Migrating my telco services from Singtel to M1

Last month, I migrated all my telecom services from Singtel to M1.

I am actually a happy Singtel camper since 1997. My fixed line, mobile line, and my ADSL internet service were all with Singtel. Although I have received offers from competitors like M1 and Starhub, I have never bothered considering switching providers. Singtel provided good service, and I was contented.

However, I have noticed recently that Singtel plans are no longer competitive. And their bundles are always more expensive than its competitors. Over the years, my perception of Singtel is that it has decided to focus only on 2 segments: the upper-middle class and higher segment of the market, and their MIO TV customers. Because of this focus, you will not get the best price from Singtel if you are not interested in MIO TV, or if you just want a budget plan.

Also, there is general agreement that all the 3 telcos are spending large sums to acquire new subscribers, and completely ignoring their existing customers. If you are an existing customer, you will not get a discount as generous as that given to new sign ons. Basically, all the telcos run on the same business strategy that do not reward customer loyalty, but encourage customer defection instead. Thus, if you want to get the best deal, you should sign on with a different service provider to get the goodies that are given to new customers. You are a fool if you stay with your existing service provider, as your provider will just take you for granted and will not give you the best deal that is suited for you.

This happened to me.

I received a mailer from Singtel in April telling me that as a long time MIO customer, I was entitled to a special plan to upgrade from my 3 Mbps ADSL internet service to a 150 Mbps fibre internet service for $45/month. Unfortunately, this fibre plan only comes with a free fixed voice line, but no mobile phone plan. If Singtel has a good CRM system, they ought to know that my existing MIO plan includes the mobile phone plan, so a promotion that is targeted at MIO customers should also include the mobile phone plan. But since Singtel is not interested in MIO customers any more (they are only interested in MIO TV customers), a promotion that is supposedly targeted at MIO customers doesn't even include the mobile phone service - which is a core component of the MIO plan. (I am not interested in switching to their MIO TV plans because the TV programs are inferior to those  offered by Starhub Cable TV - of which I am a subscriber).

 I went to Singtel's website to read up on this special $45/month fibre plan for MIO customers. From the website, it was apparent that this special offer is actually not exclusive to MIO customers, as anyone can actually sign on to the $45 plan directly from singtelshop.com (Singtel's internet shop), but NOT if you are a MIO customer! If you are an existing MIO customer, you cannot do any of these transactions over singtelshop.com, but must conduct them physically at their brick-and-mortar establishments, the Singtel Hello Shops that are sited in various shopping malls around Singapore.

Non-Singtel customers : You can subscribe to the $45 plan from singtelshop.com.

Existing Singtel MIO customer: Sorry! Please travel to a Hello Shop and join the physical queue at the shop to upgrade to this fibre broadband plan designed just for you!

Since the new fibre plan does not include a mobile line, I will need to get a mobile plan to maintain my mobile line. Now, when I signed up for the MIO plan many many years ago, Singtel upgraded me from my original iOne plan to the iOne Plus plan. However, the iOne Plus plan costs $26/month (the iOne plan was only $19/month), and it was overkill for my needs. iOne Plus comes with 100 minutes of outgoing calls, and 500 SMS messages. However, in all the years that I was on the MIO plan, I have never made more than 30 minutes of outgoing calls per month, and never more than 20 SMS messages per month. Right from day one when I upgraded to the MIO plan, the iOne Plus features were excessive of what I needed.

I saw from the singtelshop.com web site that Singtel actually offers an iOne Value plan at $15/month - which includes just 50 minutes of outgoing calls and 150 SMS messages per month, which matches exactly to my needs. So I decided that when I switched to the $45 fibre plan, I will ask to downgrade my mobile phone plan from iOne Plus to iOne Value.

So, I made my way to the Hello Shop at Causeway Point with the Singtel promotional letter to take up the fire broadband promotion. And that's when I got a rude shock.

1. I cannot switch to the iOne Value plan. Although the plan was clearly listed on the singtelshop.com website, the customer officer told me that the Hello Shop and singtelshop.com are separate entities. This was truly ironical because as a MIO customer, I cannot subscribe to the fibre plan at singtelshop.com, but has to do so at the Hello Shop. But the Hello Shop only offers the expensive phone plans, and not the budget plans from the singtelshop.com. I can only remain with my existing iOne Plus plan from the Hello Shop. Apparently, if I was a new customer, I would not even be able to sign on to the iOne Plus plan either. The Hello Shop only sells Singtel's Flexi Plans (these are mobile and data phone plans), and the cheapest Flexi plan - the Flexi-Lite - was even more expensive than my existing iOne Plus plan.
   
