Until the end of January you can upgrade to Win 8 from XP, Vista or 7 for $40. I hate to sound like a commercial but that's an extremely tempting price. I'm running the evaluation now and trying to make up my mind. I've noticed it feels lighter than 7 and, aside from the absolutely awful Start Page, the interface is quite nice. Apps are useless on the desktop, though, and I'm just finding it hard to justify paying for it when its headline new features are terrible. Under the hood it runs nicely, but I'm not sure if that's enough, even for 40 bucks. If I did get it, it wouldn't be because of Metro or the Windows Store, it'd be in spite of it.