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| Mac OS X Version 10.5.4 Leopard | 
 enlarge | From: Apple
Category: Software
List Price: $129.99
Buy New: $109.99
You Save: $20.00 (15%)
New (18) Used (6) from $89.99
Avg. Customer Rating:  395 reviews
Sales Rank: 20
Format: Dvd-rom
Platforms: Mac Os X, Macintosh
Color: 1-user
Media: DVD-ROM
Edition: Standard
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 7 x 3 x 7
MPN: MB576Z/A
Model: MB576Z/A
UPC: 885909167876
EAN: 0885909240388
ASIN: B000FK88JK
Publication Date: October 31, 2007
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
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| Customer Reviews:
| Showing reviews 391-395 of 395 | | « PREV 1 ... | | |
 Works fine, Buy Firewire 800 or eSATA external drive for time machine October 27, 2007
10 out of 15 found this review helpful
I have it installed and its running fine on my 2.16 Macbook pro. May be an issue with Parallels and video RAM allocation; but I'm still investigating that. One thing I absolutely wish I had done differently is I wish I'd bought a Firewire 800 external drive( or better yet eSATA and Express card controller). Got a USB 2.0 Seagate Free Agent and the initial backup in Time Machine is going to take a long time. Spend a few extra bucks and get an external drive with a higher transfer rate.
I've heard some grumbling about Leopard not being able to use an external drive attached to Airport Extreme base for backup. I've got to think that wireless backup at even 802.11n is a pipe dream for now. My initial backup is 69 Gig, and I know a lot of folks will have much larger initial backups. Maybe you could do incrementals wirelessly; but the initial is just too big for that.
No speed problems here October 27, 2007
10 out of 15 found this review helpful
Will keep this short. Great upgrade, love the new look. Time Machine will be a big hit - works best if you have a Firewire drive. One of the reviewers here states he has speed problems, No speed problems whatsoever here, even our old iMac G5 is running like a champ. The way my Macs are now running I have to say Leopard is faster than Tiger.
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 Serious drawbacks October 27, 2007
162 out of 262 found this review helpful
It's premature to judge the value of many of 10.5's new features. I'm pleased with the improvements to Mail, iCal, and iChat. There are, however, some serious problems that should give a buyer pause. Apple has changed the Finder menus so that they are translucent. The lettering is no longer black-on-white unless you choose white as your wallpaper, which is hardly pleasing. I've compromised by choosing a solid light blue, but for the sake of efficiency and clarity nice designs and pictures are out. There is no corrective for the translucent pull-down menu: you always see a hazy semblance of whatever is behind it. This has introduced a lot of visual noise and may be a serious problem for individuals with vision impairment. In this case Apple has sacrificed clarity and performance for a dubious new aesthetic.
There are instances when icons and buttons which are themselves grey and placed against a gray background. This is true with the Trash on the new Dock background (if you place the Dock on the right). This makes them more difficult to see at a glance.
In changing many aesthetic features of OS X Apple seems to be addressing problems that don't exist. There is a reason why most books are not printed on translucent or colored paper, and that same reason is why the Finder should be black-on-white. Apple has added milliseconds to basic functions, thereby reducing productivity. Apple's habit of offering take-it-or-leave-it features which cannot be modified or turned off is frustrating.
One of the few regular maintenance requirements of OS X is repairing permissions. In 10.4 this took less than a minute to accomplish, but after installing 10.5 I found that it took about 7 minutes, and then a cryptic message appeared. Each time I repeated the procedure the same thing happened, though it does report also that permissions have been repaired. (Update: It is being reported that Apple acknowledges this bug and is working on a fix.)
When I click on the Applications folder in 10.4 the contents appear almost instantly. In 10.5 it takes more than 4 seconds for the contents to appear. It remains to be seen how many other basic functions of OS X have been harmed.
In summary, Apple seems to have made substantial changes merely for the sake of change, rather than to improve productivity, and some of these changes have degraded both productivity and comfort.
I installed Leopard on one of my three Macs, but I will not "upgrade" the other two until Apple eliminates the aesthetic drawbacks and brings speed back to parity with Tiger. It's nice to have eye candy, but productivity is my first concern. Some of the new visual features remind me of the clutter which is now standard on the screens of cable news channels.
(The installation discussed is on a MacBook Pro 2.2 Ghz.)
Worth it for Time Machine alone... but there's lots more reasons to buy October 27, 2007
250 out of 270 found this review helpful
The OS comes in a very small package with a little manual. Install took 45 minutes to confirm that the CD was in good condition, 45 more to install. This review is not going to be full of technical jargon... instead a brief first impression from a long time Mac user (circa 1984 Mac 512Ke vintage). For the technicals, go to Apple, read geeky blogs. For the rest of us, I'll try to keep it more straight-forward. They claim 300 changes... here are what I think are some of the more interesting ones... apologies for the length of the review, relative to the number of changes claimed, a moderate length to this review. Updated December 09, 2007 to reflect new experiences.
Pro:
-Time machine! OK, back up programs are available, but how many of them are sold versus the number of macs out there? This program is native, created by Apple for Apple. All I did was plug in a hard drive and Leopard asked if I wanted to make this my back-up drive for Leopard. I clicked yes, and that was it, all set up. It begins back up once the computer is left on and idle. The first takes a very long time, hours, subsequent back ups are hourly, however only files that have changed are saved, preserving storage space and computing power. Time machine looks like any open folder window when it gets down to it... like you went back in time and browsed around (hence the name). Similar to "snapshot" for those Windows XP users out there.
