[gr8fl4porsche]

I just finished cleaning up an older laptop for my 8yo daughter. Toshiba Qosmio G35. More of a desktop with a battery than a portable notebook. 12lb beast of a machine. Dual drives.

Added an Intel 330 SSD and installed Win 8. Went with 8 Pro since it is only $69. Left Win 7 Ultimate on the other drive and installed a dual boot program called EasyBCD.

So now she has a dual boot machine with 7 and 8. I played with 8 for about 5 hours and at first really hated it since you basically cannot do a damn thing without creating a Microsoft Account. Once I caved and set it up all went fairly smooth.

Windows mail integrates guite well with Gmail as long as you set it up as an Exchange.
The tiles on the main screen are kind of cool if you are used to smart phones with notifications on the opening screen. The Mail tile and Calendar tile will get used a lot by the typical user.

When you boot up the machine, you have to click on the first screen, enter your password on the second screen and then the main screen opens - kind of silly but not that big of a deal. Access to the traditional desktop is available with another click. To do any real computing you have to hover your mouse in a corner to access the new Start menu.
The new Search feature is nice - I actually prefer it. Will post a pic later.

Its really not that bad once you get used to it but does seem like they added a bunch of extra steps just to get rid of the orb on the bottom left corner.

To shut down, you have to hover in the corner, click Settings, click Power then choose Shut Down. 4 steps vs the traditional 2. Not sure why MS did this.

Overall I think the younger generation will like the new system. It is more of a PC OS than a workstation OS.

Regarding speed, if you haven't switched to SSD you should. Best bang for the buck if you want to turbo charge your PC.

Boot times with Win8 on SSD - 23 seconds. Win7 with HD - 100 seconds.