MSI Slidebook S20 review: MSI's flagship Windows 8 Ultrabook has a flawed design

If you've been following our reviews of Windows 8 laptops, you know we haven't been too kind to the slider form factor. It's not like we set out to pan these machines, but time and again we've found that the propped-up display ruins the typing experience. Keep that in mind as we begin our review of the Slidebook S20, MSI's flagship Win 8 device, priced at $1,200 in the US. It's a bold move from a company whose bread and butter is not ultraportables, but gaming systems. In fact, the 11.6-inch S20 is the outfit's only high-end Windows 8 Ultrabook. So the company must have quite a bit of confidence in that form factor, then, if it didn't bother with dockable tablets or some other kind of convertible design. Could that mean the S20 has something all the others don't?

Shocker: Windows 8 will be 'retina' display friendly

We suppose Microsoft didn't have to make Windows 8 play nice with the new rash of extremely pixel-dense displays. But, that would be tantamount to OS suicide. So, we're not particularly surprised to hear that the latest and greatest Windows will support resolutions up to 2560 x 1440 on screens as small as 10.1 inches. That's a pretty impressive 291 pixels per inch. Of course, it's not quite as simple as it sounds. While in an ideal world, every UI element would be resolution independent, that's simply not the case and the infrastructure isn't there to support it. Instead graphical elements, including text, must be scaled to fill the available pixels. Microsoft's scheme will use 100 percent for standard density displays, 140 for HD and 180 for quad-XGA panels. Thankfully, the company was smart enough to include support for SVG files as UI elements, meaning that density and resolution independent future is at least one step closer.

Join us for Microsoft's Windows 8 press conference tomorrow at 9:30am EST!

If you're Microsoft and in the process of overhauling Windows so that it's equally at home on PCs and tablets, it would make sense to unveil a semi-final version at the world's premier wireless show. That's exactly what's going to happen tomorrow, when the company's executive team takes the stage here in Barcelona to show off all the changes it's made to Win8 since we got hands-on with the Developer Preview five months ago. Though we still won't know tomorrow what the final version will look like, we'll have a much firmer idea, as this will be the first version available to the general Windows-using populace. So what does Redmond have up its sleeve? Will the Windows Store open for business? A first look at some native touch-friendly apps? And what's to become of the Start button? Bookmark this page and come back tomorrow at 9:30am EST (3:30pm local time), when we'll be firing off up-to-the-minute updates. See you then!

Microsoft reveals Windows 8's new logo: 'It's a window... not a flag'

Microsoft is making plenty of big changes with its Windows 8 operating system, and that has now also extended to a new logo. As explained by Microsoft's Sam Moreau in a post on the official Windows blog, the logo was created with the help of the design agency Pentagram, which posed a simple question when it began on the project: "your name is Windows. Why are you a flag?" That discussion eventually led to the four-paned window you see above, which not only looks more like a window than the previous logos, but clearly echoes the company's new Metro design language. Microsoft also notes that the logo is "authentically digital," and says it will welcome you with a slight tilt and change color based on your desktop.

Firefox on Windows 8: Metro build is in the works

We all know that Windows 8 will have a split personality, with a Windows 7 style "Classic" desktop environment working hand-in-hand with a finger-friendly Metro UI. Given that Firefox has a significant market share in the PC web browsing market, it's only natural for Mozilla to accommodate both parts of Microsoft's new OS. According to its 2012 Strategy & Roadmap, the company has plans for a proof-of-concept Win8 Firefox release in Q2 of this year. In that document, Mozilla reveals that a "simple evolution" of its existing browser will work with the "Classic" environment, but brand new new front-end and integration code is needed for Firefox to play nice with Metro. The plan is to build a Gecko-based browser that brings full Firefox capabilities and can handle Windows 8's unique requirements like being suspended by the OS when it's not being viewed and supporting multiple "snap" states to ensure a good browsing experience when multiple apps are open.