 Hey, this is David with The Verge, and this is the Windows 8 release preview. It's out now, and it's available for download, or if you have the consumer preview, you can upgrade pretty easily. We've seen Windows 8 on a tablet before, but this time we got to test it on a Samsung Series 9 laptop without a touchscreen and see what the laptop experience is like. The first thing you'll notice is that Windows 8 is just more stable than ever before. There weren't really big problems in the last version, but things are faster and more fluid now. Multiple monitor support has been upgraded, switching apps happens faster, and it's just a better experience and feels much more like a real operating system that's ready for release. There's also some new stuff in some of the core apps, like in Mail, you can now pin different inboxes to the start screen so you get individualized notifications, or it can jump straight to a particular Mail account. Things basically work and look the same. Things are improved slightly in the calendar and in Mail, but again, it's basically the same look as you're used to by now. There are a few new Metro apps to give you a sense of what they'll look like when the store is open and populated with Metro apps. There's a Sports and News and Finance apps, and they all kind of look like Flipboard. They have big pictures and text that reflows to the size of your screen, and it's a really nice system and works really well. ZoomPass is also now integrated into the music app on Windows 8. It's a subscription music service just like RDO or Spotify, and we've actually heard that there's going to be an Xbox-branded music app on Windows 8, and this may well be the first version of that. The biggest new addition, though, is Flash support. There's a very limited version of Flash built just into the IE 10 browser, and it actually only lets you access Flash using certain sites. Microsoft and Adobe really wanted a version of Flash that doesn't kill the performance, so you can't use it on certain sites like RDO, but it's there for YouTube, and Microsoft is keeping a list of sites that work well with Flash, so hopefully that'll get bigger over time. On the hardware side, Microsoft's also working with trackpad makers like Synaptics to bring the same gestures on touchscreen devices to non-touch devices like the Series 9. We used a really alpha version of the software, and it's a little buggy and finicky, but for the most part works well, and it's nice to have the swipe from the right gestures to bring up the charms, or swipe from the bottom to bring up menus. In all, this is definitely a big improvement for Windows 8, just in terms of stability and feeling like a finished operating system. There's going to be a lot of great third-party apps coming out now that the marketplace is open, and if you're not willing to wait for Windows 8 to come out, it's definitely something you should consider downloading now.
 Hey, this is David with The Verge, and this is the Windows 8 release preview.
 It's out now, and it's available for download, or if you have the consumer preview, you can
 upgrade pretty easily.
 We've seen Windows 8 on a tablet before, but this time we got to test it on a Samsung Series
 9 laptop without a touchscreen and see what the laptop experience is like.
 The first thing you'll notice is that Windows 8 is just more stable than ever before.
 There weren't really big problems in the last version, but things are faster and more fluid
 now.
 Multiple monitor support has been upgraded, switching apps happens faster, and it's just
 a better experience and feels much more like a real operating system that's ready for release.
 There's also some new stuff in some of the core apps, like in Mail, you can now pin different
 inboxes to the start screen so you get individualized notifications, or it can jump straight to
 a particular Mail account.
 Things basically work and look the same.
 Things are improved slightly in the calendar and in Mail, but again, it's basically the
 same look as you're used to by now.
 There are a few new Metro apps to give you a sense of what they'll look like when the
 store is open and populated with Metro apps.
 There's a Sports and News and Finance apps, and they all kind of look like Flipboard.
 They have big pictures and text that reflows to the size of your screen, and it's a really
 nice system and works really well.
 ZoomPass is also now integrated into the music app on Windows 8.
 It's a subscription music service just like RDO or Spotify, and we've actually heard that
 there's going to be an Xbox-branded music app on Windows 8, and this may well be the
 first version of that.
 The biggest new addition, though, is Flash support.
 There's a very limited version of Flash built just into the IE 10 browser, and it actually
 only lets you access Flash using certain sites.
 Microsoft and Adobe really wanted a version of Flash that doesn't kill the performance,
 so you can't use it on certain sites like RDO, but it's there for YouTube, and Microsoft
 is keeping a list of sites that work well with Flash, so hopefully that'll get bigger
 over time.
 On the hardware side, Microsoft's also working with trackpad makers like Synaptics to bring
 the same gestures on touchscreen devices to non-touch devices like the Series 9.
 We used a really alpha version of the software, and it's a little buggy and finicky, but for
 the most part works well, and it's nice to have the swipe from the right gestures to
 bring up the charms, or swipe from the bottom to bring up menus.
 In all, this is definitely a big improvement for Windows 8, just in terms of stability
 and feeling like a finished operating system.
 There's going to be a lot of great third-party apps coming out now that the marketplace is
 open, and if you're not willing to wait for Windows 8 to come out, it's definitely something
 you should consider downloading now.