 OK, Windows 11 is officially out now, and to be honest there aren't that many changes from the public beta that we looked at back in June. I don't think this operating system is fully finished, there's a few things missing and I think it's just going to change a lot over the next year or so. So should you upgrade? I will answer that one later, but first let's dig into exactly what's new in Windows 11. Now if you haven't seen anything about Windows 11 at all and you haven't used it, the first thing you're going to notice is this new design, so you'll see it's centered, the taskbar is centered, the start menu is centered on that taskbar as well, and if you open up some apps like File Explorer the corners to the windows are rounded and there's a bit more depth and colour to windows in general, and that's central to this new Windows 11 design. Most things have been sort of overhauled or even simplified and it makes it feel a little bit more fresh and new, but underneath it's still Windows. So let's talk about the new start menu, so it is very different to the Windows 11 one, the live tile interface that was originally there in Windows 8 has been stripped out. Microsoft has definitely taken design cues from Mac OS, Chrome OS and even mobile operating systems like Android. It feels like a launcher for your apps, you've got pinned apps at the top, recommended stuff so that would be apps that have just been installed or maybe files and folders that you've been working on. It feels like a launcher, you could obviously get access to all your apps here, it feels very simplified and I really like it and I think a bunch of people are going to like this in Windows 11. Now the other thing that's obviously changed straight away is the taskbar, if you don't like it centered you can just jump into here and quickly move it to the left hand side so it looks a lot more like Windows 10. I don't particularly mind it in the centered interface, I think it's really going to be up to you but there are a few things about the taskbar I do want to talk about that are kind of part of the stuff that's missing. So you might have been used to right clicking on the taskbar and getting the cascade options or even the task manager, that stuff has just disappeared and it's completely gone. You also might be used to using Windows 10 across multiple monitors and having your taskbar down the bottom and the time and date in the corner. The time and date has been completely removed on multiple monitors, I don't really understand why Microsoft has moved that, it's something that I glance at when I'm looking at something full screen on my primary monitor so I'm really confused why that's missing, I feel like it will come back eventually but just be warned if you are someone who uses Windows in a variety of different ways those things have gone. Another thing about the taskbar is let's say I have, I don't know, a video here and I want to drag and drop it into other apps, that is actually missing in Windows 11 so I can't just drag and drop it into other apps. Now I feel like that's a big thing for power users or just people who are used to drag and drop, again that might come back but it's just something that's missing right now. Now the taskbar houses a bunch of new Windows 11 features, the first one being widgets. Now obviously these used to be located down in the taskbar in Windows 10 but Microsoft has shifted them into its new sort of like section or area. Now you've got a bunch of different ones, there's weather, you can check on the Premier League, your sports scores, there's traffic information, you can track stocks, all that sort of stuff, all the stuff you sort of expect. Microsoft's also adding in some of the photo stuff, there's Outlook Calendar, we're hoping there's going to be some third party ones soon but those don't appear to be there just yet. Either way I like these widgets feature, I would prefer if I could drag and drop them onto the desktop and just use them more around the operating system rather than being in here but they're restricted to here. Now the one thing I really hate about the new widgets in Windows 11 is the fact that it doesn't respect my default browser. Now if I clicked on the weather or the Premier League scores, say I want to see what the score is, it will force me into Edge even though Chrome is my default browser. I really hate this aspect of Windows, it's actually a thing that's been in the start menu as well so if I search for the verge here and then hit enter, it will bring me into Edge even though Chrome is my default browser. I really wish Microsoft had changed that for the final release, I don't feel like that's going to get changed anytime soon because it's basically a method to keep you going back to Edge but I really hate that part of it. Now the other new feature that you'll find in Windows 11 on the task bar is Microsoft Teams integration. Now I'll be perfectly honest, I've barely used this during the beta because basically most of my friends and family don't really use Microsoft Teams, I'll communicate on WhatsApp or iMessage or other different ways rather than Teams. But here it is, you can use it for meetings so I can set up a video call here, I can invite friends and family. It is at the moment primarily for consumers surprisingly, you'd think it'd be more for businesses but it's actually going to be enabled for consumers at first. You can also access the full Microsoft Teams app so you can have chat sessions in there, you can look at the activity, the calendar, all that sort of stuff. I'll be honest, it's some sleek integration into Windows 11, I think it would be great if it was something that a lot of people used but the problem is not a lot of people use Microsoft Teams and I feel like a lot of people are just going to disable this instead of use it to be honest. Now as we dig deeper into Windows 11, I really want to show you this new feature that I absolutely love in Windows 11 and it's called snap layouts. Now you might remember if you've been using Windows for a few years, you could right click here, cascade windows, you could sort of snap windows to the side like this, do it properly, there you go, you snap windows like that. All those sort of features have been in there for years but some of them people just don't even realise are there. So