Mac OS X Snow Leopard

If Leopard was all about new features, Mac OS X Snow Leopard ($29; August 28) is all about speed. Leaving most of Leopard's UI features in place, Snow Leopard boasts tons of under-the-hood improvements, including faster, more stable, 64-bit versions of Finder, Mail, iCal, iChat, and Safari, the all new QuickTime X, a footprint that takes up 7GB (!) less hard drive space than Leopard, faster Time Machine backups, Open CL technology to take advantage of most Macs' powerful GPUs, and a price that simply can't be beat.