So, we had a good mix of general tablet use as well as a more desktop-like experience, and our impressions here will cover both. We alternated between using the tablet handheld, relying on its 1366 x 768 capacitive touchscreen, and sitting in its dock, where we instead turned on a Bluetooth keyboard and a wireless mouse. Yes, this is an x86 tablet running the non-ARM version of Windows, so it has full backwards compatibility with all the legacy apps Windows users have come to know and love over the years. The hardware isn't so important here, but just the same our build is running on a Samsung developer tablet outfitted with a 1.6GHz Intel Core-i5 processor and 4GB of RAM. This is the Windows 8 Consumer Preview, build 8250 - for the moment, the latest and greatest version of the latest and (arguably) greatest version of Windows yet. Since you'll surely be wondering, let's run down exactly what we're working with here.

How well do they get along? Join us after the break to find out. With the Windows 8 Consumer Preview, Microsoft is showing off the most complete version of the company's most modern operating system, yet in many ways it feels like 1985 all over again - like there are two separate systems here struggling to co-exist. Why are we reminiscing? Because we're reaching that same point again. It was over a decade later, after Windows 95, that the operating system would truly ditch its DOS underpinnings and feel like a totally integrated system. The early days of Windows required constant jumps from GUI to shell as users ran a wide assortment of apps, only some of which played nice inside a window. That's what it was, and often that's what it did. Sitting on top of DOS, it was hardly a revolution in personal computing - instead it felt like a disjointed platform perched uncomfortably atop a command prompt, ready to come crashing down at any moment.

The early days of Windows were inauspicious ones.

Where is consumer preview on windows 8