolution
XUbuntu minimum requirements:
* 300 MHz processor
* 256 MB of system memory (RAM)
* 8 GB of disk space
* Graphics card capable of 800×600 resolution
As you can see, when we have netbooks capable of running Windows 7 priced at $300, we’ll have netbooks capable of running Linux for $200.
When we have netbooks capable of running Windows 7 priced at $200, we’ll have netbooks capable of running Linux for $100.
In the cost race, Microsoft looses.
“In the cost race, Microsoft loses.”
That’s true, but it’s not solely a cost race. If it were, Ubuntu would be on every x86 device, no?
Exactly, Kevin… I’ll pick familiarity, usability, and compatibility over price any day.
@zframe,
I think this is a great feature and find myself already missing the tiling features when I move back to my XP-based work systems.
What I can’t figure out is how to duplicate the resizing issue you mention… in fact, when I try it as you describe, it sizes to full screen automatically edge-to-edge as you suggest without actually maximizing it.
Nice format for this review.
I should point out that Google Chrome doesn’t work with these Win7 windows tricks. It seems they don’t follow standard Windows guidelines for their window.