The images come courtesy of WinBeta who got the chance to try out Windows 10 on a small-screen tablet. The build was created in March and Microsoft are likely to be making heavy changes before release. WinBeta note that it currently seems very rough and that the Start screen is very unfinished.
The interface looks very much like an enlarged, landscape Windows Phone environment at present. There is a status bar at the top of the screen just like on phone.
Apps are able to use more space than on Windows Phone though. Windows 10 apps are designed to be responsive to every likely screen size and apps like calculator expand to use desktop views instead of the condensed phone one.
Some apps do look a little peculiar at present and some UI elements don’t appear to scale correctly. It can be assumed that these issues will be fixed by release though.
No mention of multitasking is made in WinBeta’s report. I would like to hope that small tablets will be able to run apps side-by-side but whether this will be present is not yet known.
Thankfully, Bluetooth mouse and keyboard support is present like in other forms of Windows 10 so the interface can be navigated with traditional peripherals. With the release of Microsoft’s universal Office apps for Windows 10 coming soon, small tablets will still be a viable option for people who edit a lot of files on the go.
This is the first look at how Windows 10 will operate on tablets between 6-inches and 8-inches in screen-size. Microsoft has previously said that new tablets under 8-inches will not have access to the desktop in Windows 10 so its omission isn’t a surprise.
The choice is a logical one. Anybody who has ever used Windows 8 on a 7-inch tablet will know that the desktop with its tiny icons is practically unusable anyway so not including it creates a less cluttered interface and saves space on install size.
It is worth noting that owners of existing tablets in this size bracket will still be able to use the desktop and it won’t be removed. Microsoft understands that some users may be disappointed to suddenly lose access to the desktop if they bought a device for that purpose.
New tablets will all run with the new interface though. Much is still to be revealed about Windows 10 and its relationship with small tablets but Microsoft is expected to show us more at its BUILD developers conference later this month.