2. I was willing to retain the iOne Plus plan, but then, I got another shocker. Apparently, there was an $85 installation charge that I had to pay when I sign on to the fibre plan.

I told the customer officer that this $85 installation charge is not listed anywhere: not on the promotional letter, and definitely not on the Singtel web site where I was directed to for more information about the $45 promotion. To me, this $85 that was suddenly foisted on me is the classic "hidden charges" bait and switch deception as practised by many an unscrupulous vendor.

Besides, I have already noted that Starhub had advertised free installation charges for some of their fibre plans, while M1 had listed the installation charge as only $58 for their $39/month plan. Not only did Singtel hide this hidden charge in its brochures, advertisements, and website, unlike Starhub and M1, Singtel's $85 installation charge is even more expensive than M1's ($85 versus $58)!

I told the Hello Shop customer office that I have decided not to sign on to the fibre plan because of this hidden charge. Because with this additional charge, the Singtel $45/month promotional plan is no longer value for money. Fed up with the Hello Shop experience, I decided that I have no choice but to switch providers if I want to get satisfaction.

M1 was offering their 200 Mbps fibre plan for $39/month, whereas Starhub only offered a 100 Mbps plan for the same price. I decided to sign on with M1.

I went to the M1 web site, and found that they had a $15/month mobile phone plan like the iOne Value, which offered 50 minutes of outgoing calls and 150 SMS messages. They called it their GSM DIY plan, and there is no problem for me to sign on to this cheapest mobile plan, unlike the hurdles Singtel placed before me to prevent me from downgrading to their cheaper plan. This made my decision to migrate completely from Singtel to M1 a no-brainer.

A few days ago, I received a call from Singtel's PR department enquiring my decision to move to M1 (they know that I have moved to M1 because I have to port both my fixed line and mobile line numbers to M1). However, the Singtel PR lady appears to be filling up a questionnaire, as she was asking me what was the mobile phone that M1 offered me that triggered my switch - without even asking me WHY I switched! I explained over the phone that my switching over to M1 had got nothing to do with smartphone offers, but everything to do with customer service perception. But from the tired way that the PR lady's voice sounded, I doubt she even wrote down all the other stuff I told her about my reasons for switching on her questionnaire.

This is why I decided to write this particular post.

My Shanzhai (山寨) Android Phone

I was  at the Singapore Expo for the last day of the Sitex Show last Sunday (25 Nov 2012). I was shopping for a new Windows 8 notebook to replace my existing Windows 7 Asus notebook. However, all Windows 8 notebooks with touchscreens at the show (whether from Acer, Asus, Dell, Lenovo, or HP) were ultrabooks with a miserly 128 GB SSD. I was surprised that not a single manufacturer offered a magnetic disk storage option! If I were to buy a new notebook, it must have  at least 1 TB storage space, and the small capacity SSDs simply won't cut it.

Also, none of the touchscreens were larger than 13". If I am upgrading from my existing Windows 7 notebook, I will need a new notebook that has at least a 15.6"  touchscreen (my Asus notebook has a 16" screen). None of the notebooks met this criteria either.

After trying out all the different models at the show, I have decided that the only screen mechanism that is acceptable to me is the one used by the XPS 12 from Dell. As I already own an Asus Transformer TF300 tablet, I know that it is actually very awkward to use the touchscreen in a vertical position. When I use a Windows 8 notebook as a tablet, I want the screen to lie flat horizontally. Only the Dell XPS 12 with its rotatable screen will allow the notebook to be used as a slate (with the screen lying flat over the keyboard). Both Acer and Asus uses the Transformer Pad mechanism (screen is detached from the keyboard dock when used as a tablet), which is not what I want because I will have to carry the keyboard dock separately. The Lenovo's Yoga mechanism allows the screen to be folded 360 degrees all the way round towards the back of the keyboard when transformed to a slate. But when you carry the slate, you will be touching the keys on the keyboard, which feels rather awkward. In my opinion, only Dell's convertible screen makes sense for using the notebook as a slate.

As none of the Windows 8 notebooks meet my requirements currently, there was no point in getting a Windows 8 notebook this year. Perhaps there will be more choices next year.

