Windows 11 Review

 Windows 11 is Finally Here

Kind of the update brings a fresh new design beginning with a new start menu and visual changes throughout the rest of the interface there are several widgets that show you glanceable news weather and other handy information and the new settings app is easier to navigate and the snap assist tool has grown up. 

Windows 11 Review

As far as gaming is concerned Microsoft took another pass at the Microsoft Store and Xbox apps there are also some under the hood features to windows 11 that the company promises will improve the gaming experience and boost performance for the last few weeks I've been using windows 11 on pre-built next streaming plus pc with any major software update such as this it's completely natural to question whether or not you should upgrade as tempting as it may be to mash that update button the moment windows 11 was released it's probably a good idea to wait a bit longer after testing both before and after installing windows 11 I've discovered that there's a lot to like here but there's also not much in the way of new noteworthy performance improvements.

 Windows 11 A Fresh Start

The first thing you're going to notice on windows 11 is that the start button and all of the items pinned to your taskbar are now centered along the bottom of your screen there are a few extra icons there too next to the start button is a shortcut to reveal all of your virtual desktops on which you can arrange open apps and windows to your liking then there's the widget button that will prompt a widget menu to slide out from the left side of your screen finally there's the chat app which you can use to message friends family and co-workers.

Windows 11 Start Menu:

click on the start menu and you'll be greeted by its completely new look the search bar has moved to the top of the pop-over with pinned apps just below that and there's a button to view all of your installed apps as well and then there's a recommended section where you'll find shortcuts to recent files and apps it took me a few days to get acclimated to the new start menu not only is it in the middle of the screen now but it defaults to lacking any sort of shortcuts to things like file explorer or the settings app next to the power button you can manually add those shortcuts among others you can also move the start button back to the bottom left corner of the screen thus far i've fought off temptation to move it back but i can't tell you how many times i've absent-mindedly moved the mouse pointer to the bottom left corner of the screen and clicked expecting to see the start menu pop up muscle memory is hard to break if the taskbar icons were larger it'd be all too easy to say this particular update in windows 11 feels very mac os like and i can see why some would even say that right now in its current form but the first time you click and the start menu shoots up from the start button it's very clear you're still using windows live tiles are no longer present on the start menu instead you'll have to get accustomed to using the new widgets panel that slides out from the left edge of the screen.

 if you have a two in one or a laptop with a touch screen you could swipe from the left edge towards the middle of your screen to view the widgets the top of the panel is where you can add one of the 11 different widgets currently available ranging from weather and stocks to traffic and sports scores there's even a family safety widget so you can keep tabs on your kid's screen time and approve any requests, unfortunately, you can't add any third-party widgets to the panel so you're stuck with what Microsoft includes I never really used live titles in windows 10 I was not a big fan I actually found them more annoying and more work to manage than they were worth but the change to widgets is something I found myself using if for no other reason than to skim the never-ending news feed that's below the widgets I've already customized I do wish however that there were more options for widgets.

Favorite change in Window 11: 

One of my favorite changes in windows 11 is the new settings app instead of the main screen showing buttons that take you to each category and subcategory of a particular setting the left side of the app has every top-level setting such as apps or system when you select a category the list remains visible while you adjust any settings to your liking, for instance, selecting personalization from the list of settings which also has new themes for light and dark modes allows me to quickly change the desktop background accent colors and the like without reloading the entire settings window as was the case in windows 10.

The new snap assist tool is another update I'm learning to appreciate when arranging windows on your desktop for example you can still drag the windows to the edge of the screen to snap them into a specific position but in windows 11 you can now hover your mouse pointer over the enlarge button to see various layouts for you to pick from there are several options such as a 50 50 split a 75 20 split and a grid layout which lets you view up to four different apps each taking a quarter of the screen what's more if you move away from the snap group and start doing something else you can return to the same layout by hovering your mouse cursor over the app's icon in the taskbar and selecting the previous layout docking and undocking your laptop from an external monitor will now remember your desktops and window placement instead of forcing you to rearrange your apps every time you connect or disconnect.

One more feature that I think is worth calling out is the new chat app it's part of the Microsoft teams but it also allows you to send and receive text messages with your contacts even if they aren't using Microsoft teams I was able to exchange messages with my wife directly to her phone number who can then reply directly from the messages thread on her iPhone no app required. 

Windows 11 And Gaming

For as much as microsoft has talked about gaming at press events for windows 11 and the new surface devices there really aren't a whole lot of new features related to gaming in this update there are a few though first up is auto hdr a carryover feature from the xbox series x and s consoles and if you have an hdr monitor you should notice an immediate difference in how games look thanks to windows 11 automaticall converting sdr images to hdr images for a brighter more vivid picture next up is direct storage once games are updated or released with support for direct storage your pc will use the gpu to load images and assets directly from an nvme ssd something that is usually done by the cpu the end result faster load times unfortunately no games currently support it thus far microsoft says the tech will come to games in the future but there's no word on exactly when hopefully soon though finally microsoft has combined the xbox and xbox game pass apps that means you no longer need to rely on two different apps for all your xbox gaming needs i enjoyed the merged interface and frankly there was never a need for two apps.

Window 11 Features:

The three of those features aren't exactly the most exciting updates for windows 11. that said there's potential for direct storage to be an impressive update and welcome addition to the new operating system once games are updated or gained support but there are some caveats you need to know namely that you'll need a name SSD with one terabyte of storage and a GPU that supports directx12. 

I like how there's a  xbox app now instead of an xbox app and an xbox game pass app and i can  simply find the games i want to install and play or start a cloud gaming session with just a clicks of course you'll need an xbox game pass ultimate subscription to use  of xbox cloud gaming and remember xbox cloud gaming is still in beta and there are surely some geeks and quirks that microsoft is still ironing out for example during my time testing i was frequently disconnected from the game and kicked back to my desktop due to connection issues that happened even though i'm using a 1.2 gigabit per second hardwired connection thankfully i could immediately jump back into the same game and pick up where i left off it wasn't too much of a hassle for a slow paced game like mlb's the show 21 but it'd be a different story if i was playing a fast-paced game like say gears 5. what about performance in regular non-cloud games to test for differences between the operating system i went through ign's typical benchmark process with windows 10 and then again after updating to windows11.

I didn't see any drastic improvements in gaming performance the only outlier was the metro exodus benchmark going from 59 frames per second to 82 frames per second I triple checked the settings and results on all of the benchmarks before installing windows 11 and everything was correct I am at a loss as to why there was a huge leap in performance here while the rest of the tests all showed numbers that were within a few points of each other beyond our standard benchmarks I spent a lot of time playing Gears 5 and mobs the show 21 via Xbox cloud gaming as well as dropping in on warzone would average between 110 and 120 frames per second with all of its graphics settings maxed out on both windows 10 and after updating to windows 11.

What's Missing

shipped android apps are the most noteworthy example windows 11 has native support for android apps meaning you can install and run android apps directly on your pc without any extra software but the functionality isn't live yet a forthcoming update will add amazon's app store which has its own collection of android apps that you can install and use it's the same app store that amazon uses on its fire tablets so while the selection of android apps isn't as robust as it is for the google play store there are plenty of options another feature that's missing is Cortana and it's going to stay missing it's a conscious decision that Microsoft made and you know what I'm perfectly fine with that windows 11 looks fantastic.