My fiance is a computer geek to the max. He downloaded a copy about a week ago and started playing around with it.
First, it is best used with a touch screen. He had one and played around with it a bit. The interface is not intuitive at all. It took him many tries to find basic menu items. It slowed down the computer drastically. Before he had XP running on the computer and it was flying with 2 Gig of DDR3 memory. Windows 8 needs 4 Gig to run as fast.
His verdict is that Windows 8 is not worth it.
Pssst..press the windows button and you get a normal desktop!
This is my opinion/slight experience:
The boxes/large floating icons on the "new" desktop are made to be very similar to the current smartphone setup. It IS best for a touchscreen, just as the smartphones are. But, if you look, the large icons/flags/whatever are kind of a huge "quick toolbar".
Your quick toolbar sits at the bottom of your screen. You can click an icon there to open up the application. Ok, fine.
I'd have to see if you can tie specific apps to those flag/icons but I'm sure you can.
Overall it's not meant for a mouse, but if you press the Windows button you get blank desktop!
I would use at least a dual-core CPU, and 4+gb ram. (a computer that is about 3 yrs old physically would work)
Think of this too: Android is the main OS for smartphones. That OS/look is not used for any computer OS. The iPhone/Pods are different OS than the Macs. Somewhat similar 'feel' when driving, due to the 'ease of use' in the icons/apps. (one click it works). Here, MS is matching up their smartphone OS to their desktop OS. That takes a pair to do. Touchpads are already here, iPad etc, so this OS is just before the touchpads become a main home figure. Oh, yeah, laptops also have touchscreens too, just not common. This is my opinion on business/IT /rollout.
In person, I don't really LIKE it, but I can get used to the flag/icons. I think. I'd want to cut a few out, add my own? and reconnect a lot of those to other apps. (just like you can with an icon on the desktop).
This OS will NOT be used for corporate/business usage, W7 will be driven into the ground at work. (shoot, XP is still running in a lot of places)
I kind of think of those icons as large print for users