The Shanzhai Phone

One of the stalls were selling an imitation Android phone that looked like a Samsung Galaxy Note. It caught my fancy because it was a dual-SIM phone, and it was dirt cheap. So instead of a Windows 8 notebook, I bought a pretty good looking shanzhai phone for just S$250. The package included:

• Dual-SIM Phone
• 5" AMOLED screen 480 x 800 resolution (with 5 point multi-touch)
• 1 GHz Cortex A7 single core CPU
• Android 4.0.3 (Ice Cream Sandwich) OS - includes the Google Play store
• Front and Rear cameras including Rear LED flash
• GPS
• FM Radio - doesn't require using earpiece as antenna
• 2GB internal storage and 32GB micro-SD slot
• 512 MB RAM
• Removable battery - two Li-ion batteries (3200 mAH) included in the package
• Free hands free kit
• Free screen protector
• Free phone casing (diary type)
• Free stylus
• Samsung Galaxy Note lookalike packaging

Notice that the phone is literally called the "Android Note".

This is the front.

This is the back. Notice the "Android" brand.

The phone chassis resembles the Samsung Galaxy Note 1.

Recently, one of my friends was inquiring about the Samsung Galaxy Ace Duos - a dual SIM phone. I found that the shops were selling this phone for S$270 (without contract). However, the Galaxy Ace Duos is only running Android 2.3 (Gingerbread), and the price did not include the freebies like the extra battery, free screen protector, free phone case and free stylus.

As the phone is dual-SIM, I can put my voice SIM card in slot 1, and my data SIM card in slot 2:

Note that only slot 2 supports a GSM/3G SIM card. Slot 1 supports a plain GSM SIM card only.

Apparently, you can enable both SIM cards to be active concurrently.
However, you can configure one SIM as the default for making Voice Calls (calling out).
Likewise, although both SIMs can receive SMS messages concurrently, you can configure one SIM as the default for sending them (Messaging).

General Impression

For such a low price, I was quite impressed with the package. I was okay with the low resolution screen, the low-spec CPU and low RAM  as my main intention is to use this phone primarily for voice calls, and for it to provide an internet hotspot for my Asus 10.1" tablet. I don't intend to run resource intensive programs on this phone, so the performance of the phone was quite acceptable. However, it is definitely much slower than my Asus tablet, which sports a Tegra 3 quad-core CPU at 1.4 GHz and has 1 GB of RAM.

However, there are some noticeable defects/limitations, but which I have accepted and will live with.

"Buzzing" Noise coming from the speaker

The built-in speaker has a slight defect. Whenever a sound file is played, the speaker will always output some unwanted buzzing noise. I turned off touch tones and keyboard audio feedback because I didn't like this buzzing noise. I don't know if this is a hardware problem.

No Firmware Upgradeability

There is no menu option to update the firmware from Android 4.0.3, because there is no software support. The manufacturer is unidentified, and there isn't any support web site. This phone is truly a "what you see is what you get" deal. Luckily, Android 4.0.3 is quite mature, and is way better than the Android 2.3 on my Samsung Galaxy S phone.

If I really want to update the firmware, I will probably have to install it myself using say a CynogenMod. However, I probably won't bother.

Although there is no signs anywhere on who was the manufacturer, I learnt of a useful Android app called the Android System Info by ElectricSheep that displays some useful information about the CPU. According to the Android System Info app, the manufacturer of this phone is indicated as "Alps". I think "Alps" is referring to the company Alps Electric, which appears to be some Japanese company specialising in the manufacture of all kinds of electrical and electronic components, including components for mobile phones.

No Chinese Handwriting Keyboard 

Although this phone is made in China, it doesn't come with a free Chinese handwriting keyboard app. Both my Samsung Galaxy S phone and my Asus Transformer TF300 tablet came with free Chinese handwriting software.

Can only switch between 3 Keyboards

Although I downloaded a few alternative keyboards, when I want to switch to another keyboard, the system will only show me 3 keyboards to choose from. Since the Android stock keyboard and the Android Chinese Pin Yin keyboard is always available, I have to deactivate SwiftKey 3 to enable the Swype keyboard as the 3rd and last choice.

I prefer Swype over Swiftkey 3.

Gallery app doesn't see newly added image files

On my Asus tablet (running Android 4.1.2), the Gallery app is quite responsive, and always show newly added JPG files. On the shanzhai phone, this doesn't happen. I have to unmount the SD card, and then remount the SD card, to force the phone to reindex image files on the device (including the newly added ones) so that they can be seen in the Gallery app.