-Install was very easy. Boot machine, insert CD, restart with CD. The computer verified that the CD is in good condition (a lengthy process of about 45 minutes that you can skip but which is recommended). The rest of the install takes about 45 more minutes, but it is basically all automated. It's a Mac, it's so clever that it's easy. Apple does what computers promised to do... automate smartly.
-Price is very reasonable relative to other operating systems (e.g. Vista)
-This OS includes the release version of Boot Camp. I've not used it yet as I have Parallels, but I like how Apple has included this feature... sometimes it's just best to get along as even programs offered on both platforms are just different enough to be annoying. So if you are using PowerPoint at work on a PC, you can use it at home on your Mac acting like a PC... thank you Apple.
-The new "you can see the content of folders in the dock bar" feature is handy, especially if you have many projects going and you dump a lot of picture files into them. They call this new feature "stacks" and it works really well.
-I find that movies too now give you a preview icon which is great.
-New OS did not trash my preferences, such as my Son's photo on the desktop... very plug and play
-Safari web browser is appears somewhat faster, perhaps 1x faster to load a page but I didn't really notice that much difference as I was using another browser up to this point
-The widget-maker is really interesting... I made my first widget of a stock I follow, in about 30 seconds. This was really great. I expect future versions of the feature to add more punch (e.g. the ability to add a title bar to your new widget, improved ability to make very small widgets, ability to use arrow keys to get the widget just right, ability to resize the widget once made instead of deleting and starting all over, etc.), but is still great as is.
-When I have multiple windows open I notice a slight shadow to help me identify which one is active, or on top. Apple continues to impress with their ability to tune into subtle usability features that are so obvious that they have been overlooked. Wonderful (although I would love a darker shadow, and perhaps a bold frame around the window too).
-The Apple web site offers a very nice 9-10 minute introduction. Check it out, it's worth it (trust me).
-Cover Flow is AWESOME! If you are familiar with flipping through album art on the new iPhone or iPods, you'll recognize the power of this feature right away. For those who've been on the sidelines, let me catch you up. There's icon view. There's list view. There's also a column view that's less popular. And there's now cover flow. Much like iTunes, you can flip through files like albums in a juke box, or turning pages in a picture book. The Mac lets you see the first page, so you don't get just a dumb icon, or even a tiny picture, you get a nice big image. It's nothing short of amazing. Cover flow does more (like you can play a video in cover flow without exiting the program or launching a player, fast and convenient), but again, this is a simpler version for the rest of us.
-A further extension of file management is Quick Look. You can sort of open files without launching a program. It's designed to be a time-saver for the person with a lot of files.
-Spaces. OK, this might be a little hard to describe. Essentially, are you someone who like to have 10 programs running at one time? If so, Spaces is ideal for you. You can open say a few photos in one space, a publishing program and Photoshop in another. You can toggle back and forth between the spaces and the effect is a less cluttered environment. It's neat.
-Mail. THere's many new things here, most small. However, for those setting up a mail account for the first time, say on Yahoo or "another popular website", you enter your email address, password, and click OK. Leopard finds it and sets it up. This blows me away. Forever are gone are the days of entering POP and SMTP data, which I guess wasn't terribly bad, but again, this is 2007. Computers are supposed to be more intuitve, not less right? Mac delivers yet again.
-I didn't mention the Notes and To Do features in Mail, which are excellent adds. Example of what these are: I often send myself an email so that I have a note: Well, instead of sending a mail to myself, which can, if hung up take a minute or an hour to return to me, I can write myself a note which sits in my inbox. I can add attachments like an email. I can also turn a note into a "To do", assigning a due date and getting a check box to check when it has been completed. Anywhere I can access my email, I can also get my notes. Weird and wonderful! To do events sync to iCal (which also syncs to my iPhone)... excellent.
-Email contacts, addresses, phone numbers can be added to existing contacts, or a new contact with a couple clicks. This is very handy for the busy professional.
-The teleconferencing features of iChat makes presentations really personal and also allows you to share desktops. I won't use this at home, and I can only dream of this at work when working remotely with our team/my boss in the UK. Words don't do this feature justice.
-My existing programs seem to work ok. I did get a minor error with Parallels (see Cons section for more), but all other programs tried functioned fine.
Con:
-Boot Camp requires reboot to run Windows
-Changed the icons some, which is not a big deal, but which was unnecessary
-With all this advanced file-sharing capability in iChat, I am concerned that a guest could inadvertently open sensitive files or emails. I get confidential materials sometimes, and I have little means of limiting access. It's too open and I'd love some locking features, both in iChat and in case I walk away from my Mac and someone decides to have some fun.
- Parallels has become unstable and won't launch. A free patch fomr the Parallels website (build "5582") fixed the crash on launch issue, however an IP conflict gotten originally still persists. This IP error does not seem to cause any issues as far as I can tell, it is just a nuisance.
Bottom line: Highly recommended. Sleek, smart, and straight-forward. The review title says it all, however there are obviously many reasons to buy, including staying current with the OS so that you have access to future releases and features.
Sophisticated and beautiful October 26, 2007
25 out of 32 found this review helpful
I've been running 10.5 for about 5 hours so far, and what can I say - it's great! Theres a lot of minor polishing that has gone into the UI (opaque title bar & menus, the new dock), as well as some major revisions (Time Machine, coverflow in the quick-preview in finder). Overall - an excellent upgrade! Install went smooth, and everything has worked as it should. Microsoft - eat your heart out.
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