I recently got a new laptop with Win 8 and immediately installed
http://classicshell.net it is a hugely customisable 'skin' for Win 8 so now I have a Win 7 look and feel OS and you can bypass that horrid metro screen. Oh and of course it's 100% free
Win 8.1 is an update worth it if you have any issues as it has bug fixes etc. but it is 3GB iirc haven’t updated yet as I'm currently on mobile internet and you don't have to pay for it as with all Microsoft updates they are free so the upgrade is not worth $30 (sounds like they want you to pay to use their internet time to install it!). Classicshell also works in Win 8.1 ;-)
Overall I'm happy with it (now it looks and works like Win 7) no major issues so far but here's even better news, if you need a new laptop and defiantly don't want Win 8 you can 'downgrade' for free to Win 7 (though iirc it's only the pro /oem versions you can do this with). You'll need a valid Win 7 license key and install disk/ iso but you can use your 'old' one from your previous machine providing it's compatible with your version of Win 8.
If you happy to have a go at this then you can get Win 7 back (check the process and versions you have very carefully before going ahead) but I would seriously recommend the classicshell option as you don't have to change anything major and you'll get the benefits of both Win 8 and Win 7 and you won't run into any new compatibility/ driver issues.
As with all Microsoft OS versions I always do research first before committing, download and try beta versions etc. and rarely get a v1 version as it were but had little choice this time and was ready to downgrade to Win 7 but decided to stick with it and overall it's totally fine (with classicshell that is
).