I am not sure if this is due to bugs in Android 4.0.3.

Phone however can run Flipboard!

For some reason, the Flipboard app is not compatible with my Samsung Galaxy S nor my Asus Transformer TF300. As such, I have never seen how the Flipboard app is like. However, Flipboard has no compatibility issues with this shanzhai phone, and I can finally run the Flipboard app and see what this app all about.

My Shanzhai phone running a Windows Phone 7 launcher (Launcher 7).
I find it very amusing to have an imitation Samsung Galaxy Note
running an imitation Microsoft Windows Phone user interface.

Google's ridiculous reason about not providing MicroSD slots in their Nexus devices

I always felt that Apple iPhone and Windows Phone 7 to be very restrictive as they do not provide Micro-SD card slots. Google Android devices were much less restrictive by providing Micro-SD slots, which allow users to expand storage space cheaply.

However, when Google introduced its Nexus devices, none of these Nexus devices sport Micro-SD slots.

There was an interview with Android's user-interface designer, Matias Duarte, who answered the question of why the Nexus devices do not provide these Micro-SD card slots:

http://www.phonearena.com/news/Androids-Matias-Duarte-takes-to-G-for-Q-A-SD-cards-are-confusing-for-users_id36117

Frankly, Matias Duarte answer is just rubbish.

If Duarte thinks SD card storage is "confusing" for user, then wouldn't Cloud storage like Google Drive be just as "confusing"?

Google has this idealistic belief that the entire world should be awashed in internet connectivity. We should be able to connect to the internet to access our cloud storage wherever and whenever we want.

However, the reality is this:

• internet connectivity is spotty at best. The telcos are not able to erect cell towers for 3G/4G coverage in many places. When you have no internet, you cannot access your documents in cloud storage
  
• internet connections via 3G/4G or expensive. Telcos have exorbitantly priced data plans, and the affordable ones restrict you to a mere 1 GB of data transfer per month. Even if Google provides 5 GB of cloud storage in Google Drive, it will cost you a tidy sum if you need to access that 5 GB over 3G/4G internet

Unless one is as rich as Google, it is simply not cost effective to use cloud storage as compared to Micro-SD cards (last week, I bought a 32 GB micro-SD card for just S$24). And Android devices are really commodity products targeted at the 99% of the population, unlike iDevices which are "luxury" products aimed at the rich and affluent 1%. Unfortunately, Duarte's answer seems to indicate that Google is now becoming infected by Apple too.

One of the reasons why HTC, despite having a great Android handphone in its One series, could not do well  in the market while its Samsung counterpart did extremely well with its Galaxy S3, could be simply attributed to the fact that Samsung has a removable battery and a Micro-SD slot, while the HTC One had none. The people who buy Android phones are not fools, and they know that a device with a Micro-SD slot is more capable than one that doesn't. Unfortunately, HTC bought into Apple's thinking, and removed such a useful feature from their new flagship phone. No wonder HTC sales dropped a whopping 75%. People who used to support HTC, like one of my friends who always upgraded his handphone to the next HTC phone, switched to the Samsung Galaxy S3 simply because the Samsung phone has a Micro-SD slot.

Unfortunately, Google and many other manufacturers don't seem to realise that people are now using handphones and tablets like PCs. In fact, many people are buying smartphones and tablets instead of PCs. But they still need the large storage capacities of PCs for their mobile devices. A mobile device with just 8 GB or 16 GB of storage is not adequate. Heck, even 32 GB won't cut it nowadays. If Google wants to eliminate the Micro-SD slot, I think their devices should come with a minimum of 128 GB of storage. Tablets should definitely come with this amount of storage in a tiny SSD disk on the motherboard.

Until the day when internet connectivity is as ubiquitous as electricity, cloud storage is just an expensive nicety and not a best-value proposition. Currently, having a Micro-SD card slot for expandable storage is best for the public. Of course, that is provided Google wants to benefit the public, and not their own coffers.

Pulse 3.0 and Unnecessary Changes

I recently updated the Pulse app on my Asus Transformer Pad from version 2 to version 3, and immediately regretted my decision.

Sure, the new Pulse 3 looks nice and dandy. But the update has removed all the fantastic usability features that had made it great. There are just so many things bad about this new version, that it appears that the developers did not ask users whether they wanted these changes in the first place. This is exactly the same problem I face with Microsoft Windows 8: implementing features that no one had asked for, and removing usability in its stead.

