New Computer ideas... all-in-ones with Windows 8

[Bean Counter]

Our Crapple Macintrash laptop went tango uniform after less than 18 months. I'm fortunate that I insured it through my personal articles policy and not Crapple Care because they would have told me to go pound sand. So I have some money to start over.

I'm thinking about an all in one with a touch screen and that runs Windows 8. I will upgrade it to 8.1 (for free) as soon as that comes out. The primary use for the computer will be family type uses (internet, Office, etc), but more and more I'm editing photos of my family and that I take artistically. I will use Adobe Lightroom 5 for this. We will likely pick up a tablet or two to replace the laptop's portability. Probably around the holiday's when all the Black Friday madness abounds.

Has anyone bought an All-in-One recently that can share their experience? How do you like Windows 8 with a touch screen? I hear the touchscreen is really what makes Win 8 shine.

Here are a couple in my budget.
http://www.costco.com/HP-Envy-TouchSmart-All-in-One-23qd-Desktop%2c-Intel®-Core™-i7-3770S-3.1GHz%2c-Blu-ray-Player.product.100069839.html
http://www.costco.com/HP-Envy-TouchSmart-All-in-One-23qd-Desktop%2c-Intel®-Core™-i7-3770S-3.1GHz%2c-Blu-ray-Player.product.100069851.html

[Becky]

I honestly hate Windows 8 but it's hard to get around if buying new.. you'd have to do some SERIOUS research to find a downgrade compatible machines back to Windows 7 (or your preferred OS).

My laptop is touch screen, I would go nuts running Win 8 without it honestly. It's design is meant to be compatible across their windows phone > to tablets > to laptops/PCs without changing anything. So yes the touch screen is almost a must I'd say, it's super nifty

Biggest peeve I had was not having the start button anymore, since I completely rely on having that control to navigate that way. I downloaded something called "StarDock Start8" for it, it gives you your start button back and fills in the original favorites (I didn't want to wait for 8.1 version of windows at the time I bought the laptop). Works nicely, had good reviews, was a top program for CNET.

[Alchase]

I would suggest you sit in front of a touch screen for an hour or two before you buy one. I know plenty of people who bought first and now have regrets.
Here is the gist of what I have seen:
Laptop or tablet, touch screens can be enjoyable. Ipads are the perfect example.
Desktops, forget it! Just sit in front of the all-in-ones for a while reaching up to touch the screen to accomplish any thing "productive".
You think "carpal tunnel" was bad? Just wait for all the shoulder complaints from trying to reach two + feet to work on a touch screen all day. I can't imagine trying to use Lightroom on a touch screen desktop. I use way to many mouse clicks, gestures, and quick commands while using lightroom.


Plus if you are use to a Mac, get an Imac, non of the all-in-ones are close to the quality of the Imac.
LOL

Windows 8, is actually a very good OS, once you get past all the metro crap. It is faster then windows 7, and can be configured easily to ignore Metro if you want. 8.1 will be an improvement as well.

[et1702]

"Windows 8, is actually a very good OS, once you get past all the metro crap. It is faster then windows 7, and can be configured easily to ignore Metro if you want. 8.1 will be an improvement as well."

Just bought the wife a new computer with Win 8 and we hate the Metro crap too.  How do you configure to "ignore" if you want too. 

ET

[Alchase]

You can Google and come up with many ways to do this.
This one is pretty easy self explanatory.

http://www.snapfiles.com/articles/get-rid-of-metro.html

[Alchase]

Or wait for 8.1,

http://howto.cnet.com/8301-11310_39-57591261-285/how-to-boot-directly-to-the-desktop-in-windows-8.1/

[Bean Counter]

I would suggest you sit in front of a touch screen for an hour or two before you buy one. I know plenty of people who bought first and now have regrets.
Here is the gist of what I have seen:
Laptop or tablet, touch screens can be enjoyable. Ipads are the perfect example.
Desktops, forget it! Just sit in front of the all-in-ones for a while reaching up to touch the screen to accomplish any thing "productive".
You think "carpal tunnel" was bad? Just wait for all the shoulder complaints from trying to reach two + feet to work on a touch screen all day. I can't imagine trying to use Lightroom on a touch screen desktop. I use way to many mouse clicks, gestures, and quick commands while using lightroom.


