the touchpad from it's left side. Swipe the right side & you access the settings ect bar. It took me a while to workout that scrolling a page was "reversed", so you use your touchpad in the same direction to scroll a page as you would on a touch screen. Easily changed through settings. Reinforces that the idea behind so much of this OS is a touch screen. The folder for a "Start Menu" is still there in Program data, where all the shortcuts are as per Win 7. An easy way to restore a basic start menu is to create a toolbar in your taskbar which points to the folder containing your startmenu shortcuts (C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs). Of course you can use on of the start menu add on programs too. I'm sure there are many "under the hood" improvements. I don't use my laptop for gaming, so benchmarks mean little to me. However the "feel" of the laptop is similar, certainlt Win8 feels smooth, but not noticable faster. I'm sure people with more experience with benchmarking will have their own views. The offer for a cheap upgrade ($14.95) lasts until Jan31, so there is plenty of time to decide. I would want to make sure all of the drivers & software for my laptop were available before upgrading. Ultimately, I think it takes a bit of time to get used to the new interface & to set it as you like. I'm still undecided if there are enough benefits