1. Removal of navigation bar at the bottom of a story page

In version 2, as you read to the end of each story, a navigation bar will come up from the bottom of the page showing the story icons. It is very easy to swipe through this navigation bar and click on the icon of the next story that you wish to read.

This has been removed in version 3. Now, when you reach the bottom of the page, that's it. You have to click the top left corner to go back to the main menu page, which contains a screen full of story icons for all the various channels that you have subscribed to. This is very bad. It is exactly the horrible feeling I get with the new Windows 8 Start screen with all the tiles.

The problem is that the during the redraw of the main menu page, you may not remember the position of the story icon that you have just exited from. Sometimes, that icon will be in focus. But many a time, the story icon is not in focus, and I have to slide the icons on that particular channel's navigation bar to find my place. In fact, the program will sometimes reset the channel back to the left most story icon. If you have already read many stories in that channel, it is really infuriating for the channel bar to reset back to the leftmost story!

When I discovered this problem, I thought that I will simply dispense with going back to the main menu page to select the next story, and simply swipe from the right on the current story page to get to the next story. However, I discovered this wasn't possible. The program appears to cache only 4 stories, so once you swiped to the 4th story, that's it. You still have to go back to the main menu page to select the next story from the channel's navigation bar.

2. Scrolling is no longer smooth

After I had updated my Transformer Pad to Jelly Bean 4.1, navigating through Pulse 2 was extremely fluid - "buttery smooth" - to use the technical term.

Unfortunately, Pulse 3 has eliminated all the smooth scrolling, and returned the tablet's behaviour to that of Froyo 2.1!

Everything is "stuttering" now. Whether it is scrolling through the story icons in the main menu page, or scrolling up and down an article on the story page, the movements are now in fits and starts. 

In fact, I can say that in general, the speed performance in Pulse 3 is worse than Pulse 2.

3. Removal of Convenient "Open in Browser" Feature

Previously, when reading a particular story, it is possible to simply click the Settings button and click "Open in browser" to view the page in my preferred browser (Dolphin). 

This is no longer possible.

Instead, you must click Settings > Web Mode to first show the page in Pulse 3. Then, you click Settings > Open in Browser to open the story in the external browser. It now takes several more clicks to do something that was so easy to do in Pulse 2. Again, this reminds me of Windows 8, in which many activities now require more clicks or hand movements to accomplish.

This wouldn't be a problem if the Web Mode in Pulse 3 is good. But that isn't the case. There are many nice usability features in the Dolphin browser that makes reading web pages a breeze (such as opening related links in the web page on another tab). This is not provided by the Web Mode feature in Pulse 3, and thus, it's Web Mode feature is not a real contender for reading the original web pages against a bona-fide browser. 

Making it so inconvenient to open the story in my preferred browser is really a bad decision.

4. Pulse now always open to the "Home" section

Whenever I start Pulse 2, it always open in the section that I was viewing previously.

In Pulse 3, the app now always open in the "Home" section. I hate this because I now have to then select the section that I was previously reading.

Also, there seems to be no way to re-order the sections. Due to historical reasons, the first section in my Pulse configuration did not contain my preferred channels. I only added my preferred channels to subsequent sections. 

Because Pulse 3 now always open in the "Home" section, I would like to re-order my preferred section to be the first section. But re-ordering of sections does not seem to be possible.

5. Less Intuitive Interface

The font used in articles is very much smaller than the one in Pulse 2. I wanted to increase the font size, but could not find any place to change the font size! I went to the Pulse web site, but their instructions for changing the font size is for Pulse 2, and not their new fangled user interface.

I finally found it today. In Pulse 2, there was a very intuitive Settings icon where this could be changed. This icon is now masked and hidden under my name!!!

I didn't realise that I could actually click my name to display the settings page to change various settings, including the font size. Again, this is like Windows 8, where you have no idea whether something is clickable or not. In Windows 8, there is no way to tell if something is a button or a label. Pulse 3 has copied this behaviour.

Conclusion

All in all, this update has not really improved the app at all. Perhaps Alphonso Labs needed to change the interface to make it similar to its iOS or Windows 8 incarnations. Unfortunately, this new interface has simply removed all the great things about Pulse 2 that made it a must-have/must-use app for me. When you satisfy the lowest common denominator, you usually end up dissatisfying a large chunk of people.