Plus if you are use to a Mac, get an Imac, non of the all-in-ones are close to the quality of the Imac.
LOL

Windows 8, is actually a very good OS, once you get past all the metro crap. It is faster then windows 7, and can be configured easily to ignore Metro if you want. 8.1 will be an improvement as well.

I wouldn't plan on using the screen to do edits in LR, but for navigating the tiles and what not it does seem pretty handy. I would use a mouse or stylus pad for Lightroom. 

Apple has some of the new generation Imac's for sale as refurbs for only about $1,000, but their specs (RAM, processor, etc) are all a bar lower than the Windows systems, and they still aren't touch screens. By referring to my current computer as a Crapple Macintrash I thought it would be clear that I'm not too impressed with their claims to quality. 

[TangoU]

I have a Surface Pro.  Love the device and the form factor. Hate Windows 8. Windows 8 on its own is driving me down the road to Mactown.

From a desktop computing perspective, for the type of tasks you're describing, I don't see touch screen being that helpful. If you want a powerful new Windows 7 PC they are out there.  Here's one from HP direct: http://www.shopping.hp.com/en_US/home-office/-/products/Desktops/HP-Pavilion/D7W28AV?HP-Pavilion-HPE-h9-1215t-Phoenix-Desktop-PC

Touch screen and associated operating system optimizations for touch screen are great for small form factor devices. However they are not that relevant if you are sitting in front of a 27" HD monitor doing photo editing (IMO).

And I'm not bashing Microsoft for the sake of bashing them. My phone is an HTC 8X running Windows Phone 8.  It's a great device and a great mobile operating system. I just think the Windows 8 desktop operating system is a misstep on Microsoft's part.  Hopefully the coming 8.1 release will address may of the problems.

[madmack76]

the best thing to do is buy your computer go online and install linux and get rid of windows all together.

[Bean Counter]

You guys are bursting my bubble. 

What don't you like about windows 8? What is this metro concept oft assailed?

[LEN]

The best thing to do is LEARN something new and quit griping. I'm an old fart and got around the windows 8 thing.
To the OP what you are looking at as far as computing is fine good fast processor. Now for photo editing think I would
 skip the touch screen and just go with mouse operation and that is EZ with 8 also.  Also I would check and see how
 well the touch screen do with photo colors and such. JMO

LEN

[quadrafire]

Bean
We just got my son a laptop with 8 on it. I haven't used it, but he thinks it is awesome.
I purchased the upgrade LR 5 but my computer is running vista and it is not compatible.
I'm thinking of upgrading to 7 on it, but am watching your thread to see about the 8. If you do it, please give an update.

[Bean Counter]

Will do, quad. I will call adobe and let you know. 

[TangoU]

You guys are bursting my bubble. 

What don't you like about windows 8? What is this metro concept oft assailed?

On a purely touch system Windows 8 has its merits.  But IMO on a machine that will predominately be used for standard desktop computing, information worker type activities, photo management where you will like rely upon a keyboard, mouse, track pad, etc for detailed input you will be substantially less productive.  I'm all for tech for tech's sake, but I'm also for productivity, and I'll only trade so much.

I'll give you one example of frustration. This doesn't directly apply to your use case as you use LR for photo editing and management, but I still think it's emblematic of the overall experience.  I plugged my DSLR into the Surface Pro and got a prompt to download photos. Not the same type of prompt like in Win7 or earlier. No where near the detailed options for downloading off the camera that I used before. But the kicker is this: the location on the PC for downloading the pictures appears to be fixed.  You can put them in a specific folder name, but you can't choose the actual picture location.  For me, I have a network attached storage device where all shared files go (pictures, music, video, etc). I don't want my photos on a  device's local hard drive.  So an action that was easy to do and took just a few minutes in Windows 7 and Vista before that, now take substantially longer. 

My advice if you want to stick with Windows (vs Mac) and touch screen is not a requirement is to get a new Windows 7 PC like the one I linked to above.

[LEN]

Go through the deck top to down load pics to where ever you want.
You still have the option to run the full desk top, just like the old days.