In other words, while you can install an app like Photoshop on a full Windows 8 machine, you can't do it here, nor any other Windows application written since the dawn of the OS. Additionally, we have our doubts about whether anyone going forward will bother to write desktop apps versus those more optimized for running in the de facto Live Tile interface.

ENGADGET: Microsoft Surface with Windows RT review

The two worlds of Windows 8 -- one: a traditional desktop UI and the other: the touch-optimized Metro UI -- can, at first, seem so different that they contrast like the multiple personalities of Batman's enemy Two-Face.

ENGADGET: Switched On: An Office outside the Metro

Windows 8 adopts the mobile-optimized Metro design language and usability shell, places it into a desktop context ... and hopes for the best.

ENGADGET: Editorial: Turning point for the tortoise and the hare