Originally Posted by
Kal_El:
“Quite surprised this year. I'd read the reviews saying nothing has changed. And effectively they're right. There's little visual change at all about Ubuntu, much like Mint. But also like Mint I think there must have been changes under the hood, as it's just so quick and smooth now. I think even folks who didn't like Unity will be really impressed with how quick it is. As for the looks, well I just added the Numix PPA, and Bob's your uncle. Looks fantastic. Added Oibaf PPA too for my Radeon card. Brilliant. 
I tried Kubuntu, and I really like the new KDE as I previously stated here. But I think at the moment it just feels a little heavy and buggy here and there. Nothing too bad; certainly nothing like when KDE4 first came out. But maybe in October I give it another look. But yes, in spite of seemingly little change, Ubuntu really feels quick and impressive this year. Now, I want to get the phone!”
I've also noticed its faster to boot up, seemed to take a age before. Also read that the Mint Devs are working on getting super boot times. I'ts really not a important thing in the grand scheme of life

but i also play around with win8/10 and its fast to boot, so when loading my Linux i find myself shouting at the pc ...come on just load...
After using Unity for a while, I recently converted to Ubuntu Mate, and as a recent promoter of Ubuntu Mate, I now find myself

to say im back with Unity.
A few things i missed about Unity, but the main one was the global menu, totally love what Unity have done with the menu bar. My PC is mainly used with firefox open, and after using Unity, I just couldn't get used to all that wasted space at the top of screen.
Really shows up when using Firefox, you have about a inch of space at the top thats not used for anything, same on all the Distros I tried.
Also tried loading Global menu onto Mate, but it was just too buggy
Also a thumbs up for Numix, first thing partner said after setting Unity up after using Mate was, ooh thats a modern looking one