Windows 8.1 available in October, but will consumers buy it?

Windows 8.1 brings about the return of the start button and new smaller live tiles with other new UI implementations. So the question now is whether consumers will come on board with Microsoft’s changes.

There’s no doubt Windows 8 is superior to Windows 7 in every single way under the hood but many people are still at odds with the UI that Microsoft has chosen for the OS and are hoping that 8.1 rectifies many of the mistakes that Microsoft made with Windows 8 initial arrival. Windows 8.1 allows the user to boot directly to the desktop so that the Metro UI isn’t the first thing the user sees, something that many people complained about.

One of the new features that Windows 8.1 incorporates into the UI is a more powerful Bing function, designed to make it easier and more useful for the consumer to search for relevant information. This includes searching for apps on your computer or listening to music. The app store also gets a makeover as well, mainly because it was such a mess to navigate in the first place. The core apps that come with Windows 8 also get a few minor updates as well such as the Reading app allowing you to save articles across your devices and a Photo app that allows you to edit your pictures. Windows 8 also allows you to edit the OS with different functions such as having more freedom to personalize the OS including the usage of animate backgrounds. The enterprise edition of Windows 8.1 also includes BYOD, mobility and security enhancements such as biometrics enhancements, pervasive device encryption and Remote Business Data Removal. A release date of October 17/18 has been confirmed for Windows 8.1.

Surface Pro Expansion Options – External Options – Part 1

As many of you Microsoft haters and fanboys would already know, the limitations of storage regarding the Surface Pro is quite something to think about. Those of you who have thoroughly done their homework on the Surface Pro have come to the understanding that Storage Space can be expanded with an SD Card OR you can buy an external hard drive to satisfy your Windows needs and if your wallet is really adventurous you can attempt to buy the exotic External SSD’s lingering around the web looking for a new owner. As exciting as this sounds, we all know about the woes of Storage Space and how much of an issue it can be, luckily I just happen to be one of the privileged few to own a 120GB SSD so I can tell you all you need to know in terms of future options. So I would recommend and urge the soon-to-be-64GB-Surface-Pro owners to pay extra attention to the following doctoral dissertation on Storage space which will come in two parts.

SD Cards

The image above is a high-capacity SD Card which is capable of a Read Speed of 60mb/s and Write Speed of 35mb/s, this is the kind of storage you would use in cameras and put into your laptop so you can edit the pictures, It’s really good for mobility purposes because it’s really small. On that note, it wouldn’t be the best kind of storage for the Surface Pro mainly because it would be really slow. Although it’s possible to get a much faster SD Card such as the Extreme Pro 64GB SDXC with a Read Speed and Write Speed of 95mb/s which costs a rather expensive £95 and you would just be bordering on traditional HDD territory, which isn’t much. It would probably be best to stay away from SD Cards and look towards to buying an External HDD/SSD although if you have one lying around it wouldn’t hurt to stick it in and see how it copes right?

External HDD/SSD

If a SD Card isn’t your cup of tea you can always reach out to the next best thing, a USB 3.0 External Hard Drive, a reputable product would be Western Digitals Elements External Hard Drive. Although this particular Hard Drive doesn’t utilise USB 3.0 technology, it has 7200RPM and is most likely way faster than your average SD Card, plus for the amount your spending you get more bang for your buck when buying an external hard drive seeing as it only costs £70.05 for 2TB which is quite a deal. This would be more preferable to those who don’t mind carrying something a little heavier than your traditional SD Card, it doesn’t seem to be quite big either so it shouldn’t present too much of a problem to those who want to buy it.

Cloud Storage 

Another way of storing additional data is using a cloud service such as Dropbox to store additional data that you may require, such as large zip files or numerous documents. Since the Surface Pro is a fully fledged Windows 8 tablet, there really is no limit to what you can use so uploading anything is possible. It’s also possible to upload large files into the cloud storage and put them on another computer, thus freeing up space. This option would be ideal for those who work on large projects, and require more then one computer to be able to complete that work.