Apple iPhone 5 vs. Samsung Galaxy S III

Well, well, well; look what we have here. It’s the two phones that everybody loves to hate, the Apple iPhone 5 and the Samsung Galaxy S III. Android lovers usually despise the iPhone 5 and iOS lovers usually despise the Galaxy S III. We’ve pitted them head to head to determine which of these devices will come out on top with victory. All of the bases are covered from design to performance to S Voice and Siri to the controversial Maps. Both are excellent smartphones with their own strengths and weaknesses. That said, let’s start the showdown.

Hardware

Let’s begin at the very core of both phones with their specifications. As a side note, depending on whether one is using the global version of the GSIII or the North American version, the specs are better or worse. We’re using the North American version.
Inside, the Samsung Galaxy S III packs a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 1.5GHz dual-core processor, 2GB of RAM, a 2,100 mAh battery, 4G LTE connectivity, and either 16GB, 32GB, or 64GB of storage which is expandable thanks to its microSD card slot. The display on the outside measures 4.8 inches diagonally with a 1280×720 and 306 ppi resolution. The camera on the back has an 8MP lens and the one on the front has a 1.9MP lens.
The iPhone has never been ahead (or aimed to be ahead) in the spec game and this is no exception. The iPhone 5 has a dual-core processor inside, but some have speculated that the clockspeed is at around 1.02GHz. It features half the RAM at 1GB, the same storage options, and the same 4G LTE. The battery capacity is unknown, but more details on battery life are below. The iPhone 5 gets a larger display than previous iPhones at 4 inches with a 1136×640 and 326ppi resolution.

Design

The Galaxy S III has a full-body plastic design, but it’s actually pretty sleek. Samsung adds a brushed metal effect that really adds to the level of elegance.
I love the pebble blue color, which I had the pleasure of having on my review unit. Other than the standard black on most phones, this is my absolute favorite color ever on a phone. That brushed metal effect makes it look almost like a toned-down electric blue and it just looks awesome.
The iPhone 5 is made entirely of aluminum and glass and once again Apple reigns in the design department. The sides are either silver or slate aluminum depending on the color of the iPhone and the back has a large center aluminum panel with two slim cutouts on the top and bottom filled in with glass, presumably so wireless connections can function.
As nice as the Galaxy S III looks, I have a few small design gripes. I still don’t like capacitive buttons and it has two on the front. Plus, the volume button on the side is just one big button and you are supposed to figure out whether you are pushing it to lower the volume or raise it.
The bigger question revolves around the display: is the GSIII comfortable to hold in one hand? In my experience, it’s not. I’m the type of person who typically uses my phone with one hand because I’m carrying something in the other, and I struggled navigate around the Galaxy S III with one hand. I had to constantly loosen my grip on the device and move my hand up or down around it to position my finger correctly and it was just a pain. The iPhone 5 fits almost perfectly in my hand by comparison. If you have no problem using two hands in most cases to use a phone, you can neglect this entire paragraph.
The displays themselves are gorgeous on both. The iPhone 5 has an advantage in bright sunlight as its easier to see. As much as many people might prefer the bigger display of the GSIII for viewing more content, I found that more often than not, apps don’t take advantage of the extra space. A lot feels blown up and oversized. I guess that’s good, but I’d rather see smaller fonts and buttons in favor of showing more meaningful content. Videos and games shine more than anything else.
While design and display preferences vary between people, I think it’s safe to declare the iPhone the winner here. The materials used are top-notch and the device looks nothing short of premium.

Build Quality

The iPhone 5 uses durable aluminum and glass in its unibody construction. The Galaxy S III uses plastic. The winner is clear in terms of build quality — the Galaxy S III doesn’t even come close to the iPhone 5.
Keeping that in mind, the build quality of the GSIII isn’t as bad as I was expecting. Despite being made mostly of plastic, it does feel somewhat solid in the hand. Pull off the back cover, however, and its weaknesses are immediately revealed. I could snap that flimsy piece of plastic in half without much effort at all if I wanted to.

