Summary: Microsoft's Windows 8 is here,
but with no UK launch activities I was slightly dubious as to how many
people would drag themselves to central London for Currys/PC World's
launch event. So, just how many did?
It's finally here: Windows 8 has arrived. And my 60-inch touchscreen is bigger than yours.
Ok, well, it's not my touchscreen, it's Currys & PC
World's touchscreen on Tottenham Court Road, put there to excite (or
placate) the throngs of customers waiting for the midnight launch of Windows 8 in the UK.
While the live-streaming official introduction of Windows 8 started
in the UK many hours earlier, Currys and PC World decided to throw their
own party in London to welcome in the new touch-friendly OS - starting
at one minute past midnight, on the dot.
To entice people to the store, there were a number of special offers.
For example, an HP Pavilion G6 E2 with 6GB RAM and a 750GB hard drive
was going for £249, while the same company's DV7 i7 with 6GB RAM and 1TB
of memory was £599 - around £400 off the usual price, according to the
retailer.
"The team at our Currys & PC World store on Tottenham Court Road
is anticipating a long queue outside the store throughout Thursday
evening in the run up to the 00:01 opening on Friday, October 26," a
spokesman for the retailer said in a statement before the event.
While Currys/PC World was predicting big queues, I had my doubts
before setting out. After all, the shop couldn't even sell the
headline-grabbing Surface tablet - Microsoft is doing this only through
its own channels.
Somewhat to my surprise, though, when I arrived at Tottenham Court
Road there was a queue of around 300 people or so - almost exactly the
number that got free Beats headphones with an HP purchase.
The lucky chaps at the front (pictured) had been waiting since 5pm
for the store to open its doors. Number one and two were brothers - one
had even flown over from Madrid for the event.
In the number-three spot was David Wiggs, who had only travelled up
from Surrey but was clearly keen to get his hands on a bargain.
"It's just too good a deal to miss out on; so perfect a marriage of
technology," Wiggs said. This was only the second launch event of any
kind he had been to - and the first was for Windows XP. Wiggs was there
to snap up an HP DV7 with Core i7 processor (and the free headphones).
To keep folks entertained, the shop laid on a magician to wander
around. In the 45 minutes before the doors opened, I didn't see him
doing any magic; but he did strike quite the moody angular pose.
Shortly before the doors opened, a chant of "Windows 8 will be great"
went up. A few people joined in, before realising that the future tense
perhaps didn't convey the intended meaning.
Sure enough at 00:01am on the dot, the doors were thrown wide
and the patient queuers were let into the shop in batches, smiling,
clutching their queue numbers tightly.
Clearly taking cues from Apple, the Currys/PC World staff let
out some whooping and hollering when the countdown got to zero and the
doors opened. But unlike an Apple launch, they didn't continue doing it
while every single person made their way in, thankfully.
While the Spanish brothers were first in the queue, they hit a bit of a hiccup when it came to actually paying.
Pictured above is the moment when our number-one man was told that
they would have to go to another till as the keyboard had gone a bit
wonky at this one. Not the happiest looking face, which is fair enough
after seven hours of standing in line.
As a result of the till's keyboard failure, the first people to
exit the store were actually about numbers four and five from the queue -
incidentally, one of them was the woman who started the "Windows 8 will
be great" chant. They scurried off home pretty quickly, clearly having
had enough of posing for photos and talking to the likes of me.
And then, just as I was packing up and about to leave (I was actually
stood talking with a Microsoft exec at the time) a random passerby on
Tottenham Court Road staggered up to us and asked: "Is this the queue
for the iPad mini launch?"
No, my friend, it's not.
