Window* 8 is really a mixed bag of schizophrenia.
It's passable on a touch-screen product where you can spend most of your time in the metro mode.
Personally, I'm not too fond of Metro outside of a few niche areas (it did work damned well for the Zune, though). Metro is just inefficient when it comes to a lot of general purpose tasks - such as browsing through applications and similar tasks. The system -loves- text and dynamic mini-screen tiles that are just not really easy for your brain to recognize for their function/utility. Since you're never 100% sure what you're looking for (as opposed to a stable icon - an immediately recognizable graphic that remains the same) - simple browsing actions turn into a literal headache as you're trying to process huge amounts of information that is just unnecessary and doesn't efficiently communicate to you.
It's neat for stuff like, say, the Weather or an RSS feed, range of stock portfolios, or other little "don't need to launch a whole new window/program/thing to get what I need" - but the system is just clunky when you get beyond those basic little gadget/widget-like programs (which Android does better, if you ask me).
And you really don't want to go into the classic desktop mode (if available) on a touch-screen device... or any device, for that matter. Not unless you are going to invest in something like "Start Is Back" and get yourself a Windows 7 disk to copy the files over.
There is another program (forget the name of it) that actually has the Metro interface launch in its own window (like it should have done out of the box, at least on laptop/desktop distributions, and probably the tablet distribution, as well...). It's along the same lines.
Either way - the point is that I'd rate it, overall, as an inefficient system. Since I've stayed as far away from it as I possibly can - It's difficult for me to give a fair rating of it. I would rate it around a 5-6, overall. Close to a 7 in the world of the ultra-mobile, and more like a 4 or 5 on the desktop and laptop environment. But, that's mostly from what I've seen and what little of it I've had to deal with.
I know there are people out there who like it. There are people out there who like the iPhone and who thought the Xbox One was going to be the most awesome thing ever created (and that it will now suck because Microsoft has removed the "always online" necessity).
As someone who actually relies upon his computer for functional and constructive purposes (rather than simply dicking around on YouTube and whatever games I happen to stumble across), Window* 8 is an absolute nightmare. Metro and 'standard' versions of programs... Each one can be launched from within each interface (Window* 8 is like a box of chocolates... you never know what you're gonna get). Then, as a developer... what in God's name do you develop for? The metro (now you've alienated Win7 and below users) or the standard interface (which Microsoft has pretty much said they are going to be shit-canning as soon as they possibly can)?
It just wasn't a well thought-out operating system. Then it was driven through by corporate mentalities that were disconnected from reality and market interests (they seem to think that touch product is the way of the future and that the desktop/laptop is dead... which, as we are finding out, the pendulum is shifting back... people are starting to realize that you can't be as productive with most of that ultra-mobile fancy stuff as you can with a good old box on your desk).
