Call me old fashioned, but I prefer the traditional Start menu. I don't like the jolting UI change of the Start screen when clicking the Start button. I also prefer the collapsed menu of the Start menu. I find it much more difficult to find stuff when everything is expanded. I know you can just start typing, but you can do that in Windows 7 as well. And what if you aren't sure of the name of what you're looking for? It's much quicker to search the collapsed Start menu than the expanded Start screen.
spaulagain, I know you're a graphics designer and also a Start screen fan. I'm curious as to what the objective advantages are, technically speaking from a designer's point of view. It probably is better, but I've been using W8 ever since the Consumer Preview was released over 2 years ago, and I still prefer the Start menu. Thanks!
Depends on how you've used those tools in the past. For me, if I'm desktop, 90% of the apps I use are already pinned to my task bar. At work, we still have Windows 7. And I have maybe 3 programs pinned on the Start Menu, Calculator, Notepad, and Remote Desktop. Other than those 3 programs, I only use the Start Screen for Search, and Power off. The rest of the start menu is useless, and horribly designed IMO. The large scrolling list of app folders, which you then have to expand, and the select one of several icons, such as uninstall, etc. is a horrible and tedious experience both on touch AND mouse.
With the Start Screen, you can pin a bunch of apps, endless really. And you can organize and categorize them into different groups. This makes it much easier for the eye to quickly discern the app you're looking for from all the other apps because you can quickly narrow you're visual focus to just one column of apps. Then find your desired app there. Also, muscle memory becomes very effective on the Start Screen, assuming you don't change it all the time.
On the Start Screen > All Apps view, you have every app shown with its name and icon. Not a bunch of generic subfolders, with confusing and unrecognizable icons. Also, you can organize/sort that app list by,most recently installed, most used, and alphabetically. Something not at all available on the Start Menu, at least not in an intuitive manner.
Also, search on the Start Screen is far more effective and intuitive. You search everything or specify something to search for very easily. And the results show up extremely fast. The results are also very clear as to what is an app, etc.
My biggest complaint, is things like device manager, control panel, etc. should not be hidden as a right mouse button click on the start button. They should all be migrated to the Metro settings panel. And the metro settings section needs to be organized a little bitter. It's a lot better than the old control panel, but still a little confusing.
I think people's main issue with the Start Screen is that it uses the entire screen, rather than part of it. Personally, I think that's silly. When you're using the start screen/menu, are you really trying to multitask at that particular moment? No. So using the entire screen makes that start screen/menu far more efficient and effective to display your apps.
Oh ya, and live tiles on apps like weather, messing, etc are awesome!