It’s good…it really is. The user interface is clean and simple, and taskbar is fun to hover your mouse over, and the new aero snap feature can be useful. But honestly speaking, this is what vista should have been. Windows 7 is not nearly on par with Mac in my opinion. Windows 7 is basically Windows Vista cleaned up, and is not a new operating system in my eyes. It’s a half step up, and Microsoft just needed to get rid of the glitches before they could fully move on.
But don’t get me wrong, I’m not being completely negative about Windows 7. On the whole, I am extremely happy with it. It’s simplicity in design has really helped me clean up my constantly cluttered taskbar into one neat pane. It groups all over the same types of programs together, and when I hover my house over the icons, it shows each window as a animated thumbnail. The visual effects really are quite appealing.
It also seems that they sped up the search features in the start menu. Compared to Vista, the search in this operating system is much faster.
Another improvement is the ‘devices’ page. It makes it easier to access applications and ‘devices’ such as an iPod, phone, printer, etc. The window for each device is also quite visually appealing.
I guess when you compare Windows 7 to Mac feature by feature, they do match up to each other…in a way. Mac does have programs such as garage band and spaces which simplify your computing experience even further. I must say, I did hope Windows 7 would have something along the lines of Spaces, but oh well. And though Microsoft has never made, and doesn’t have plans to make a program like Garage Band (it allows you to create and learn how to play music and certain instruments), there are sites where you can download similar programs. So in a way, there are Windows compatible versions of it.
Never the less, though the features match up, many of them on the Mac are more user friendly and visually appealing. For example, if you were to take a look at the Windows backup center on the PC, and then compare it to Time Machine on a Mac, Apple is the clear cut winner. Time Machine is just so fun to play with, but at the same time it gets the job done. The visual effects with Time Machine are just off the charts. But then when you take a look at the Windows Backup and restore center, it’s just so boring and bland. It just allows you to check off the hardrive where you want to backup the files, and then choose the files. There’s no fun to that what so ever.
But that’s enough of my ranting. Windows 7 on the whole is an improvement over Vista, and I’d certainly give it a thumbs up. However, it is probably not worth the expensive upgrade.
