Mac OS X version 10.6. Snow Leopard

Review by G. Argov for Mac OS X version 10.6.3 Snow LeopardRating: Leopard, a strong, reliable OS that demonstrates the versatility of Macs? Yes

That being said, is Snow Leopard an essential upgrade? No, not exactly.

THE Remainder IS NOT THAT DRASTICThe differences between Apple`s "Tiger" OS (10.4) and "Leopard" (10.

) were very noticeable, and thither were many improvements that made the upgrade worthwhile. Such as Time Machine, Boot Camp, Quick Look, and many more The majority of changes between Leopard (10.5) and this latest release, "Snow Leopard" (10.6), are "below the hood" so to speak, and therefore the ordinary user might not find as lots of a shift as they`d expect with an OS upgrade. But then again, why fix a bone that`s not broken? Leopard was a success, and Snow Leopard improves on it, without radically altering the user experience. The bulk of improvements affect system reliability, speed, and resourcefulness. There is also Microsoft Exchange support, which is large for those who take it.

EXPECTATIONSI bought the Snow Leopard upgrade knowing fully well it wasn`t going to be a drastically different OS, so I was by no means disappointed. I`ve been following the tech news regarding Mac and Windows operating system upgrades very closely, and am well aware that August`s release of Apple`s Snow Leopard and October`s release of Microsoft`sWindows 7 are meant to provide additional stability and implement greater resourcefulness, rather than completely overhaul the user experience. This isn`t a bad thing, since greater system reliability is more important than adding bells and whistles that ultimately take out from the user experience (i.e. Vista).

EXPERIENCEI have just installed it on just one computer so far (running on an Intel chip and 4GB of RAM), but installation was a breeze, and Snow Leopard has been running smoothly so far. I previously strongly disliked `Preview` and `Quicktime` since they were so slow (I preferred freeware `Xee` and `VLC Media Player`). With Snow Leopard, loading times have noticeably improved for both Preview and Quicktime. I haven`t yet noticed other improvements in speed, but that power be because my computer was already flying to start with (4GB is great!).

Additionally, while I personally upgraded from Leopard to Snow Leopard, it is decent to recognize that yet if you weren`t using OS 10.5 (Leopard) and were even on OS 10.4 (Tiger), you can upgrade directly to OS 10.6 (Snow Leopard).

LAST THOUGHTSI didn`t have issues with Leopard, so I don`t think Snow Leopard was to me as necessary an advance as Windows 7 will be to Windows Vista. That being said, Snow Leopard is a very strong and reliable OS, so I don`t regret my purchase. The low cost makes this an affordable upgrade solution, but due to the want of drastic changes between Snow Leopard and its predecessor, one that isn`t absolutely necessary.