Mac Fanboy Reviews Windows 11 

Quinn broke into a high school chemistry lab and is using it for his new snazzy studio.

You are NOT a fanboy, Quinn. You're one of the most rational Mac reviewers out there, with a balance of skepticism and appreciation that is rare to match!

Marques Brownlee: so I’ve been using *just announced piece of tech* for about two weeks now. Snazzy: so I’ve been using windows 11 for a few hours.

I like the aesthetic changes in W11, but there are two missing features that for me really hurt productivity compared to W10. The first is that there's no groups or tabs or folders in the start menu for organising apps, whereas I can logically group stuff in W10. And the second is the loss of the 'do not combine' mode for the icons on the taskbar, I love that feature to quickly identify and switch between multiple instances of apps with one click. Without these features, the basic use of my computer is slowed down so, I'm hoping a future update will put these features back in. I'm sticking with W10 in the meantime because of this

Those windows 95 settings is where you can actually change settings that matter

0:47 Oh Yeah Quiin, we can see you're a man of culture with that Linus Mousepad on your desk.

@16:40 I may misunderstand the implementation you're describing, but Photos on macOS has had this for years. If you start editing a picture, there's a menu with three dots near the top right corner where you can select third party extensions that offer extended functionality.

The biggest issue I think most have with it is how many power user features were striped out because they rushed 11 to market and didn't have time to reimplement them. For example, you mention the lack of moving the taskbar to any side but the bottom, that was because the taskbar was rewritten from scratch using XAML/UWP and they didn't have time to add it back if they wanted to ship on time to hit the holidays. Another way you can tell it was rushed is how some of the promised features got pushed to later updates (redesigned Paint, redesigned and merged Media Player app to replace Groove Music and Movies & TV, Android app support, etc.) 11 is full of stuff like this were they just reimplemented the bare min possible to get a stable OS out in time, for non-power users it's just 10 but way better design and a non-issue but for power-users, it's 10 with a better design but 100s of missing features they use daily preventing them from being able to upgrade even if they want to.

I can't hear that intro music without thinking he's about to go into "super-fast build mode".

10:20 Windows 10 has had this for the last 2 years or so, just putting icons ("ads") there and downloading them once clicked on instead of downloading them automatically. I want to say they got sued in 2019 for pre-installing apps that companies payed Microsoft to pre-install

Thank you for not just dumping on 11! This is a really thoughtful review of the improvements.

Why are people just now realising that task view is a thing? It’s been around since windows 10 came out

I kinda miss the Windows 10 start menu I understand most people didn’t care for it but I took my time pimping it out with beautiful tiles for all my steam games and now they’re all gone

Surprised to see you're so positive about it! I use Windows for multiple hours every day, and though I was excited for the new look, I am disappointed to see so many things I used so much in Windows 10 be gone/changed in Windows 11: - The calendar integrations - The Start Menu tiles (yes I'm one of the seven people that liked them) - No folders in the new Start Menu pinned apps - Disabling the recent files in the new Start Menu doesn't free up space for more pinned app shortcuts; it still takes up the same space but with a message saying "you **could** see recent files here if you enable it" - Right-clicking the Task Bar for the Task Manager (I know Ctrl+Shift+Escape is a thing) - Some animations now start slow and ramp up afterwards, making them feel sluggish, instead of starting off fast and then easing down to a stop like in Windows 10 - Windows 10's "Acrylic" blur effect is far superior to Windows 11's "Mica", where the latter always shows a blurred version of your wallpaper, and the former actually shows a blurred version of any window behind the blur which looks way more natural to me - Tapping with 4 fingers on a trackpad used to open the unified notification/control panel in Windows 10, but now it only shows the notification panel in Windows 10, whereas I primarily used it to quickly open the control panel - You can no longer see the current seconds in the taskbar (not even by editing the registry), nor by opening the notification panel, which means that the only place you can natively see the current seconds in the OS is in the date/time formatting settings - Virtual desktops no longer show a swiping animation when switching between them, so creating/switching/deleting similar looking desktops using the keyboard shortcuts has no visual feedback and it looks like it doesn't do anything, even if it does - Disappointed that there wasn't a File Explorer redesign other than "add more spacing" and "simplify the ribbon" but I feel like that's still coming I absolutely know I am nitpicking with some of these, but some of them really ruin my flow. I am hopeful that Microsoft will keep expanding Windows 11 to bring some of these features back. The rest I will just have to get used to (and I will).

