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Hands-on review: Updated: Microsoft Edge

Microsoft Edge at Build 2015

We got a closer look at a new build of Microsoft Edge, formerly Project Spartan, at Build 2015. Don't worry if catch yourself calling Project Spartan: Microsoft is getting used to the newly revealed name, too. During a demo session at the conference, "Project Spar…I mean Microsoft Edge" was said more than once by all parties present.

The browser (Build 61) didn't have several of the new features demonstrated during Microsoft's Day 1 keynote, like additions to New Tab and a Chrome extension. We were told the features demonstrated onstage were a mash-up of various upgrades that will roll out in the coming months.

What we were able to see was a new feature called "inking," essentially a way to mark up or type on a browser page and share it with your contacts.

You can select the width of the lines you want to make as well as the color, and scribble messages or draw around items you want to highlight with your finger or mouse. Or, just scribble over the whole thing.

It wasn't easy to write in a controlled fashion using the mouse. The words were legible, but it felt like more trouble than it was worth. Don't even ask to look at the circles we attempted to draw using a mouse.

Drawing with a finger was much easier, though if you have bad handwriting, you'll also likely run into unreadable chicken scratch. There is, thankfully, an option to type a message onto a page or cut out a particular part of the page. If you don't have a touch-supported device, you're stuck with these options anyway.

Sharing is easy to access: After you draw, type or select the part of the Microsoft Edge page you want to save, you click an icon in the top right corner to access OneNote or save it to Reading List for later. Clearly, inking doesn't have many robust sharing options at the moment. When we asked social network sharing, a Microsoft rep said it is "not currently integrated" with services like Facebook. It also doesn't seem to be hooked up directly to email at the moment, either.

If and when Microsoft does make sharing available on social networks, inking should be a fun way to communicate with friends, family and colleagues. Plus, there's something satisfying about scribbling on a computer screen.

The feature isn't without its frustrations, however. When you click on the pen icon that opens the inking options, it reloads the page, so you lose your spot if you wanted to highlight a part further down. You have to scroll down to get back where you were, just don't touch the actual page because you'll leave colored marks behind you. There also doesn't to be a way to edit an image after you go to share it. A Microsoft rep said you can go into OneNote and find pages you created in the past, but at that point you may as well generate a new image on the page.

Hitting "Exit," which essentially wipes the page clean of your artwork, also causes the page to reload, creating an annoying lag.

Inking worked well 95% of the time during our demo, but it seemed to cause some lagging and downright confusion on various machines. This is still an early build and Microsoft will likely work out the kinks, but they are present at the moment.

Cortana on Microsoft Edge

Deeper Cortana integration is the other highlight of this Microsoft Edge build. While the personal assistant is always available via the task bar, it will pop up along the top of the browser on pages it thinks it can help you with, like websites for businesses or restaurants. In other words, it won't show its little circle self on every website you visit. Microsoft discovered during user testing people don't really want a virtual personal assistant peering into all their web browsing. Go figure.

When it does pop up, Cortana offers info about the web page you're looking at, like a phone number, directions and hours of operation, and will let you make a reservation.

Cortana will also provide details on words users highlight. Don't know what pancetta is? Be prepared for a crash course in the cured meat. Highlight a word or phrase you don't understand, right click, and Cortana provides you with information on that word or phrase.

Cortana on the browser, at least in the Edge build we saw, only works with clicking and typing. If you switch to Cortana on the task bar, then you can speak to it and it will verbally respond.

All this Cortana integration is helpful, but doesn't feel like a revolutionary feature. Google has offered similar intel via Google Now for some time now, so it feels like Edge is playing catch-up versus introducing something new with what Cortana brings to the table.

Life on the Edge

As for how Microsoft Edge works overall, it started out quick but seemed to lag or hit hiccups the longer we used it. They weren't horrendous, but definitely noticeable.

The browser is clean and modern looking. With the various icons on the page as well as pinned to the desktop, it looked a little busy, but wasn't off putting. Microsoft has done a nice job updating the browser, but it still feels like a work in progress. It's almost there, but not quite.

Early verdict

Will Microsoft Edge become our new default browser? It's still too early to say, but so far, the answer looks like no. The new features shown during the Build keynote make it slightly more tempting, but they don't offer anything earth-shattering enough to make someone accustomed to Chrome, for example, suddenly switch.

