Windows 8 App review: Office 2013 CP

   Microsoft Office 2010 PC Home And Student Edition - MSCD04771WI

  Overview

     Well you might be asking, "This is a desktop app not a Windows 8 app?" Well actually the Office 2013 suite is so metrofied that it feels like a Windows 8 app. The new Office 2013 or Office 15 has some great improvements like, edit PDFs, embedding videos into Word documents, adding social sites, blogging in Word, and many other goodies that some where already in Office, but are now revealed and make it much easier and fun to use. At the bottom of the page you can see some screenshots in the usual slideshow. I have installed: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Onenote, Access, Publisher, and Outlook.

Word 2013

     I was happy to see a host of new features available in Word 2013. To some power users dismay the ribbon is back, but this time it is in a new metro encasement. I really like the addition of embedding videos into word files and the editing of PDFs was a great choice too. Slowly but surely Microsoft is turning the Office suite into a one stop shop powerhouse. Of course small time developers will not like this because their applications that may have converted files are being neglected, but it all works out for the consumer in timely fashion. Touch optimization was not that bad considering the whole rectangle and square approach instead of the old circle approach. It felt a bit under professional with the entire Metro theme compared to 2010 and looked a bit retro and consumer like, but it did the job much better with no lag. I was surprised at how fast text entered and how quick pages loaded. I was pretty happy to see a very clean design and quick performance. Everything is very clean and loads up faster then some metro apps. You can easily customize the background with a couple of different ones from the Start screen. It is a very clean typical metro interface that is very easy to use and I enjoyed using it. Is it touch friendly? Depending on how big your screen is and how many pixels you have. If you have a 1920x1200 AIO than this would be great. On smaller devices it is a big upgrade from Office 14/ 2010, but still has a ways to go. 

     Excel 2013

     I do not use Excel much except when I am at school until I saw the new version. It almost compels me to make up charts that I will not even use (much). It connects to my Sky Drive to keep my spreadsheets anywhere and everywhere. I really like that so I can edit that no matter what I am on with either Windows 8 or Windows Phone 8 or Android using the Office Web Apps. I really love the simplified approach of metro and the Excel app really excelled my spreadsheets.

     PowerPoint 2013

     

      I used PowerPoint a lot in school during Computer class and I think I might have done it easier with the new PowerPoint. The app is not only lighter it runs so much faster and text input is just as buttery smooth as Word. There has been some improvements like adding glow effects and it is so easy to move pictures around. Borrowing from Google's term "Project Butter" everything has been smooth from text to moving from page to page. There has not been that much change for PowerPoint. It is more of a cosmetic change and the integration of social media. The template "store" is very beautiful and looks really cool and touch friendly. I really like the look and feel of the entire suit and PowerPoint was no exception. It does have a uniformity of the entire suite, but I like the look.

     One Note 2013

     The best and probably most used college tool is OneNote. I know a lot of people that do use Word to take notes, but the new and improved OneNote is more than able to take graphs and all other types of statistics and notes of course. It can accept either drawing or typing whatever you choose. This is the only app that the Microsoft team decided to make a Windows 8 full metro app. The metro app is more touch friendly and is built sideways not top down. It is called OneNote MX (as seen above) and looks really cool and is very quick and easy to use. The good thing about it is whenever there is a crash or a bug found it will automatically send a bug report to the Microsoft dev team. It is a bit hard to use, but when you get used to it actually it is very quick and fun to use. I could see someone using it paired with a Asus tab 810 or Surface Pro with a stylus writing down notes super quickly. The desktop app has a lot of more features and looks beautiful and has a little snipping tool. 

     Publisher 2013

     I have only used Publisher twice in my life, but both of those times I fell in love with it. It reminds me of the PowerPoint app with the glow effects and the easy picture swapping. It comes with a little tutorial with some high quality photos probably from a Nikon or Canon dSLR. The tutorial is simply a publisher file with some information about the new features. It is the tool of the advertiser and the student who needs to make pamphlets or any other publication that your little heart may need. In reality there is no other Publisher equal. Google Docs or Open Office do not have anything that has the same level of sophistication or large size of templates. The entire metro feel flowed right through to this app and is excellently shown.