Performance

Performance overall was a bit faster on the iPhone 5 than on the Galaxy S III. It was especially apparent when comparing AT&T and Verizon LTE speeds. AT&T was significantly faster than Verizon in every case. When I switched to WiFi — both of which had the same connection — the gap tightened, but the iPhone still came out in the lead.
Graphics performance was typically better on the iPhone too. There was less lag when playing games or zooming around in Maps. Apps open just a tad faster as well.
On the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark, iPhone 5 came in at 1034.1 ms while the Galaxy S III came in at 1894.5 ms, and this test was performed over the same WiFi connection.

Camera

I don’t like to write too much about phones’ cameras in reviews because I think the sample photos should speak for themselves. Let me just say that the iPhone 5 does have a better camera than the Galaxy S III, especially for low-light photography. During the day, it’s only a tad more sharp but for the most part they are on par with each other. One thing I will note is that it seems like it’s easier to take a stabilized photo with the GSIII over the iPhone 5. As you’ll notice, a couple times the shot was faintly blurred because I moved my hand a bit, but when the phone is steady, the iPhone does tend to produce minutely better photos overall. You can see for yourself with the images below.

Siri and S Voice

Now it’s time to pit the two women who live inside each phone against each other. Which is more helpful at answering your questions and performing the tasks you request? Well, Siri.
Not only does Siri do more thanks to the iOS 6 release like find movie theaters and sports scores, but I found that it was usually quicker and understood better what I was saying. The latter is probably due to the better microphone. S Voice was faster at doing quick math calculations or throwing out quick facts. If I asked who the first president of the United States was, Siri would take a few seconds to bring up a sheet with Wolfram Alpha, while S Voice would quickly just answer out loud that it was George Washington, which I appreciated.
Still, there were some questions I asked that S Voice just couldn’t answer that Siri could, either due to the GSIII not picking up my voice accurately or S Voice not having the resources to answer.
Siri is also easier to carry out a comical conversation with and we all know we use these assistants for that purpose more often than we’d like to admit.

Maps

There’s been a lot of controversy over Apple’s new Maps app in iOS 6 because in many locations, errors can be spotted pretty easily. I used both the iOS 6 Maps app and Google Maps on Android for navigation and both got me to where I needed to go without any trouble. This may vary if you live in a place where Apple’s maps aren’t as accurate, but I’m lucky enough to not have any problems with it.
Google Maps is the champion in terms of data and is with little doubt the superior mapping app. Apple’s Maps app shouldn’t be a deal breaker for the iPhone 5 though because if it doesn’t work where you are, there are third-party alternatives like MapQuest and Waze — both of which are free and work just fine.

Call Quality and Battery Life

Call quality on the Samsung Galaxy S III is slightly worse than on the iPhone 5 in my usage. People I talked to always sounded noticeably more fuzzy and they said I also sounded a tad fuzzier. On the iPhone 5, however, callers sounded very clear and apparently, so did I. That’s presumably due to the new microphone system compared to older iPhones.
Keeping in mind that the iPhone 5 does have the edge here, how many people actually use their phone to make phone calls anymore? For most smartphone owners, either device will have sufficient call quality.
Battery life is harder to determine because Android measures it differently than iOS does. Honestly, it seems like it’ll have to be a tie between the both of them. They are both more than adequate to last throughout a typical day of usage, and even one with heavy usage as well.
I want to say that the iPhone 5 maybe lasted just a tad longer, but then again I did play games on the GSIII for a little extra time because I liked the way they looked on its bigger screen.
For call quality and battery life, you can’t lose with either of these handsets.