For current Windows users, the new browser should feel fresh and offer the right amount of touch and mouse and keyboard functionality. The new Cortana integration is a natural evolution for the personal assistant, and if it's able to offer personal recommendations right when you need them, more power to it. The other new features discussed during the Build keynote should make a bigger splash when they roll out, but for now, Edge is still sharpening up.

Our first impressions of 'Project Spartan'

Note: Dan Grabham went hands on with Microsoft Edge when it was still "Project Spartan." Read on for his first take below.

To say Project Spartan is a little rough round the edges is an understatement. When it first appeared in the last build (10041) on March 30, it was basically alpha software.

Many things just didn't work and we felt a little queasy writing any kind of 'verdict' on a piece of software that was clearly so early in its development cycle that it couldn't possibly be used.

At the time we were surprised Microsoft had even let it out the door.

But things have changed. Now don't get us wrong, Spartan is a still a little bit like that, but the latest Windows 10 10061 build has now been seeded to those of us on the Windows Insider program and it has not just improved a great deal, but it's also now usable as a browser.

And using it is exactly what we've been doing. It's a good job it is now actually functional; unlike other aspects of Windows 10, Spartan is being judged now like it or not – we're all so used to browsers that work.

Spartan has a new 'globe' logo, but even that feels unfinished. The biggest unfinished thing is actually the name – we know that Project Spartan is a codename and that, sometime over the next few months Project Spartan will become…..what? We don't know, of course, but it's likely that Microsoft will try and go off-piste with the name. The last thing it wants to do is name it something that sounds anything like as dull as Internet Explorer.

Coincidentally, Spartan is the default browser within Windows 10. Internet Explorer is still there, but is nowhere to be seen; Spartan has replaced it on the Taskbar. IE has had to remain, however, chiefly because there are so many corporate apps that need it.

There's also no way to move your Favorites and bookmarks from another browser – expect that to change when we move towards a final build.

Where Spartan is already impressing is in terms of raw performance. Pages render super quickly and you'll be pleasantly surprised when you try and load up pages for the first time.

Using Sunspider 1.0.2 to test JavaScript performance, Project Spartan gave us a score of 201ms. This doesn't compare favourably with Internet Explorer 11 which gave us a score of 137ms. But it is better than Firefox 37 (260ms) and Chrome 43 Beta (303ms). Not too shabby considering Spartan is far from a finished article.

If you asked us to sum up Spartan in a few words, it'd be that browsing is OK, but there are very few bells and whistles.

Browsing still needs work, mind you – some more complex websites don't work properly. While we could check our Gmail, Hangouts wouldn't load at the side of the screen. And when we tried something like connecting up social accounts, it took three attempts to actually work.

Also, it hangs from time to time. It's not a regular occurrence, but once we had to quit the app via Task Manager.

Some basics seem extremely buggy at times. Typing in text fields can be a little laggy and some weird quirks exist, such as not being able to select the URL with a double-click in the address bar. There was also a weird thing we had at one point where we couldn't drag Spartan on top of another window (it went under).

At times switching tabs was also a right pain. You also can't rip tabs off at the moment, though you can right-click the tab to move it to a new window – there are a few other options available here such as being able to close other tabs, close other tabs to the right or refresh all tabs.

Let's talk about the features that do work. You can find stuff/highlight specific words using Ctrl-F. Copy and paste works without issue.

In the previous version of Spartan, downloads didn't fully function – now there's a download pop-up panel that you can instigate either from a downloads pop-up or using a button on the title bar. Similar to Internet Explorer, this panel can be toggled to display History and Favorites, while another view displays your Reading List.

Another button enables Windows Insiders to send feedback to Microsoft about sites that don't work or any other bugs.

Forward, back and refresh remain on the title bar, while there are also options to add the current page to your reading list or Favorites.

An annotation button enables you to draw on web pages and save the notes to your Favourites. You can also export them to OneNote, too.

Some extra features you may or may not use are also absent, such as the ability to drag files into the browser (to attach them to an email or upload to cloud storage).

As with the Cortana integration in Windows 10, Spartan points you at Bing by default. There's currently no way to alter this, but there will be – an option to change search engine is present but greyed out.

Talking of Cortana (no pun intended), you're also able to select anything and 'Ask Cortana' about what you've highlighted by right-clicking. This brings up a sidebar where search results will appear. This doesn't currently function in the UK where we were testing Project Spartan ('Cortana is not currently available in your region').