Magento v1.7.0.2 or v1.8 Preference

[seoswat]

Ok so this is more of a question from a development perspective and personal preference. But i am finding more and more people wanting to go straight onto v1.8 when building a new site.

Up until the end of the year my preference was still firmly on 1.7.02 (going into the reasons will take too long)

Basically all i am interested in knowing is if you were to build a new site what version of Magento would you use (and ideally why)

 

[innofive]

From my testing Magento 1.8 is faster than the previous versions.

 

[zigojacko]

There wasn't a huge amount of change with 1.8 and its stable enough from experience. We've migrated a number of clients to 1.8 without problem.

 

[Andrew Baker]

All our new CE client core builds are now 1.8

 

[edmondscommerce]

The tax issues made 1.8 a necessity for a lot of people, also I would always try to go with the latest version unless there are specific issues preventing that

 

[kulture]

I don't know of any issues that come with 1.8. So I'd go with that provided all the extensions you want to use work with 1.8. That said if an extension you want does not work with 1.8 I would ask serious questions.

 

[Freshwebservices]

The only issue I've encountered with upgrading to 1.8 has been with templates requiring
<?php echo $this->getBlockHtml('formkey'); ?> to be added to login & cart files