I used to read in Pulse 2 for an hour or more a day. With the new version, I usually exit after 15 minutes. I just can't stand the slower performance, and the inconvenience of performing activities that were a breeze in the previous version.

Windows 8 Usability Issues

I recently installed Windows 8 on an old notebook that had previously been running Windows 7. I did not like it.

There are supposedly some technical improvements, like faster performance, faster boot up, less power consumption. However, none of those things registered. The only thing that stuck was my annoyance with the Metro interface. The Metro interface feels so inefficient on the notebook.

Non Obvious Interface

Unlike Windows 7 where almost everything can be accessed from the Start button, Windows 8 simply has too many features hidden. You need to know how to click on corners and/or perform left-right/up-down swipes to do many things that are so obvious in Windows 7: 

• Click bottom left corner in Legacy Desktop to show Start Screen (so as to click on a tile to run a new program)
• Click top left corner to show running Metro tasks
• Click right corners (top or bottom) to show Charms bar
• Click and pull from top edge to the bottom to close existing Metro task

Hiding all these features and making them non-obvious is just creating problems for users who are used to the existing Windows way of doing things.

The Metro interface also requires more mouse movement and clicking and dragging to accomplish the same activities in Windows 7. This isn't really an improvement.

Showing the Current Time

The fact that Live Tiles are dynamic and are constantly refreshing with new information. But there is such a great waste of space. I am surprised that although there are Live Tiles for things like weather, email notifications, calendar and calendar alerts, Microsoft did not put the time on the new Start Screen!

To see the time, it is necessary to first activate the Charms bar and hover the mouse cursor over the Settings icon. A window showing the current date and time, battery power and network connectivity will then appear on the Start Screen. 

I think this is ridiculous. If my computer is displaying the Start Screen, I shouldn't need to perform any hand activities to see the current time. The time should be displayed at all times. There is plenty of space on the Start Screen to do that. In fact, they could have just displayed the current date and time on the Weather tile.

The fact that Microsoft did not do that speaks volumes of Microsoft's re-design. This isn't a better interface than Windows 7. It is a poorer one.  

Changing the Time

The time was off by several minutes. This is a known problem with my 5 year old notebook, as the battery that powers the clock on the motherboard is probably drained and can no longer maintain the clock when the computer is powered down. However, as Windows can synchronise with internet time servers, this is not a big problem. When I restart my notebook, and upon connecting to the internet, Windows will simply update the system's time from an internet time server.

I wanted to adjust the time manually, and at first, I thought I could click the time display to configure the clock. Unfortunately, the moment I moved the mouse off the Settings icon on the Charms bar, the time display disappeared. Unlike Windows 7 where you can simply click on the time to adjust the time, this is not possible on the Metro interface.

I tried using the Settings > Change PC Settings > General, but that panel only allows me to change the Time Zone. 

There doesn't seem to be any way to change the clock's time from Metro, whether to adjust the time, or to refresh the clock from an internet time server, The only way I could accomplish this was to go to the legacy Desktop and change the time using the traditional Windows 7 way!

I wonder how people who bought a Windows RT tablet will be able to do this as Windows RT theoretically does not provide access to the Legacy Desktop.

Search Charm

The Search icon on the Charms bar allows categorised searches. The search behaviour is slightly different from that of Windows 7. In Windows 8, if you are currently highlighting the Files category, searching for "Calculator" will show zero results in the results panel because there are no files with a file name containing "Calculator". You must highlight the Apps category to display the Calculator program in the results panel. This is unlike Windows 7 search results, which will show the combined search results for apps and files together. 

I prefer Windows 7 consolidated search results, but I also see nothing wrong with the new category approach taken by the search in Windows 8. This is because in Windows 8 search, you can also search with categories like "Bing", "Store", "Mail" etc. Limiting search results to only those for the category makes sense for Windows 8 search.

I decided to do a "Bing" category search with the text "how to change the time in windows 8". However, when I clicked the magnifying glass icon to initiate the search, there was no response, and instead, I was thrown back to the Start Screen.

I repeated this a few more times. Each and every time, initiating the "Bing" search will always throw me back to the Start Screen.

Because there is a "Bing" app in the Apps list, I decided to execute the Bing app manually to see if there was any problem with it. There wasn't. (Interestingly, the Bing search results says that the only way to adjust the time in Windows 8 was to do it through the Legacy Desktop.)