In addition to running legacy software going back forever, installing subsystems for Linux and Android allow you to install and run those apps easily and they feel almost native. The apps even show up in your start menu for easy access.

Only after hearing your experience, did I recognize that many things like the slimmer scroll bar, and smoother scrolling have been in Windows 10 as well (and rounded corners in Windows 7, for instance), they've just been dialed up to 11. It looks like they finally polished these additions. Looking at the speed Microsoft is going with their OS' really feels like there's a Valve-sized team working on them. After having heard nothing but bad things about W11's performance, not only Ryzen being broken but rightklick taking short while to open up the context menu and submenus taking their time too to open, this makes me consider upgrading for the first time. Definitely want what you described at 10:45. That'd be awesome.

The bloatware not actually being installed is also a Windows 10 thing. This isn't unique to 11.

Just a suggestion, but I really like when there are chapters / timestamps for the video

1:50 that’s what I feel every time I admin a windows pc for friends or family. The deeper you go the more windows 3.1 feeling comes to live. Really feels like a bunch of teams developing their one thing and then glue every snippet to one OS…Boom…the new windows. Have to try Win11 as a Mac user

Mac does tell you on the camera or microphone with a colored dot next to the control center icon, kinda like iOS.

I remember sending MS feedback about the start menu location, requesting an option to have the start menu in the middle. Simple reason. I had an ultra wide monitor. It makes a lot more sense to have the button in the middle, cause it saves you so much mouse travel. Everyone reviewing keeps complaining and changing it back to left side alignment, but I really appreciate the middle option.

It’s not full Teams, it’s only usable with personal accounts and pretty much useless for people needing it for work 🙄 So now I have two versions of teams installed on my PC.

23:00 Speaking about animations for snapping. I still have them just fine on Windows 10. Running 21H1 too.. Also, Win Key + Shift + Arrow Keys will let you easily swap what monitor an app is on for multi-display systems.

There's a few features you mentioned as being new to Win11 but have existed before Win11, like Windows Key + Arrow Key for window docking, and some earlier mentioned stuff I forget what exactly, maybe the photo editor or something, oh it was the Multiple Desktops feature, that was alreadyin Win10. Anyways, good review of Win11, also some really great suggestions to improve the OS. The main issue's people are having with Win11 is more to do with hardware compatibility and negatively affecting performance of certain CPU's and GPU's. Thanks for making this video and doing a pretty in depth overview of it, for us not wanting to test it ourselves to find out, this has been a great video.

13:41 Doesn't W10 have pretty much the same feature for the microphone? For example, in my bottom right icons there is a microphone. Hovering my mouse over it, it says that "(application) is using your microphone". Left clicking the microphone takes me to the microphone settings where I can choose to let or not let any apps use the microphone. In there, it even displays two different lists for Microsoft store apps and desktop apps.

Not only mac fanboys ... That thumbnail has the exact face I make every time after switching from windows 10 .... Congratulations Quinn for 1M ♥️

I hate the "smooth" scrolling. All it does is slow down what you are actually trying to get to. Not much worse then a scroll that doesn't go fast enough when dealing with a large document. I think it has a place if it can keep up. But I've seen some smart phones/apps totally screw this up.

Thanks for sharing your perspective on the changes! I'll probably upgrade my rig after awhile... So far looking like a nice change from W10, even if incremental for now.

doesn’t macOS have some extensions in the photos app? or does that just redirects you to another app, like iOS does?

