bit-tech Shopping: Apple Mac OS X Panther Version 10.3

Rating: 10

Time with product: 30 Days

Strengths: Runs very smoothly~

Weaknesses: None so far!

Summary: Easy installation. No issues with the OS crashing. I like the hiding windows feature. I am sure that there are many features that I have yet to discover, but so far so good. Happy customer!

Rating: 8

Time with product: 2 Weeks

Strengths: Easy to go between applications, I like the ability to see all my open windows or to send them off screen to see the finder. Able to find what I want easily on the hard drive.

Weaknesses: Most of my applications and my scanner do not work in OS X. Therefore, I had to buy new versions of the software. Also, I am not able to keep track of all the applications open.

Summary: I have been looking forward to getting OS X for a long time. Now I finally got a computer that could run it. I am very happy with the software even though I have had to purchase other software to run on it. I highly recommend OS X!

Rating: 8

Time with product: 60 Days

Strengths: Highly intuitive operating system. Solid.

Weaknesses: Very little support for older Macs with USB/FW port cardbus.

Summary: I loaded Panther on a 500mhz G3 Powerbook(Pismo) with 1024RAM. It was a little troublesome to load at first but runs like a dream. It is very intuitive and offerrs assistants and help at the click of a mouse. The disk utility also checks for permissions conflicts on your system.This four disc set also comes with an X-tools disk that I have yet to explore.The only draw backs were the conflict with Palm hotsyncing that has an available fix for, the dangerous encrypting archival software that I chose not to use, and the lack of support for older Macs with cardbus USB/FW ports.

Rating: 10

Time with product: 45 Days

Strengths: No problems with installation. Computer actually seems to be a bit faster (as advertised). Other applications are a bit more stable, as well.

Weaknesses: Long installation duration.

Summary: I had been hesitant to get the Panther OS, given some of the published problems with installation and certain unsupported applications. However, now that I have it installed, most everything seems to be running better/faster than before (under OSX 10.2.8). The installation, while a bit lengthy, proceeded without incident and my Mac (G4 400MHz) restarted with no problems. I only have a few apps that have not been supported yet (most notably AfterBurner). Great evolution of the Mac OS.

Rating: 10

Time with product: 7 Days

Strengths: Stable OS. Cool interface. Thru Expose there's a nice use of function keys.

Weaknesses: None found so far.

Summary: It's great that an Apple GUI is built on top of UNIX. Everything is faster, slicker, more polished, and finally all of the little irritations seem sorted out. When connecting to a digital camera, you plug it in and it just works. You don't have to worry about drivers or whether you've got the right software installed - all of the apps just work. To top it off, the operating system has not crashed ever. If you've got at least a G3 Mac, I can't recommend Panther enough. You'll never want to go back to OS 9.2.2, except in Classic mode.