     Outlook 2013

     This is the most used app that I have used in all of my testing Office 15. it can effortlessly open my e-mail accounts faster than gmail or even the mail app for metro. By far the Outlook 2013 is the most changed from Office 2010. Not only does it have metro up top it has it everywhere. It was a bit hard to use at first, but when you get used to it it is fast and easy to use. I really love the entire look and design of the app and it supports pen input and can support multiple inboxes no matter if Imap or POP. It is the most used I have with Word behind it. It is the best e-mail app I have ever used because the mail app does not support e-mail accounts from carriers. It feels like Word and advanced e-mail functions are mixed together. Once again the text is fast and fluid like Word. It works like a dream and I never have had a bug in it yet. 

 Conclusion

      I have to say that I was a bit leery of Office 15, but now that I see it is a one stop shop for much of what I do. It provides all of the services you already use in Office 2010 with added functionality, speed, and a beautiful new design. When I type in Word and compare it to blogger.com Word wins every time. Also the Office 15 suites are not processor hungry unlike Google Chrome or Open Office. I am very happy to use Office 15 and can not wait to test this on a touch enabled laptop.

Rating 5/5

     

     

Windows 8 App review: Free Books

     Overview

     Doesn't everyone love free stuff? What if you had 23,469 ebooks for free with no catch or ads? Well your wish has come true. Many great authors like Jack London, Jules Verne, Mark Twain, Edgar Allen Poe, Charles Dickens, Author Conan Doyle, and many others who are renowned authors, scientists, and inaugural addresses. I originally rated the app a one star since it would not load when I first tried to use it, but it finally came around and now I use it more than some other apps. The e-reading experience is bare bones with no settings at all. When I try to go to something else in a different app the app shuts off and displays the splash screen when I do go back. The formatting is a bit bad on some books and others it is a lot better. I rather a nice consistent experience all across the board. What really surprised me was how well it handled the search and share charm features. The search was pretty nice for a pretty bare bones app. There was a simple download function just tap twice and overall it was simple to use since there was nothing to use. It has a large library of information including many Inaugural addresses from many presidents.

pi      Functionality

     This app gives Windows 8 multitasking a bad name. Unless you like looking at the splash screen a lot then don't leave the app or you will get it. It does load up in an average 2.5 seconds and the splash screen looks okay. It loads up to the "My Library" section and since you do not have any books it will show the featured articles, collections, and big authors. The app works very well in snapped mode letting you shop for books, but you have to be in fill or full screen mode to read books. The books are in a kindle like two pane and are not very formatted too much. The share function works with apps like mail, quicknote, and wordpress. The app is built on the classicly.com website where you can upload free classics and other documents that the public should see.

     Conclusion

     This app is really a mixed bag. In some parts like the large library of books and not a bad overall e-reader and has a great search and share charm functions. In other respects there is no option to zoom or reading in snapped mode like the kindle app. I prefer the kindle app because you can leave the app and come back to your page instantly and it has a lot of more bells and whistles to give you a better reading experience. 

Rating 3/5

Windows 8 App review: Basketball Clipboard

     Overview

     Well we do know that one basketball team uses the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, and this can be a game changer with the right hardware. I may have played basketball, but I am no coach. I have used the app and found it very cool, but it lacking some pretty core features like exporting a play as a video or sharing the play to your team via e-mail or Facebook.

     Functionality

     The app takes a bit long to start up which I thought was long for a light to medium application. I did experience when running a video off of the internet, open word document, and two opened Google chrome tabs that I experienced some crashes when I was in the app which makes it seem very unstable. The app is a bit complex for me because in the app screenshots it has the players with names underneath the little circles. Nowhere in the app command bar or the charm setting bar does it have an option for names underneath the players. It works by you (the coach) creates a play step by step and then saves it to the coaches clipboard in a proprietary file format and has a little tile in your clipboard. It says that there is an option to export your file which is nothing, but it only exports it as an XML file not a video file like an AVI or H.264. Truthfully the app is still a bit lacking in terms of speed with nothing open.