However, once I have executed the Bing app manually, using the Search Charm to search the "Bing" category works properly subsequently. It appears that if the category app has not been manually launched previously, it cannot be properly invoked from the Search Charm. 

Searching is a very important utility. On Windows 7, the search box is easily invoked by either clicking the Start button, or by simply pressing the Windows key ("Win Key") on the keyboard. However, in Windows 8, moving the mouse to activate the Charms bar and click the Search icon, or to press the shortcut key Win Key + Q, is more complicated than in Windows 7. The Windows 8 methods to activate search is neither simpler nor more efficient than the Windows 7 methods. 

Full Screen Programs

Metro programs always run in full screen. This might be acceptable on tablets with smallish 10 inch screens. But on large screens, example: a 20 inch monitor, running apps in full screen just doesn't make sense.

Microsoft has specified that Windows 8 tablets should have a minimum resolution of 1024 x 768, so most developers will program Metro programs to this resolution. If you are using a 20 inch monitor with a 1920 x 1080 resolution, the Metro program will be scaled up from its designed 1024 x 768 size to fill up the entire 1920 x 1080 pixels in full screen. The effect is not pretty.

I am sure the full screen effect will be even more pronounced on 27 inch monitors with 2560 x 1440 resolution.

Microsoft could have made this better by making Metro programs run in separate 1024 x 768 windows on large screens. Indeed, by running each Metro program in its own window, a user with a large monitor will also be able to place several running Metro programs side by side. Unfortunately, this is not what Microsoft has done. Running apps in full screen just does not make sense when the screen is very big.

Showing Two Metro Programs Concurrently

Although Metro programs are always run in full-screen, Windows 8 provide a mechanism to display 2 running Metro programs side by side. However, your screen must have a minimum of 1366 pixels horizontally. Screens with any lower horizontal resolution (such as 1024 x 768 or 1280 x 800 screens) can only show 1 Metro program in full-screen at all times.

But even if you have a screen with the required 1366 pixels horizontal resolution, Windows 8 does not allow you to run the 2 Metro programs with each occupying 50% screen width. One app will always be at 75% screen width, while the secondary program will always be at 25% screen width. 

This 2 program limit seems unnecessarily restrictive. The 75% / 25% screen width ratio also feels extremely arbitrary. I feel that Microsoft should have allowed at least an additional 50% / 50% screen width ratio. I am not sure why Microsoft did not do this..

Although you can only show 2 Metro programs concurrently on the screen, other Metro programs you have opened may still be running in the background. I played an MP3 podcast using the Music app, and while I had the screen display the News app and Mail app side by side, the Music app that was not shown on screen was still playing the MP3 file in the background. 

A Lot of Scrolling

On a desktop PC using a keyboard and mouse with a non-touch screen display, scrolling sideways on the Start Screen is accomplished by rolling the centre wheel on the mouse. The mouse wheel rolls in an up-down direction, but this is translated to left-right scrolling through Start Screen tiles.

There is a slight cognitive dissonance because if the up-down direction on the mouse wheel translated to left-right scrolling, then how do you to up-down scrolling (example: when viewing a very long web page in the browser app)?

Also, if the Start Screen is very wide, there is a slight inconvenience if you need to click on program tiles that are placed on the far right of the Start Screen. This is because whenever you call up the Start Screen, the left side of the Start Screen is always shown. This means that if you need to click on another program tile on the far right, you must scroll to the far right again to click on the other tile.

Basically, Windows 8 doesn't remember the Y-axis position of the Start Screen that you were at when you clicked on a tile. So if you happen to need to click on several tiles that are on the right edge of the Start Screen, you will have to do a lot of rightwards scrolling each and every time you activate the Start Screen.  

Android doesn't have this interface problem because of its paginated home screens. In Android, if you activate a program icon that was located on home screen 2, when you click the Home button (from the program), the operating system will first return you to home screen 2 (the home screen that the last executed app was on). Only when you click the Home button a second time will the system return you to home screen 3 (the centre home screen). Android remembers the Y-axis position. 

Because Windows 8 does not have the concept of paginated or sectioned groups in its Start Screen, it always opens the Start Screen on its left edge. There will be a lot of rightwards scrolling in Windows 8.

Missing "Start" Button

In my opinion, the biggest problem with Windows 8 is the deliberate omission of the Start button in the Legacy Desktop. Users who are familiar with the Windows 7 way of doing things will suddenly find themselves lost, and have to re-learn all over again new Metro methods to accomplish the same tasks.