Conclusion

Bottom line: which is the better smartphone? For three small reasons, I’d go with the iPhone 5. It’s a bit faster than the Galaxy S III, it has a slightly better camera, and the display is perfect for maneuvering with one hand.
However, if you’re the type of person who would gladly use two hands on their phone in exchange for a gigantic display and can live without the better photos and performance, the Galaxy S III might still be worth your consideration.
Another factor comes in to play as well: Android versus iOS. If you use Google services frequently or like to customize your mobile OS to no end, there’s no question that you should buy the Galaxy S III. If you’re into the Apple ecosystem with iTunes and iCloud or just praise the simplicity of iOS and the build quality of Apple’s hardware, the iPhone 5 is the easy winner here. As much as I hate to not give a definite answer as to which OS is better, it really does come down to personal preference. They both have their strengths and weaknesses depending on everyone’s individual usage habits.
Based on the tests for this review/comparison, while I did declare the iPhone 5 the winning smartphone with the edge, make no mistake that these are two exceptional phones. I’m sure loyal Android users won’t even consider the iPhone 5 just like loyal iOS users won’t even consider the  Samsung Galaxy S III. It’s fairly hard to be displeased with either of these handsets.
Be sure to check out our official individual reviews of the iPhone 5 and Galaxy S III as well.

WordPress vs Blogger

 

Blogger (Blogspot) and WordPress are the two most popular blogging platforms on the Internet. If you’re a netizen then most probably Blogger (or Blogspot) needs no introduction. But I bet it’s because Blogger is owned by Google so it’s almost everywhere. Blogger offers .blogspot.com address and WordPress.com offers .wordpress.com address. You must be familiar with blogspot addresses since it’s 100% free and most Google users own a blogspot blog. But I’m not sure whether you have heard about WordPress.

WordPress is the Big Daddy of Blogosphere. WordPress is the most popular Content Management System (CMS). It is a state-of-the-art semantic personal publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability. The word “WordPress” may not be as popular as “Blogspot” but I bet your favorite blogs are powered by WordPress.

Blogger & WordPress – Pros and Cons

WordPress and Blogger are the most popular blogging platform and both have its own advantages and disadvantages. Blogger is owned by Google. WordPress is an open source and free blogging software.
Blogger Pros and Cons

Pros:

It’s 100% free and is owned by Google.

It’s extremely easy to setup and manage a Blogspot blog.

Publishing contents is straightforward.

You can use your own custom domain name if you own one.

Allows you to display ads like – Amazon, Google AdSense etc.

Built in social networking features.

It’s very reliable since Blogger is powered by Google.

No need to backup databases.

Yours posts are automatically indexed by Google.

100% ad free.

Cons:

Only 1 GB storage.

You don’t own the blog.

No FTP support.

WordPress: WordPress.com & WordPress.org

WordPress.org is an open source and free blogging software. WordPress.com is the hosted version of WordPress.org. Anyone can download WordPress software from WordPress.org and install on their website for FREE.

WordPress (via WordPress.com) offers a free version with limited features as well as a paid version with premium features. But I recommend the self-hosted WordPress.org which is every professional blogger’s choice. It’s the self-hosted WordPress.org that really rules the blogosphere.

If you choose the free WordPress.com blog then the features are limited and you will have only limited control over the blog. Also, most of the themes and plugins support only the self-hosted WordPress platform.
WordPress Pros and Cons (FREE Version)

Pros:

WordPress is simple to use however it takes some time to get to know it’s interface. Once you learn it’s very easy to navigate.

It’s 100% free.

It’s very Search Engine friendly.

No need to backup databases.

Cons:

WordPress releases frequent updates so you have to update the software every time they release a new version (but it requires only few clicks).

You don’t own the blog.

You are not allowed to monetize your WordPress.com blog using Google AdSense, Chitika, Amazon, banners etc.

Limited support of themes and plugins.

No FTP Access.

Displays ads unless you buy opt for ad-free version which costs $29.97 annually.
WordPress.org Pros and Cons (Self Hosted)

Pros:

WordPress is very flexible since it’s open source. So you can customize your blog the way you want.

You own the blog and you have full control over your blog

You can install any themes or plugins. There are tons of free and premium WordPress themes and plugins.

It’s search engine friendly and you can set your own custom meta tags.

It takes just minutes to setup your blog.

Cons:

You have to buy a domain name and web hosting plan.

You have to take regular backups of databases.