Why does the expression “sucked rocks” just make complete sense

Great Video! I recently upgraded over this last weekend and I am happy that Microsoft seems to have really taken the time to modernize and consolidate their platform. Windows 10 was a step forward, however, I felt that anytime I had to troubleshoot an issue with my system I was constantly swapping between old and new UI or layouts. The search bar felt almost completely useless. In fact I never used it for anything more than searching for the settings window or other basic Windows Legacy items (CMD, RUN, File Explorer, etc). It was incredibly jarring to jump between 2 or 3 separate tabs just to work out an issue or find a feature. Windows 11 works so much better during normal use than previous iterations. I feel like I can complete all my work unimpeded like I did in Windows 7, it was the MOST functional Windows ever for desktop pc use. I can safely say that so far Windows 11 has the potential to surpass it. It has it's caveats and it's a lot to get used to, but I think we are finally there.

Start menu sucks when compared to the Windows 10 menu. There's no way to organize pinned icons to groups or folders you have app in groups. I have groups for coding, 3D graphics, animation, games etc. and that way I know exactly where what apps are. In W11 menu that's gone. I can pin apps to favorites but then they are mixed with other apps. So only way to have icons organized is to pin them to the desktop which I hate. I like my desktop clean only containing files that I'm currently working with. Rest of the changes are okay-ish. But they also made changing of web browser painful so that's sucks and W11 is cutting performance of Ryzen CPU so that sucks as well.

23:14 This has been a thing since Windows 7

16:48 macOS actually has this, but for some reason it's only in Photos

I just bought my first macbook (2020 macbook air with the M1 chip). I've watched lots of mac reviews and lots of "windows users tries mac for 3 months" videos. But i really wanted to see a Mac users POV using windows 11 and this video was exactly what i was looking for. Thanks for sharing!

I like you're style! You're pov is very reasonable!! much appreciated.

Having multiple desktops is actually quite useful for fullscreen games that don't like being alt-tabbed. It means I can do things like change the song/video in the background without having to wait for the game to tab out and in again.

One little thing; macOS Photos does actually have the extension system, and if you have Pixelmator or Affinity they do tie into Photos and allow in-line editing. But that comparison view reminded me of Aperture and I want it

Great review! I watch a lot of Linux distro reviews, and I wish even one of the channels did reviews as good as you.

This guy: "Why has nobody done this before" Linux which has this feature for ages: ._.

Me watching this video. "Why does Quinn think that Windows settings have always been terrible?". then I remembered that his first windows was 8 and I went "Oh that's why."

I think it's the "it needs more time in the oven" that people are having the problem with

Out of curiosity, does windows do the file preview by hitting spacebar like mac does or do you still have to open it in the photo/video/document viewers? That's one thing that drove me nuts whenever I got stuck on a PC. Begrudgingly, due to costs, I've been trying to build my own personal windows workstation since November of 2019. First it was a CPU shortage and now it's the damn GPU's but I want to get everything in one go so I don't find out a part doesn't work months down the line.

Many thanks for the excellent video, Quinn! I'm a recent Mac user for my personal use, but at work all the computers have been upgraded to Windows 11, so this video will come in handy. 😃

I'm so happy that Quinn is regrowing his magnificient beard

I just want the Taskbar to re-add the file hover functionality, so if you're moving something from the desktop you can drag it to the file explorer or chrome (for uploading something) and it remaximizes the program so you can continue dragging to wherever you need to put it. They removed it in 11 and I don't know why...

Thought that beard would kill any echo for sure!😂😂 I always dig your stuff man. You do good work!

16:49 Extensions for Photos has been a thing on Mac for a couple years now. If you click edit on a photo in Photos -> the circle with the 3 dots up top -> App Store, it will bring up the apps which contain extension for the Photos app

I've found that I prefer the taskbar in the middle. What I really don't like is constantly needing to click "show more options" every time I right click on something.