Microsoft has added this new snap layouts feature and basically what you do is you hover over the maximise button in any window within Windows and you'll get all these new options to snap your apps as you like them. So maybe I want to snap you know file explorer in the middle here, I might want my audacity to the left and another app on the right, I can do that pretty easily. Now what you can also do is something called snap layouts. Now if I open up the new Microsoft store here, I'll open up settings and we'll talk about settings in a moment, I will put a snap layout to put these three side by side, I'm going to put file explorer in there and settings in there. Now if I hover over file explorer now it will either let me launch file explorer individually or it will remember this snap group where I've got all three windows side by side and basically it's a much better way of multitasking and remembering, like say you're working on I don't know a school project and you've got one note, you've got the browser open and you've got like file explorer open, it will just remember those when you use those apps so that you can just quickly get into the back into the sort of flow of work that you were used to. I just think this is a really cool way of exposing a feature that was primarily used by power users or people who are really familiar with Windows into something that more people would be able to discover a lot more easily. Now I briefly mentioned settings just then and it's one of the areas of Windows 11 where it really demonstrates pretty much all the best changes that Microsoft put into this operating system. So obviously I can look around here I can immediately find stuff just by the logos and the colours whereas before in Windows 10 it was just you know black or white basically you wouldn't be able to sort of quickly identify stuff. Also I can quickly switch between sections to say I'm in Windows update and I'm like I want to change my default apps. It is really easy to navigate around. Now I will admit when I first started using this it took a few hours to be honest even a couple of days to be honest to sort of get used to where all the settings had gone because obviously stuff's been moved around but after using it for a few months I just love the way that all the settings have sort of displayed here. Now it's not perfect just like the rest of Windows 11 it's not perfect to say I wanted to change some mouse settings and I don't know like not everything's in here I want to change something else like scroll direction I don't know something like that. Additional mouse settings will throw me into this sort of old interface in Windows 11. I really hope that Microsoft would kind of get rid of this stuff and not really surface it easily in the settings panels but it's still there like with these crusty old icons from 1995 I don't know I don't know why that stuff's still there but it is it feels a little bit unfinished there. Now settings also exposes the new themes in Windows 11. Now we're currently in dark mode and I can switch over to light mode in here and everything will just basically go white and kind of like flash bang blinding me in the face. I don't particularly like light mode so I keep to dark mode but I wish that Microsoft had really dug deep into the operating system and improved dark mode throughout and unfortunately they haven't so I'll show you what I mean here. If I go into start run that is light mode that's not dark mode. If I go into task manager this is light mode this is not dark mode and that is prevalent throughout the whole of Windows 11. Microsoft has simplified a bunch here but it hasn't always gone quite as far as it should have. Now those simplifications they extend down into the system tray where you can obviously find your notification center and the calendar and all that sort of stuff. This is obviously a little bit tweaked not drastically different. I'd say the only thing that really is drastically different here is your access to say like your Wi-Fi settings or the volume controls all that sort of stuff has changed and I prefer this simplification it could go a little bit further but I like what Microsoft has done here. Now elsewhere one of the other really big changes in Windows 11 is the new Microsoft Store or Windows Store as we call it. I feel like it's a lot quicker to navigate around now just a lot more easier to use and it actually has some of the apps that you actually care about so there's browsers in here like the Opera browser is here there's apps like maybe you use Zoom for Zoom meeting calls those are there now like the apps that you actually care about are starting to be part of the store and I think that was a big problem in Windows 10 and obviously the Windows 8 era and it feels like Microsoft's been a lot more open with Windows 11 allowing developers to list their traditional desktop apps in here instead of trying to force them into these new touch you know UWP apps and I think that's going to pay off there's already a bunch of apps there right now and I'm going to hazard a guess that within a year you're probably going to get most of the apps that you care about in this Windows Store. The new Microsoft Store will also house Android apps eventually that's not going to be there at launch just yet and hopefully Microsoft's going to preview it in the coming months but what it basically means is Android apps are going to be integrated into the store through the Amazon App Store you're going to go download things like TikTok or your favorite Android games perhaps and run those side by side with Windows apps I'm not entirely sure how that's actually going to work because we obviously haven't seen it really fully yet Microsoft has only really shown like basically slideshows so we don't really know exactly how it works but it could be interesting for some people especially on the Android game side. Xbox app is basically the one that they've been testing for the past sort of year or so it is great I much prefer it to the old Xbox app it also provides access to Xbox Game Pass built-in so you don't have to worry about sort of bothering the Windows Store or anything like that you could also stream games from the cloud as well from xCloud if you're an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate member so that's