WordPress vs Blogger / WordPress vs BlogspotFeatures Blogger (FREE) WordPress.com (FREE)
You get a .blogspot.com address .wordpress.com address
Can you map your own custom domain name? Yes (FREE) Yes ($10/year)
Languages Support nearly 50 languages Supports over 120 languages
Customizing You can edit the HTML, Colors or CSS file without any hassle. No
Use your own theme? Yes No
Categories Labels. It acts as categories and tags. Supports both categories and tags.
Mobile Access? Yes Yes
Storage 1 GB 3 GB
Ad free? Yes No
Can you display ads? Yes No
Can you add scripts? Yes No
Search Engine Optimized Yes Yes
Google Analytics Allowed? Yes No
Can you password protect posts? No Yes
Can you edit comments? No Yes
Importing posts from another platform Only from another blogspot blog Can import posts from Blogger, WordPress, TypePad, and more.
Team Blogs Administrators and non-administrators only. Administrator, Editors, Authors, Subscribers, and Contributors.



Why You Should Choose Self-hosted WordPress Platform?


When you setup your blog on Blogspot, you don’t actually own your blog, Google owns it. Google have the right to suspend any blog hosted by Blogger. If they think that you’re spamming or using copyrighted material then they will shut down your blog. Google has shut down so many popular blogs in the past. Read: (Google Shuts Down Popular Blogger After Publishing Controversial Post & Blogger Account Disabled). It can happen to you if their algorithm thinks that you’re spamming or if you’re violating any of their terms.



If you’re serious about blogging and wants to setup a professional blog then a self-hosted WordPress is the right choice that’s why 90% of all business blogs are powered by WordPress. Most Blogspot users move to WordPress once they have established their blog. But If you’re a newbie then I would recommend Blogger as it’s easy to setup and 100% free. When you’re ready you can switch to WordPress.

So, WordPress or Blogspot? Which is your choice and why?

Mahindra Quanto vs. Renault Duster

Mahindra Quanto

INTERIOR:

Ed's take:

The Quanto is a compact SUV, but is spacious on the inside. The bells and whistles and the plastic quality on the Quanto is decent. The Quanto's seats are also fairly comfortable with loads of head room.
The Quanto is based on the Xylo platform, and Mahindra is also sharing most of the mechanical bits on the compact SUV to reduce the cost. Hence, most of the plastics and the interior bits are a direct pick from the Xylo. The plastic quality of the material isn't that great and is very much similar to the Xylo.
There is sufficient space on the inside those. The first two rows are fairly spacious. Not only is there sufficient room, but even the seats are large and supportive. Five people can sit abreast without any issues. The two seats at the end at small and good enough for children or short journeys.

ENGINE                         
                                                                                      :

Ed's take:

This new engine on the Quanto is a newly derived engine from the existing Mahindra powertrains. The twin turbos help to reduce the lag and make it more drivable as the power delivery is linear, like a petrol mill. Mahindra does a good job with its new engine.
Mahindra has introduced a brand-new engine on the Quanto. This is a 1.5-litre, three cylinder twin turbo engine that produces 100bhp of power and 240Nm of torque. The power delivery on this mill is linear as there is negligible turbo lag on the compact SUV. This engine is a tad noisier than one would want, however the vibration isn’t that bad.
The Quanto has good enough power to overtake in the city and the highways, but that punch like other diesel engines seems to go missing. The 5-speed manual transmission on the Quanto is a tad rubbery, and the throws are a bit long. Mahindra has developed a new transmission for the Quanto and it does feel a bit better than the already existing products..
C2: The C2 is the base model on the Quanto. It’s like plain vanilla ice cream that gets power steering anc HVAC. Even the bumpers, door handles and grille are black in colour.
C4: The C4 gets wheel cover, body coloured bumpers and spare wheel tyre cover, digital clock, micro hybrid start-stop, power windows,, central locking and rear-wiper and washer as extra over the C2.
C6: The C6 gets a lot more goodies like body coloured door handles, side steps with puddle lamps, digital drive assist, keyless entry, ABD, integrated music system and even front fog lamps.
C8: The C8 is the top of the line version on the Quanto and it comes loaded with all the bells and whistles like dual airbags, Park Assist and also alloy wheels.