19:31 "I can like that tweet" me: you on teams not twitter 🤣

The keyboard shortcut for Windows snapping was always there. I think since Windows 8. Every reviewer on RU-vid is surprised like they never had this feature. Although, amazing video, and good to know from a Mac fanboy to come and appreciate the Windows Platform. Cheers! Liked!

13:39 wait what? Isn't there the "orange dot" for the mic usage as well in MacOS? I can actually see it right now from my 2015 Mac running MacOS 12 Monterey

I think the fact that they’re trying to phase out the old windows is nice for visual cohesion but those older menus is where you can get really nitty gritty settings and options so as a windows user i really like the fact that the older windows is still there

Expected a GoodTimesWithScar timelapse and got a Windows 11 review. What a time to be alive...

Whenever an application is accessing your microphone, MacOS shows an orange dot right of the time display in the taskbar. You can then click on the quick setting icon and it'll show you which application is accessing your mic.

I can listen to you talk all day. Such a pleasant person

5:34 I understand what you're saying. But that's also a really old build of Windows 10 in that screenshot. Looks like it was still in its pre-release stages. And at 8:32, calendar is now part of the widgets menu (Windows key + W). I can add Outlook Calendar there and I imagine more calendar apps are supported as well.

23:02 - I know this video is mainly directed at MacOS users, but this window snapping feature in Win11 works precisely the same as it does in Win10 (hotkeys and all), except that the window size previews are now much more opaque.

great video .....im still using win 8.1 and looking to build my first pc should i upgrade to win 11..?...what are your thoughts.....?

I use multiple monitors and the main issue or bug that I have run into is that the search bar does not work on my secondary monitor. If I click on the windows icon the search pulls up but when I start typing it just goes away

I just hate some of the advanced features deeper in the OS being removed. Like the flexibility of the task bar settings. For PCs I remote in often I keep the task bar on top so it doesn’t interfere with my PCs actual task bar. Why is this an issue? Because I can’t live without auto hide task bar. It makes the whole experience working in productivity apps so much better. You feel immersed in your work with the extra screen real estate. It may not seem like much, but once you try it you can’t go back. There were a few other features removed or changed that only a power user would notice but they are features I use constantly daily to improve my experience that I can no longer live without. I think the start menu shortcuts (i cant remember what they are called) were removed too? I can’t remember. But im someone who cares about the aesthetics of my PC so I pin every major app that I use in the start menu then fire up my animated wall paper software and BOOM! A sexy clean desktop with no icons and a smooth playing looping video. One thing I can praise windows 11 on though is the changes to task view. I heavily use that feature. I want those changes in windows 10 now. Overall, I’d be willing to update on my 2-in-1 laptop for the better touch functionality, but due to productivity I can’t switch on my main PC. I hope they fix these small issues, because overall I like the update. Its just these pain points for features I use heavily.

Some of what you say is new in 11 is very much a thing in W10. Also, the "optimism" that a redesigned app like Store will improve in the future seemingly comes with every new version. I'm one of the four people who liked Windows 8.1 better than 10 (I only upgraded for compatibility's sake) and will not upgrade to 11, just like I didn't update to Big Sur because both don't feature enough positive changes to make me put up with all the changes I dislike.

Just FYI, in Monterey MacOS *does* alert you if your microphone is in use. A little orange dot will show up next to the Control Centre button in the Menubar. And if you click it Control Centre will open and ID what app is using the microphone. This was introduced into iOS a while back and it's nice they brought it over. Great review though! Downloading W11 now for my VM.

Very nice overview! I’m still waiting a little before upgrading to 11. I’m mostly a Mac user myself. But have a powerful windows box for fun. I hear performance is compromised on AMD CPUs… I’ll wait till that’s no longer an issue.

