While WinZip 8.0 may boast of a long list of changes, you can be assured that any improvement in the compression engine isn't among those changes. If anything, the ZIP archives created using WinZip 8.0 will be a little larger than the archives created using WinZip 7.0. As that increase is a matter of about a hundred bytes or so, it wouldn't really matter much. But it goes to show that nothing was done about the compression engine.

One thing to note about compression. For some reason, WinZip's Fast setting enabled it to compress highly compressible graphic files like BMP files and raw wave files much better than even its Max setting and at a much higher speed to boot! So, if you are going to compress uncompressed graphics files or wave files (uncompressed sound clips), try the Fast setting. You will both get a smaller archive size and a shorter compression time. Not a bad deal, I would say. :)

As for compression speed, WinZip 8.0 was overall quite a bit slower than WinZip 7.0. Not noticeably so with the smaller archive sizes (<20MB), but with larger archive sizes or if you do lots of archival work, you may notice the extra time needed to compress the archive.

I can't really comment on the changes in WinZip 8.0 since all of them are merely additional usability features. In other words, nothing more than extra dressing on your salad. Now, I'm not saying that the extra functionality is not useful. Some people, especially the WinZip power users would make most use of them. Others will probably make use of one or two new features but I reckon many of the spanking new features will go unnoticed.

If you are using WinZip 7.0, you might want to consider staying with that version since it offers a slightly smaller archive size (but a smaller one nonetheless) and faster compression to boot. If you don't need the salad dressing that WinZip 8.0 offers over WinZip 7.0, then stick with the old one. You will lose little.

If you need the extra functionality offered by WinZip 8.0, then go ahead and upgrade. The archive size may be slightly larger but that's only a matter of a hundred bytes or so. Compression time may take a little longer but the greater ease of use and flexibility that comes with WinZip 8.0 should more than make up for that disadvantage.

In conclusion, I would have to say that WinZip 8.0 was somewhat of a disappointment. Perhaps I expected too much from an archival software based on what is basically an open but stagnant compression format. But one would have expected something more substantial than what WinZip 8.0 is touting. With little more than salad dressing to prop up the new version number, it's hard to recommend upgrading to WinZip 8.0. Then again, I'm more of a purist rather than a functionality guy. So, see which you need more - performance (WinZip 7.0) or functionality (WinZip 8.0) and choose accordingly. Don't upgrade just because it's there. ;)