Five things you'll love about Project Spartan
Project Spartan has been available long enough for us to get a pretty refined idea on where it’s going, and so far, we like what we see.
With Internet Explorer status soon to be downgraded to “legacy browser”, Microsoft is investing plenty of resources into making Project Spartan a truly unique product, on par with top browsers like Chrome, Safari and Firefox.
Some of the features we expect, are not available yet, and some are not complete, but once Spartan reaches production status, we can expect it to be leaps and bounds ahead of any version of Internet Explorer.
1. Edge Rendering Engine
Spartan’s Edge rendering engine is capable of loading most web pages just as quickly as other top browsers, and it supports the latest CSS rendering standards, which is great news for developers. Browsing is smooth and consistent, with no visible lag.
2. Distraction-free reading
A favorite feature of Project Spartan, is the “reading mode”, which extrapolates the main content from a web page, and presents it in a clean, easy to read format, trimming out ads, side content and other distracting elements.
3. Web Notes
What we have found promising about the ability to clip and annotate web pages, is the fact that Project Spartan brings together two features into one simple and elegant process.
First, the look of some of the annotation tools, such as the markers and highlighters, seems to borrow from the already familiar Snipping Tool, to which Project Spartan’s web notes relates also in the way it clips screenshots of a web page.
Next, the ability to save web notes to a reading list, or on OneNote, adds dimension to the web browsing experience, by enhancing the traditional bookmarking paradigm, and extending it to social connections.
4. Cortana integration
Integrating Cortana into Project Spartan, means to be able to simply highlight any portion of text or content within a web page, to initiate a search, with near-instant retrieval of information.
As we opened our own contact page, we found that it took Cortana less than one second to return local information about our store, upon highlighting our street address, along with other information from Yelp and other services.
5. Clean and simple Interface organization
It might be due to consistency enforced by Windows 10, but Project Spartan’s interface is the cleanest we have seen, even compared to Chrome, which is as minimalist as it gets.
Of course, this might not last, once plugins and extensions make their way into Spartan, however, the concept behind Spartan’s user interface makes this browser extremely easy and intuitive to use, grouping all bookmarking, sharing and reading and download list options in one easy drop down menu.
Development of Project Spartan is in full swing right now, and with the impending release of Windows 10, we can expect it to improve by a very wide margin, by the time Windows 10 reaches consumers worldwide.