I've been using Windows 11 since the dev channel opened in the summer and want to mention that window snapping is actually a lot better than before! In windows 10 if you snapped one window to half your screen it would show you apps you have open to fill the other half. Or at least thats how you'd think it would act because it would (at least for me) always maximize that second app (covering the first) which was HORRIBLE UX. In windows 11 that second app will now only fill up the half of the screen it should. This should never have been a problem in the first place but it was a fairly major frustration of mine. Other than some dev channel stability issues (my graphics are pretty messed up rn but I think its a driver thing) I've been loving W11. I haven't read into why anyone hates it because frankly I don't care if they do, but I had to check out your video since my opinions are aligned with yours more often than for other creators. I also thought the audio wasn't bad in this video.

Maybe I'm just used to windows 10's fewer animations, but the extra animations in windows 11 make things feel slower to me. Also opening folders and files from desktop and explorer takes longer for some reason. I was using the dev build so hopefully they improve this.

Great review! I’m a windows 10 laptop user, with an iWatch, iPad and iPhone. Will wait a bit on the windows upgrade but appreciated your perspective!

I think it’s great they moved the menu in the middle. AND preserved the option to move it in corner if needed. None of the reviewers are taking into account the ultra wide screen users, who suffered for years with a start menu in the left corner

I don’t get how just adding another UI layer to everything makes everything better though. I still often need to use functions that aren’t in the windows 11 right-click menus, so I end up having to click into the windows 10 menus, which still look old and clashy and take up more room on screen

I have been enjoying Windows 11 a lot recently on my gaming PC. All of these new visual features and animations are a nice touch and it makes using Windows fun again.

You can turn off the app install shortcuts from showing up on Start...the same as in Win10. It's in Settings - Personalization - Start. turn off: Show suggestions (suggested apps) on start menu. Note: you can't turn this off if the OS is not Activated. new random app instal links will stop showing up.

"I know a lot of windows people are super pissed about the new version but i don't really know why" Simple, microsoft is trying to make windows more like mac os, and the reason people hate that is because, well, it's *windows* , NOT mac os

“A little underbaked” sums up the entirety of windows.

16:55 The macOS Photos app has supported third party editing extensions for years Quinn

The windows arrow key tricks were brought to Windows 10 in the latest feature update. You just can't hover over the maximize button for advanced options, or have your laptop remember where your programs were on a secondary monitor in app groups.

Did u have to have a amazon account for accessing apps? Or is the windows account sufficient?

As someone who genuinely misses the Windows 7 aesthetic and ease of applying skins as well as the 7 Start menu; this does look and seem better than 10 by a significant degree. My concerns lie heavily in the back-end though. In knowing how invasive Microsoft has been with telemetry, marketing, and targeted ads within the OS, I can't help but wonder how much more deeply they are sinking this telemetry into the Windows 11 OS for further privacy invasion. I'm waiting on 11 not just for the issues, but also until all that telemetry has been identified and something like WinAero Tweaker can disable all of it.

KDE also allowed users to adjust sound sources from the notification tray, and I think to a par extent most GTK desktops as well. Not so sure about the icon _changing_ but I did notice a change in MATE, MATE is based on GTK (originally a fork of GNOME 2.18), so GTK desktops also probably have some kind of use indicator. So yeah Linux desktops had some degree of notifying the user about a hot mic first.

Right clicking on the windows icon on the dashboard brings up some menus as well as the well-hidden Task Manager!

I stumbled across your channel tonight as of RU-vid's suggestion for this video. As an IT professional going on almost 30 years and Windows/Linux user by trade and hobby, I'd like to thank you for your objective point of view. I find this refreshing. Why, it's almost like it's safe for people to prefer operating systems based on personal need and tastes! Go figure! Thank you for one of the best Windows 11 videos I've seen thus far. I now plan to check your channel as part of my regular tech viewing. Who knows? I might learn a thing or two about Mac! I haven't used Apple since the IIc and IIgs ;)

Partnering with Google instead of Amazon would have been great. Google calendar, Gmail, and RU-vid apps integrated by default. I don't want to sign up for Outlook and whatever calendar they choose to integrate, and have Teams and Skype and whatever else, just make the core OS as quick as stable as possible.