RIDE AND HANDLING CHARACTERISTICS:      

 Ed's take:The ride and handling of the Quanto is one area that doesn’t impress us. The problem is that, neither the ride is excellent nor is the handling that great.The Quanto has same underpinnings like that of the Mahindra Xylo and the Genio. So, we expected the ride to be good, but somehow we weren’t very pleased with it also. The ride is smooth and soft, but the increased travel of the suspension doesn’t make it desirable.Again the long travel doesn’t help the Quanto in the handling department. So there is no pleasure to drive around hills and winding roads. Also the tall size of the body and higher ground clearance, increase the body roll.

Renault Duster

INTERIOR:

Ed's take:

It is only the interiors of the Duster that failed to appeal us. The plastic quality isn’t up to the mark, even though the fit and finish is decent. The space in the Duster is just phenomenal, with large and supportive seats.
The interior quality on the Duster is decent. It isn’t phenomenal for its price, but it is good enough. The overall fit and finish of the plastics is good, but it is the feel that doesn’t impress. Even the inside has been designed ergonomically. The black and beige interiors look good and feel premium, as most of the Indians consider beige to be superior over black or grey.
There is loads of space in the front row and the Duster doesn’t feel cramped. The seating is a bit low, but the view is good as the overall visibility of the car is good. The support offered by the seats is good for the back and the thigh. Move into the second row and there will be no disappointment with the space for your knee and head. The space is immense and so is the thigh support. Even the boot is large for 4 people’s luggage. The Duster comes with a dealer fitment option of two additional seats forming the third row.
The Duster comes in three variants, RxE, RxL and RxZ. The latter two come with option packs as well. The RxE is the base model and it comes with basic features like black interiors, keyless entry, power windows. It misses out on airbags and also on ABS.
The RxL is the mid-model and it gets additional features like rear defogger and wiper, front fog lamps, trendy beige fabric seats, the centre console becomes glossy black instead of the charcoal black, electrically adjustable ORVMs, integrated music system with four speakers and USB connectivity, on board computer, glove box lamp and reading lamps being the major upgrades.
The RxZ is the top of the line version and it comes fully loaded with various bells and whistles like dual airbags, ABS, reverse parking sensor, driver seat reminder, body coloured door mirrors with satin, rear AC blower, leather wrapped steering wheel. These are the major add-ons, except for those that were already mentioned in the RxL.

ENGINE:

Ed's take:

With the Duster being a compact SUV, most of the buyers will prefer the 85bhp 1.5litre diesel engine. This engine has good drivability and sufficient torque to potter around in the city. There is no turbo lag either and it does make its case for a good buy.

Petrol 1.6-litre:

The Duster comes with a 1.6-litre petrol engine that produces 102bhp of power at 5850rpm and a torque of 145Nm at 3750rpm. This is a four-cylinder that earlier powered the Logan. It comes mated to a 5-speed manual transmission. The NVH levels are fairly refined and the engine isn’t noisy. The power delivery is linear and the shifts on the box are also good. For quick overtaking one has to downshift as the power is most available in the higher rev range. The ARAI mileage for the petrol version of the Duster is 13.4kmpl.

Diesel 84bhp, 1.5-litre:

Duster comes with two power ratings in the diesel variant. One is 85bhp and the other is 108bhp. The 84bhp is available on the RxE and RxL trim levels. This is the same engine that powers the Nissan Sunny as well. The NVH (noise vibration and harshness) levels on the diesel Duster are quiet low and Renault has done a fabulous job on reducing the clatter. This version of the Duster produces 84 bhp at 3750rpm of power and 200Nm of torque at 1900rpm. The power delivery is good enough and the engine is fairly drivable even when in the city. Overtaking in the city is easy and most of the time a downshift is required. The 5-speed transmission is good enough and the shifts are positive. The ARAI claimed fuel efficiency of the 84bhp Duster is 20.64kmpl.

