I've been fascinated with the Windows 8 Developer build, especially the quick boot time. One of the key benefits of the ever-more-powerful smartphone and tablet market is that they are easy to boot up and get into. Desktops have never had this luxury, especially with traditional hard drives. As I showed in the video on my last post, the Windows 8 boot time is impressive. Are we finally at a point where a desktop OS can boot up comparably with a tablet?

In today's video, I put Windows 8 on a desktop to the test against an iPad 2. I start them both at the same time and see which one gets to the password screen the fastest. I use the password screen because both start pretty much instantaneously after a password is entered.

Windows 8 boot time - 28 seconds

iPad 2 boot time - 35 seconds