That was or might be the best video I’ve seen covering windows from a Mac user.

I saw you liked Windows Photos with extensions to edit photos .... do you know that you can do the same (but mor powerful) with Apple Photos and Pixelmator Pro (set as Photos' editing extension)?

This was a well thought out review. Subscribed.

I agree with you on almost everything here. Just to let you know though, WIndows 10 also had the window alignment hotkeys for movement up, down, left, and right, and it was also able to minimize and reopen windows. There haven't really been many changes to that in windows 11 except the ability to snap to the top half of the screen or use 3 windows at a time. Windows 11 is awesome though and I love using it.

Great review, but the "mostly opaque but mildly transparent" window header effect that you're praising was achievable clear back on Windows Vista by just sliding the transparency bar. What you're demonstrating as vastly superior to Aero is almost identical to how my windows looked well over a decade ago.

7:40 These panels also exist in KDE interface xD I think everybody just found a sorta "standard", and Microsoft rushed it in turn xD

19:04 that exactly is bloatware “hey can I mine your soul for data”

Thanks for the video. Basically most of the stuff that you found new I already do in Windows 10, and the actual new stuff are things that I don't particularly care for, so this video helped me in determining that Windows 11 isn't worth the upgrade for me.

The visual improvements look a lot like my Linux Gnome desktop. I'd love to see a review of Manjaro Gnome compared to Windows and Mac because the new Windows looks like they took a lot of what's in Linux and called it their own.

I have a big issue with the right click new menu. It kills a ton of functionality. Let´s say I try to make a copy of a folder and it´s contents, if you try to copy and paste it using the new right click menu, it will Paste a direct access to it, not full fledge copy of the folder. This issue also affects many other functionalities making you to have to go through many more clicks and menus. Another example is trying to change my sound preferences as where does the sound come out. I never unplug my headphones so if I have to switch between sources between my headphones and speakers I have to navigate through 3 menus at least to achieve it, instead of 1 click like I used to do before. The problem I see with the forecoming UI’s is that they´re trying to emulate or merge mobile experience with desktop experience, trying to lure casual users into a pc or mac ecosystem. I’m a systems engineer specialized in UI design, and developments like this feel not thought at all. It limits user experience breaking the interaction and user routine, making it harder to achieve simple tasks forcing adoption of a less simple method.

All I want is for files and folders which are painstakingly placed on the desktop to revert to that position when I open them, instead of assuming the size and position of the last item closed.

Wow, I actually prefer a lot of design decisions here compared to MacOS.. didn’t think that was ever going to happen 😅 And FINALLY a good Settings app..

I don't use any apple product, but I'm skeptical of you saying that windows 11 is "faster" than a unix based os. Also, if you go slightly deeper the ui cohesion is basically still nonexistent.

did you try out window layouts? when you hold your mouse on top of the maximize button on any window.

"It's time for another time-lapse in Super-Fast Build Mode!"

People aren't just hating on Windows 11 without reason - it's more of a visual overhaul actually _(form over function?)_ while breaking or leaving functions to the point of replacing (or forgetting) them as if not realising they ever even existed. For example: Can the Windows 11 *Photos* view TIFF files as opposed to *'Windows Photo Viewer'* ? (Both different)

Based on your review, I love how they keep the professional settings' layout. I mean prople who go to network setting is definitely not the basic users.

If my laptop can't run windows 11 due to hardware specification issue, should i stay in windows 10, or try a linux distro?

I saw there was an update on my PC. Clicked ok and was surprised I have a thing called Windows 11. I just had to study where everything is. What is the issue if anything it runs smoother than Windows 10?