Diesel 108bhp, 1.5-litre:

The 108bhp of the Duster is available only with RxL and RxZ trim levels. This engine produces 108bhp of power at 3900rpm and a maximum torque of 248Nm at an engine speed of 2250rpm. The refinement level of the engine is the same, as the lower powered diesel engine, and there is no clatter drama. Once you pass 1800rpm, there is sufficient power to lug around the town. For better utilization of power, this engine comes mated to a 6-speed manual box than a 5-speed that powers the de-tuned version of this K9K engine. The shifts on this 6-speed manual box are also smooth and positive. However, there is a drop in fuel economy by ARAI standards to 19.1kmpl. On the highway, the sixth-gear will help to increase the fuel efficiency.

RIDE AND HANDLING CHARACTERISTICS:

Ed's take:

The Duster excels in the ride and handling department. It doesn’t just have a well sorted ride, but even the handling is good for its size and ground clearance. So, the Duster is makes a strong case for itself.
The Duster is based on the Logan platform and so it gets independent McPherson strut with coil springs & anti-roll bar at its front and torsion beam axle with coil springs & anti-roll bar at its rear. The ride of the Duster is fairly supple. All the road shocks are absorbed by the utility vehicle and the occupants get a smooth ride. The ride is similar even at higher speeds.
The handling of the Duster is similar to that of a sedan. It can be chucked around corners and its chassis responds well. Despite the high ground clearance the handling characteristics of the Duster are good. The steering wheel also is light at low speeds and weighs up well as the vehicle gathers speed.

