Windows 8 & Windows phone had a lot of good things going for it that would eventually get no resources & thrown out. They also had many design ideas borrowed by iOS & Android.
Surely you must mean after Windows 7? Windows 8 was the beginning of the pile of poo that is Windows on the PC-playing-a-tablet and Microsoft just dig deeper and deeper with every new version down the awful tablet design they have going on.
I actually liked parts of it (W8) on my tablets. I chose windows tablets exactly because I know I get updates for years (except now with the TPM requirement for W11). I still use a Yoga 2 8" tablet (9yrs old) every day in bed.
Even though I run Linux on everything else I haven't tried and or messed with it on a tablet. I do not consider my Steam Deck as a tablet - I do use it a lot as one but 99% of the time I enjoy the controller input over touch.
I just can't find a replacement for my Yoga 2 8". The front facing speakers are amazing and every new version of this tablet runs android which is an auto skip for me.
I, too, loved Windows 8 and the small Windows tablets from that era. There are dozens of us! It was so cool to have such a tiny device that worked fine as a tablet, then be able to plug a mouse and keyboard and play games on Steam or write music in Ableton or code in the same IDE you'd use at work. Windows 10 was a step backwards in presenting a modern and touch-friendly UI to the user, and Windows 11 is even worse with all the screen real estate wastage from floating menus and rounded corners, plus the useless "recommended" section, ads and widgets.
Since the manufacturers all gave up on the 8" Windows tablet form factor, I think the only path forward is larger but skinnier tablets. Same trend as phones, alas. For a while my main computer was a 10" Lenovo, but now I've bitten the bullet and moved to a 13" Surface Pro. It's a great piece of kit performance-wise and reasonably tough (my screen is smashed up from backpacking/camping, still works) but it still feels less "cool" and cyberpunky than those cheap and cheerful tablets with a full OS on them used to be.
The Zune HD UX is godawful. Not only do you have to both press a button and interact with the touchscreen to play/pause, skip, or adjust volume, but the relevant button is on the opposite end of the device from the headphone jack. That means it's sitting upside down in your pocket and you have to reach into your pocket and past the bulk of the device just to adjust the volume.
The original Zune UX was a work of art by comparison. The buttons were on the face and recessed, so not only did they not get pressed accidentally, you could control your media right through the outside of your pants without even reaching into your pocket.