     Conclusion

     The app builds on a nice concept and helps prove the point that Windows 8 can cater to all needs in any profession. I will not let the pre-build argument fly here since basic needs are not met with exporting files and sharing. Also a bigger tile would be nice that displayed your plays and a pin to start menu option would be nice too.

Rating// 3.5/5 

Windows 8 App review: TouchMol

     Overview

       I am a tech writer and blogger not a chemistry wizard so if anyone tells me I did something wrong that is a chemist please tell me. First off it starts up pretty quickly like most other apps. It shows three base chemistry formulas which have some information on them. You can import your own and when the IOS and Android variations launch share them with your friends. This is one of the first apps that I have seen that will go ahead and launch with Windows 8 before IOS or Android. It is a pretty solid app and does all of the functions that it advertises except searching for others creations. I showed it to my mom who loves chemistry and she thought is was very intuitive and cool. She wants to open up a little laboratory and this app paired on my (about to be) Asus tablet 810 with an active digitizer and a 10 point multi touch screen. I could see professional chemists using this to aid them in their investigations. I really do not know much about chemistry save a few basic things so please bear with me.

     Functionality

     Not only does it open up fast it loads up everything fast. Text is very clear and sharp. I was pretty surprised at how the recognition was on my laptop which in my performance test scored 1 FPS and 10 FPS respectively in high and medium graphic tests. I really liked how the app was fully featured and came out before a more popular Android and IOS release. I was very pleased at the overall quickness of it even for a metro app. My only niggle with it was there was only 3 pre-loaded drawings and there was no ability to see what others made as it advertised. 

     Conclusion

      I do not use this app much on a day to day basis, but I really like the look and feel and would give it a better rating if it had either a community where others have their drawings or a larger amount of pre-loaded content. 

Rating//: 4.0/5

The return of the digitizer (UPDATED)

UPDATE: I had to add a lot more devices to the list because this was written before a lot of the devices were put on display in trade shows.  

    When people think of a stylus most think of a resistive screen tablet or a really old smart phone. Most think that the capacitive stylus is a good equal to the active digitizer or the N-trig system. It is very hard to explain the accuracy of the digitizer system. There are two major ones that power different variations of tablets and "phablets." In the tablet section the first digitized tablet was the HTC Flyer with the Scribe pen. It was all around a great tablet, but not marketed very good. The scribe pen was based on a N-Trig system which is a lot better that the capacitive for sure, but is slower than the WACOM system. The next major device that was not a WACOM made tablet like the boogie board (these are tabs without real OSes) was the Samsung Series 7 slate which was the official Windows 8 DP tablet that was huge and featured a WACOM active digitizer and horrible battery life and a overall forgettable experience. Combined with a really bad rear 3.2 mp camera and a huge unwieldy 1366x768 it was nothing to write home about. Of course do you think that artists want to carry a 12.1 inch tablet (Samsung Series 7 or Asus Ep/Bp 121) with paltry screen resolution and bad rear cameras which force them to use a dSLR or comparable mega zoom which makes them carry a lot of stuff. Or do you think with new advancements in active digitizer design's since then will they go for a 10.6 inch or even a large but super thin 11.6 inch design that offers better rear camera's and Super IPS + displays with full HD displays that also cost less?  Some trade offs are power in some like the Asus tablet 810 others are size like the Asus transformer book. The best solution is another Windows 8 official tablet the Surface Pro. Even though it is coming out a full 3 months later than the Surface RT it will be powered by an Intel core i5 Ivy Bridge and will start with a 64GB SSD. It will be a pretty svelte device at only 13.6mm which is a tad bit thicker than the MBA, but consider having a 10 finger multi touch screen and an active digitizer layer that features some pretty nice stuff like an eraser, or when you are writing and you put your finger on the screen it will stop writing and move the page or zoom in and out with your finger. Now we know a lot of the answers about the Surface pro because it is available. With a starting price of $999 it is not very cheap but packing an intel core i5 ivy bridge throttled CPU, 4GB of RAM, and 5 hours of battery life it makes up for the price.