This is extremely disruptive, unproductive, and annoying. People who are upgrading from Windows 7 and earlier to Windows 8 should not be forced to re-learn things which really doesn't offer any new benefits. What's the harm of retaining the Start button function? If a user prefers to do things the old (and familiar) way via the Start button menu, why should Microsoft refuse to allow the user to do so?  Dropping the Start button is extreme arrogance on Microsoft's part, to force users to conform to Microsoft's way of doing things.

I liken this to Microsoft making drivers who are familiar with driving on the left side of the road to force them to now drive on the right side of the road. Sure, it can be done. But why force this on users?

If a user is going to adopt Windows Phone, or the new Xbox console, they will definitely learn how to do things the Metro way. There is no harm in leaving the Start button functionality, which is actually superior in many ways against the Start Screen interface.

Dropping the Start button simply makes the user unfamiliar and unproductive. This is a big detraction. It does not benefit end users. No one had asked for it to be taken away, so why remove it? As I said previously, this is extreme arrogance on Microsoft's part ("it is my way or the high way...").

Luckily, there are several 3rd party utilities that reinstate the missing Start button functionality. If you are using Windows 8 on a conventional PC (i.e. using mouse and keyboard and with a screen without touch capabilities), you must download and install one of these 3rd party Start button replacements. It will restore your sanity. The one that I use is called Pokki (free download from www.pokki.com). Without Pokki, using Windows 8 on a conventional PC/notebook was a dreadful and infuriating experience.  

The Windows Store Walled Garden

With Windows 8, Microsoft has introduced a new Windows Store that follows the same authoritarian controls as the Apple App Store. Software developers who write Metro programs can only distribute the Metro apps via the Windows Store. Metro programs cannot be sideloaded (unless you "jailbreak" the Windows 8 operating system). And like the Apple App Store, Microsoft will decide whether an app can be sold through the Windows Store. Microsoft is therefore at liberty to reject programs that compete against Microsoft's own offerings, or censor programs for ideological reasons.

I have never liked these walled-garden controls. If you are writing a touch-enabled Metro application for your own personal use, you can no longer distribute it to friends or acquaintances as Metro programs cannot be sideloaded (unlike in Android). Most programmers are hobbyist programmers. Forcing them to pay US$99 a year so that their Metro apps can be distributed through the Windows Store is really mercenary on Microsoft's part.

The Windows Store walled garden will discourage hobbyist programmers from developing touch-enabled Metro programs. Which is such a shame as I really like Visual Basic, and I consider Visual Basic as one of the most productive programming language in the market. Hobbyist programmers will have to switch to Android development to escape the walled-garden approach that Microsoft is fabricating for its Metro apps.

Should You Upgrade?

As the world buys more tablets and smartphones and less PCs, Microsoft's market share in computers have dwindled from their high 95% share before 2007. If you consider just traditional desktop and notebook computers, Windows (all versions) currently take up about 85% share. But if smartphones and tablets are included in your count of such computing devices, Windows share could be less than 10%.

Windows 8 is Microsoft's attempt to make itself dominant again in these new smartphones and tablets market. Hence, the emphasis throughout on the touch experience. However, instead of making Windows 8 both exciting and rewarding to use on both the old non-touch systems as well as the new touch systems, Microsoft has made it great for new touch systems, and bad for old non-touch systems.

If you are not using a touch screen, there is very little benefit to derive from upgrading from Windows 7 to Windows 8. I will strongly recommend you stick with Windows 7 on your existing computers.

However, because Microsoft is pricing the Windows 8 upgrade very cheaply, if you are using older systems like Windows 95, 98, or XP, this is a good time to pay just US$40 to get the Windows 8 Pro upgrade. If you are already running Windows 7, the Windows 8 Pro upgrade is only US$15. These upgrade prices are comparable to what Apple charges. Microsoft has never sold their Windows upgrades this cheaply (for example, Microsoft priced the Windows 7 Pro upgrade at US$200 when Windows 7 was launched).

Whether you run Windows 7 or Windows 8, you will still be running Windows, so Microsoft will still benefit regardless of your decision. Microsoft will only lose if you depart from the Windows eco-system and move to Apple or Linux (unfortunately, Google doesn't have a credible desktop operating system replacement for Windows). And that is not likely today, nor the near future.