I have been using Linux for about a year and a half now. I started with Linux Mint 14. Exactly when it was released, I installed Cinnamon. Then, I drifted to gnome and then to Unity. I have been using Unity since 13.04 (actually I decided to give unity a try as soon as 13.04 was launched) and since then sticked to it.
The reason why I wanted to give KDE a shot was because KDE5 was launched. I took the preview image. Then I thought, how different KDE4 could be. Here are my views.
First of all, you have a very good looking polished and a very eye candy desktop. The mouse pointer is the highlight of them all. I simply love the bouncy animation and the flipping of the pointer and the shape of the mouse. The animations that I have tried out were fantastic.
Takeaway: I actually installed Kubuntu as replacement for Ubuntu just because of the eye candy.
Then comes the interface. The Super key not assigned to the menu. I am afraid to point out that no matter how many arguments that you make, Super key is traditionally attached to the Launcher and that is it. No more arguments. If you decide one day that, no I am going to change this, you will be abandoned because you are doing a non-productive task. A key combination is not going to work (because it is too complicated). The absence of the key might put off the user to use mouse everytime he wants to access start menu. I know that there are ways to reassign Super key to launcher. But the point is that, you don't say that "This is the latest laptop to come to the market. Do you want to have a HDD in this, because I thought you might carry your old HDD with you so that your files are backed up".
Takeaway: There should be a minimum set of features and checklists in doing a particular task. They should be satisfied or you will be loosing your User Base.
The theming system was better than what we have for Unity. I know that unity has tweak tool which applies the theme etc. But the presence of an inbuilt theming system with one click install is awesome. Although it did not work for me, I can only applaud at your sensible choices. I guess the theme looked outdated but we should realize that we are actually speaking about the time when the replacement is being launched. So, no worries.
Takeaway: Something other linux DEs should learn (I mean unity and gnome) is that get a few things as standard. Even Xubuntu has a theming service. Why not unity. Please get a click to add PPA system. Make everything accesible even in GUI (I mean traditionally all the modifications are done in CLI. Get a GUI substitute as well).
Now to the bad bits. No universal proxy. I know we are a small set of people who live in proxified networks (because of colleges) but please do not ignore us. It is irritating to add and remove proxy all the time. I know about the third party app, But gnome and unity and Cinnamon have Proxy options inbuilt.
The absolute reason for me to turn back to Ubuntu is the shear number of buttons in each program. I know I might sound like a coward but it is true. For an experienced user, it is OK because he knows what he is doing. But for a novice, seeing those many options simply means, I am more noob than I thought I was. Please so not scare us to death. Make things simple. I know you have as I have seen in the developer preview.
But, this was not meant as a review of KDE4. It was meant to be a platform to put my points forth that what in general can attract newbies and what can repel them.
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