We’ve put the new Snow Leopard to the test and have found several benefits and computer installation tips. First of all, ifyou’re upgrading to Snow Leopard, you can do so only from Leopard. The upgrade cost is only $29. For previous operating systems, you’ll need to purchase the full Mac Box Set for $169, including Snow Leopard, iLife ’09 and iWork ’09.
For the installation, in the past you would be prompted for which printer drivers to use. Now, it automatically installs the drivers you used in the past as well as the popular Apple printer drivers so there is no confusion. This reduced printer clutter vastly reduces bloated storage space.
Do you have an older program to run? Don’t worry – your old PowerPC apps will still run on the new Intel chip by a technology called Rosetta. Rosetta will prompt you to run it if you have an old app that won’t natively run with Snow Leopard.
Quicktime is radically different. Other than that, the operating system looks the same. Everything is built in 64-bitmode which should make the Finder and all the operating system functions work faster.
Exchange may be used without Entourage. Snow Leopard allows you to connect to an Exchange server simply by its own programs: Mail, iCal, and Address Book. It is stable and very responsive. And you are not forced to use Entourage which was once the only Mac app that could connect to Exchange.
We find the Snow Leopard to be faster than Leopard so the hype is true. Further, Apple touts that future improvements will allow the Snow Leopar to run even faster. For Exchange users, it’s the way to go. Yes, the OS only provides little tweaks here and there, but the overall sum of the parts plus the cheap $30 price tag is well worth it.
