I'm the Android Fanboy/Pundit around these parts. Here I am defending Windows 8, because in many ways, it offers an even more powerful alternative to Android than Android offers to iOS while still offering most of the attractive features of this approach to personal computing.

There are some liabilities for Windows 8. I've discussed those in detail on my personal blog, on Google+, and here on Tech Republic. But the Start Menu controversy is the biggest hype-machine of the Anti Windows 8 brigade out there.

The real concerns are under the surface. A Modern-UI "share" feature that isn't consistent and doesn't plug into enough social media APIs - *forcing* you into the classic mode. You should be able to do all of the major mobileOS tasks you can on any other touch OS in a similar manner on a Windows 8 device. Right now Windows 8 is where iOS was when you could cut and paste in Android but not iPhone. Some major functions that are expected are crippled or poorly implemented. The concept seems to be, "drop to classic and do it there, you've got a real PC - why would you bother doing it through the mobile method". That isn't the right way to approach this. If it can be done well on a mobile platform, Windows 8 needs to match that in Modern UI.

There is an issue worth discussing. The lack of a start menu on the Classic OS screen is silly - when the Start Menu is now the whole screen of the Modern UI.