Bottom Line:Arguably the best consumer operating system available—and now updated to remove almost all the first-release glitches that afflicted early adopters.

Pros:Speedy performance. Intuitive disk-and network-navigation features. Automatic previews of most common file types. Automated full backups.

Cons:No Classic-application support on older Macs. A few remaining glitches in networking with Windows machines. Slightly excessive eye-candy.

Reviewed By Edward Mendelson
After seven months with Apple’s Mac OS X Leopard Version 10.5, I have three main things to say about it. First: Despite minor problems, it’s by far the best operating system ever written for the vast majority of consumers, with dozens of new features that have real practical value—like truly automated backups, document and spreadsheet preview images in folders, and notes and to-do lists integrated into the mail program. Propeller-heads with IT know-how will no doubt hold up Linux as the better choice, and even Vista SP1 has some devotees somewhere, but, for the average user, Leopard is the most polished and easiest to use OS I’ve tested. Second: Leopard started out with a generous share of first-version glitches, but almost all of them have now been resolved. Finally, Leopard is extravagantly overdressed for the jobs that it’s designed to do, and its pervasive eye-candy starts out looking dazzling but soon becomes distracting. Fortunately, from the beginning, the OS started out with options that let you put it on a low-eye-sugar diet, and the latest update has even more.