Windows 8 vs. Windows 7

We've heard it before: The next version of Windows is going to start up way faster and run faster than the last. With Windows 7, we were told that we could expect 15 second boot times, but that sure hasn't been my experience. With Windows 8, it looks like the claims are for real: In using the Windows 8 Developer, Consumer, and Release Previews, I've noticed a huge improvement in start up times. No longer do you have to wait for nearly a minute just to log into a typical PC. And the company has stated that it's working on reducing another big source of waiting time: Updates. If you don't use a Windows 7 PC for a week or so, chances are that you'll have to wait a few minutes for it to download and install updates, and you'll probably have to go through a second reboot. This is less of a problem for PCs that are left on all the time (to the detriment of energy conservation), which is the case for most business PCs. In addition to startup and shutdown times, I wanted to compare performance of Windows 8 with that of Windows 7 on some other measures. I used PCMark, Geekbench, and three browser benchmarks. I also timed how long it took to copy large files and encode a video project. I first installed a fresh clean copy of Windows 7 Ultimate (64-bit) on a Toshiba Portege R835-P88 laptop (a PCMag Editors' Choice) with a 2.5GHz Core i5-2450M chip, 6GB of RAM, a 500GB hard drive, and an Intel HD Graphics 3000 integrated graphics processor. I ran all the tests, and then installed a clean copy of Windows 8 (64 bit) on the same hardware. For each OS, I made sure all updates had been installed. Startup and Shutdown Times Few performance issues are more important than how long it takes your computer to start up and be ready to use. Windows 8 makes bigger advances in this yardstick than any operating system in memory. Of course, our tests involved clean OS installations, and startup time can be affected by apps you install that load code during startup, such as antivirus. But this, too, is more of a problem for Windows 7, since Windows 8 saves the system state and memory contents to a file on disk, and simply reloads it on reboot, rather than initiating everything all over again. Another factor for the new OS is behavioral—it's designed to encourage the user to "sleep" the machine rather than completely shutting it down when use finishes. And, maybe most importantly, with newer hardware that uses a UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) hardware boot process and SSD hard drives, you'll see even more drastic startup speed boosts. But even without all this, my startup results showed that the upgrade reduced startup time to less than half that of Windows 7. Shutdown time was improved, but not by such a wide margin. Large file set move One of the few improvements to the traditional Desktop interface that lurks beneath Windows 8's newfangled Metro user interface is file moving and copying in Windows Explorer. It's not just the cosmetics of the added ribbon atop the Explorer that's been changed: Now, when you copy or move multiple files simultaneously, you'll also see an information box showing each operation's progress, with an optional throughput graph. To test file-move performance I used a USB 2.0 thumb drive loaded with 500MB of 81 large files of mixed types. I also tried a single large file of just under 1GB. The newer OS also did a better job predicting how long the move operation would take. Though these tests didn't show a speed improvement (presumably because it's a hardware-constrained test), when I tried copying the same files to another folder, it was nearly instant, whereas in Windows 7 I had to wait the same time for the file to move again. Update: Microsoft informed us that the reason Window 8 transfers files slightly slower is because it does a malware scan during the transfer for improved security. Geekbench  Geekbench 2.3, from Primate Labs, runs a series of geeky tests like prime number, Mandelbrot, blowfish encryption, text compression, image sharpen and blur, and memory stream test. The subtests comprise both single- and multithreaded applications. The results are normalized so that a score of 1,000 is the score a Power Mac G5 1.6GHz, so a higher number is better. I ran both the 32-bit and 64-bit tests in Geekbench three times and took the average for each OS. Mostly designed to test hardware, Geekbench didn't show much change between OS versions. But it's encouraging that this test version of Windows 8 was a tad faster, rather than slowing down the benchmark's operations. Video Rendering For a real-world, task-based test, I timed video encoding in Windows Live Movie Maker on both operating systems. I used the same 2-minute movie content (made of three different format clips I created, complete with titles and transitions), and had the program convert it to 720p at a 12.26Mbps bandwidth. Windows 8 posted a slight but encouraging improvement on this test, reducing the time it took from 1 minute and 22 seconds to 1:11. PCMark Vantage The PCMark 7 benchmark runs 7 system tests, each designed to represent a certain type of PC usage, including hard disk access, 3D and graphics physics rendering, Web page rendering, file decryption, and multithreading with video, and image manipulation. The benchmark spits out a result in PCMarks, with a higher number equating to better performance. My Windows 8 system showed a significant performance improvement over Windows 7, upping the score by 388 points. Browser Benchmarks I tested browser performance in Windows' native browser Internet Explorer. On Windows 8, that would be version 10, and on Windows 7 I used the latest version available for that OS, IE9. I ran two popular JavaScript benchmarks, SunSpider and Google's V8 (v.7) as well as a Microsoft test of hardware acceleration, Psychedelic Browsing. I ran the tests in the Desktop version of Windows 8's Internet Explorer 10 browser. The improvement on Sunspider and V8 was remarkable: Microsoft has clearly done further optimization on IE10's JavaScript engine, Chakra. And the Psychedelic Browsing test showed a marked improvement as well, meaning Microsoft has done further work on hardware acceleration in the browser. Without further ado, my results are presented in the table that follows: Windows 7 Utimate (64-bit) Windows 8 (64-bit) Startup (seconds, lower is better) 38 17 Shutdown (seconds, lower is better) 12.2 9.9 500MB File Group Move (seconds, lower is better) 25.2 29.2 Large Single File Move (seconds, lower is better) 46.4 46.8 Video Rendering (minutes:seconds, smaller is better) 1:22 1:11 Geekbench 2.3 64-bit tests (higher is better) 8090 8187 Geekbench 2.3 32-bit tests (higher is better) 5962 6122 PCMark 7 (higher is better) 2313 2701 Sunspider (ms, lower is better) 180 144 Google V8 (v.7) (higher is better) 3079 6180 Psychedelic Browsing (higher is better) 3997 5292 The key thing here is startup. Windows 7 still takes just too long to get usable, and Windows 8 finally remedies this drawback. Browser performance is also notably better, and it's encouraging that Geekbench showed a little improvement and PCMark 7 a significant one. Yes, this is not even the RTM, or final release of Windows 8, but the early test results are encouraging. New hardware will, of course, make the new OS scream, particularly if you opt for SSD storage.