pretty good. Some of the stuff that hasn't been updated again WordPad old app I mean does many people use it anyway I don't know but it still has this ribbon interface which is very different to this sort of command bar that we're sort of seeing in Paint and File Explorer so again inconsistencies there dark mode isn't there as well. One of the apps that I use sort of every day and Microsoft has updated is the Photos app and it's very similar but also again the sort of Windows 11 theme simplified and just a little bit different looking so one of the main sort of additions they've added is this sort of like bar command bar at the bottom here we can sort of quickly flick between your photos and then you can actually end up just comparing them side by side I think that's great if you're trying to imagine you've gone out and taken a bunch of photos and you want to just quickly compare the ones that you want to keep great little interface within Windows to do that. There's also a new editing menu where you can actually get extensions from the store that will plug into sort of your favorite apps like you know like Photoshop and stuff like that those aren't quite there just yet fully but I think it's gonna be really interesting to see what they do with these extensions and just sort of bolstering the editing capabilities in the Photos app because this is an area of Windows that people use daily. Microsoft also calls Windows 11 the best version of Windows for gaming whatever that means there's not a bunch of new stuff here to really back up that statement it's very similar to Windows 10 in fact I found that most of my games just run the same as Windows 10 there's nothing really new there some of the new stuff is around HDR Microsoft now has the auto HDR option so if you have an HDR capable monitor you can enable that and that will enable HDR in certain games that's basically an Xbox feature making its way to Windows 11. There is going to be direct storage as well which is an underlying API that should speed up your game loads again that is also coming to Windows 10 and Windows 11 but it's not quite there just yet. The only real new visible feature of the gaming in Windows 11 is the new Xbox app and beyond that the Xbox sort of game bar all that sort of stuff is very similar to what's available in Windows 10 right now. Okay so I've talked through a bunch of the new Windows 11 features there's obviously a bunch of stuff that's missing there or not quite there for launch and hopefully we'll see Microsoft improve on that in the next few months and stuff but the real question is should you upgrade and it's really difficult to answer that question because it really depends on how you use Windows and whether your PC will even support it. There's been a bit of controversy around Windows 11 particularly around the minimum hardware requirements Microsoft has bumped them up in the name of security or so they say and basically what it means is you'll have to have an Intel 8th gen or newer or the equivalent AMD processor to be able to get this upgraded in the first place. There's also a bunch of security things that you'll need like TPM 2.0 support and secure boot enabled those things might mean absolutely nothing to you and that's not a problem because most modern processors will basically support them anyway. The big problem with Windows 11 is it might not actually support your processor. Now whether you should upgrade to Windows 11 I think really depends on how you use Windows and on what device you actually use it on. I've been using it across a bunch of different devices and I found that I really enjoy using it on laptops but on my desktop where I've got three monitors and I'm using you know different screens and I'm dragging and drop apps. I feel like some of the missing taskbar features there as a power user I feel like I can't really upgrade to Windows 11 on my main desktop because of that. So I will say if you're going to upgrade consider how you use Windows and some of the features I talked about here and whether they're really going to improve things. There's a lot new in Windows 11 but when you scratch underneath the surface of what looks new it kind of still feels like the Windows 10 that we're used to. Let's go back to that analogy that I talked about earlier where Microsoft feels like Windows 11 is like an old family home that's been renovated with you know a fresh coat of paint but still feels familiar. I'd agree with most of that but it feels like Microsoft hasn't quite finished the renovations and it could still go a lot further. It feels like Windows 11 is still really a work in progress and you notice that from some of the missing features like the Android apps aren't quite there even stuff like universal mute which is a button that was supposed to be there so you can mute microphone across any meetings. That stuff isn't quite there yet. There's a lot to like about Windows 11 some of the changes and simplifications and the user interface all that stuff I absolutely love but it's the inconsistency the dark mode that's not quite dark mode. There's some of the features that are missing the taskbar changes all that stuff sort of adds up. As someone who's used Windows for decades I feel like if this was supposed to be the next generation of Windows I really wish that Microsoft had kind of waited and finished it off. I think most people are going to like Windows 11. It builds on the foundation of Windows 10 which has been a really solid operating system and will be supported until 2025 anyway. One of the things many people used to recommend was waiting for the SP1 the service pack one of Windows and I think because Windows 11 isn't fully finished yet you may want to hold off for a few months or a year until Microsoft has sort of fully fleshed this out. I think this is a good solid upgrade to Windows but there's more to be done. It's really whether you want to wait for Microsoft to make those changes and those tweaks or if you're happy with something that's constantly evolving. The choice is really up to you. OK thanks for watching our Windows 11 review. I hope you enjoyed digging through all the new features the good the bad and the ugly. We've got a bunch more content on Windows 11 at the verge dot com and don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel too.