I've never used a smartphone of any type (and I won't until data plans become a thing of the past), so I will not comment on the phone interfaces. Just from the comments here it is obvious they are a highly subjective topic. To each his own and all that.

What I will comment on is my desktop experience with Win8. On the good side, when you're in the desktop mode, Win8 is better than Win7 in many ways. If I could turn off the so-called "Modern" interface, I would probably switch, but MS won't let me go there. More's the pity..

Unfortunately the negatives far outweigh the pluses. As many have pointed out all over the web, the Modern interface is an inane choice for the desktop user. It is unintuitive and downright awkward. If you use a mix of desktop and Modern apps, you are forced to contend with that maddening switching back and forth. Makes me feel like one of my kids has the TV remote. Quite frankly, I would not use "Win8" and "productivity" in the same sentence unless it was in the negative. I bought Win8 Pro for $40 and I'm thinking I paid too much. At least it came with downgrade rights, so I'm looking at it like I got Win7 Pro for $40, which is a good deal.