      Another potential in the high powered, large, WACOM packing tablet sector is the Asus Transformer book series. This one is very diverse in options with a 11.6, 13, and 14 inch variations all with 4GB RAM and a front 2MP Full HD webcam and a rear 5MP camera which is good for taking concept pictures, but with a 14 inch it might be a bit hard to steady it. These unlike the Surface Pro like the Android Transformer series have a detachable keyboard, but unknown to us if it adds extra battery life or not. What is very unique in an ultrabook is the 14 inch will come with an optical drive for making DVDs and Cd's or just watching a movie. The thin factor is hard to beat and intel core innards (some report all three ivy bridge 3,5,7 will be available) is very powerful for Photoshop, Autodesk, and other tasks. Also a Full HD screen is a big plus with a Super IPS + panel too it makes for some stiff competition. 

     Another Asus make is the middle of the road priced Asus tablet 810 from the Eee PC family. There are a couple of things that make it a budget tablet that still feels like a premium device. The first is the Intel Atom processor. Even though they have come very far in producing an overall better product it is still a budget processor. The tablet runs on a Clover field chip 1.86 GHz dual core CPU with 4 hyper threads. It does come with a Super IPS + panel to help with glare issues, but that budget price makes it a 1366x768 lack luster screen resolution. After that the budget seams stop and the beauty of a premium product shows. An 8.7 mm thin design is thinner than the Ipad 2 or 3 and it still manages to fit in a mini HDMI port, headphone, and docking ports in the tablet itself. Like it's more expensive brothers and sisters it has a removable docking station that boosts the battery life from 8 hours to 16+ hours. Also a separate charging port and 2 USB 3.0/2.0 ports abide in the rear of the dock. The WACOM digitizer and docking station come included which really makes this a steal if it is $599  but sadly they priced it at a whopping $799 without the dock.



      All in all the active digitizer market is not dead it is still alive among professional people like photographers and artists. I think the digitizer is a great addition to the Windows Journal since digitizers have palm rejection built in. The Android tablet space does have some N-trig friends from Samsung like the Galaxy Note "phablet" and the Galaxy Note 10.1 inch tablet that both feature the S-Pen.

The Surface as I see it

     The Microsoft Surface is a very unique being that was launched a few weeks back and it took the entire tech world by storm. There were many questions left answered and unanswered and everyone had mixed views when leaving MILK studios. The Surface has two variants: 1 Surface RT which is launched at the same time as Windows 8. Most likely we will see the Surface and Windows 8 at some kind of event with Windows Phone 8 and probably have some other ground breaking news like Windows 8 will launch with 100,000 apps (for WP8 and Windows 8/RT). 2 Is the Surface Pro which will be launched three months after the Windows 8 launch with (speculating) the new Xbox 720/8 machine. The Surface machines have their own dedicated website surface.com with some specs and a gallery of photos. So far we have only seen two "accessories" that look like they will come with the devices depending on which one you buy. The Surface RT looks like it will get the touch cover that comes in five different colors that works like a big tablet with a slightly raised surface that the keys you touch with no tactile feedback. Then the Surface Pro looks to come with their innovative type cover that is a little thicker and comes with keys that provide a tactile feedback and only in black. Also the Surface Pro will come with a Wacom active digitizer that looks buttery smooth in action. So if you really want the full Windows 8/7 side with an intel core i5 processor and unknown amount of RAM the Windows 8 Pro running Surface Pro is really the best out there. There is no flex from the magnesium made casing and they are both super slim considering they both sport USB ports. Also the MagSafe connector can (as per a patent) not only charge the device but transfer files. The Surface is a halo device. 

     The Surface is made to force other OEMs to make better devices than what is currently out there to beat Apple at their own game. The Surface is the epitome of quality and beauty in a slim and functional shell. The surface is very impressive and the specs are very good. The one thing is price. Everyone has their own quote and since it is a premium product it will be at a premium price. I think the RT version will go for $499 for the 32GB version to try and undercut the Ipad. The RT 64GB will roll at $599. The Pro 64GB will be $699 also beating the Ipad competition and the 128GB model will go for $799. The touch covers will come with the RT versions and the type cover will come with the Pro models. Of course this is all speculation, but isn't that what everyone else is doing?