Mac OS X Leopard vs Windows Vista

Mac OS X Leopard was launched recently (see our coverage) amid much hype and anticipation. Quite a few remarks have been made, with flowers, punches and everything in between thrown in. Users have boasted about the refined look, feel and functionality of Leopard, whereas some have written about terrible bugs and lack of backward compatibility for software. We have also written about the worthiness of upgrading to Leopard, from Tiger.

Windows Vista was launched early this year for home users (late last year for business customers), with more complaints and swears about the excess eye candy. The lacklustre launch was not close to the launch of Leopard, and nobody’s complaining - there’s no loyal community as in Apple’s case.

Vista, the latest from MS, and Leopard, the latest from Apple will certainly compared head to head. Everyone searches about it (most search referrals to this blog was about Leopard vs Vista), and all are writing about it. I know that there have been several comparisons before this, and I’ll list the others. This post is just my view.

Leopard

Leopard has new features like:

1. Time Machine
2. Improved Finder
3. Cover Flow
4. Expose
5. Unified Aqua UI
6. Spaces
7. iLife 08 (has to be purchased separately
8. File encryption with AES256
9. iSync
10. Apache web server

……and many more.

Leopard costs $129, though you may find it at around $80 at online stores like Amazon

Vista

Here is a rundown of Vista’s features:

1. Flip 3D
2. Aero interface
3. Backup and Restore Center
4. IE7
5. Improved Explorer
6. Windows Live Messenger
7. Auto Defragmentation
8. Encryption using EFS
9. IIS web server
10. Windows SuperFetch and ReadyDrive
11. Sideshow (for smaller auxilary screens)

Keep in mind that many features on Vista are available on XP too, by download. Leopard, on the other hand, does not just upgrade - Time Machine, Cover Flow and Spaces are some of the new features.

Head to head, Leopard is slightly ahead of Vista because of the above-said new features, security, coupled with solid bundled applications (iLife, Time Machine). On the other side, Vista has its huge repository of free apps.

Guide for Switch/upgrade

Switching sides (Vista to Leopard, what else?) is well and good for a new desktop/lappy. In Vista vs Leopard, as for upgrades, XP is better as far as bugs, boot time, resources required and cost are concerned, and you’d be better with it or Leopard. The same goes with Tiger - upgrading to Leopard does not make sense yet, especially for graphics/audio professionals, since many apps are broken on Leopard (Photoshop).

Here are some comparisons by other blogs, as mentioned:

• Vista vs Leopard by Cybernet News
• Vista vs Leopard: Feature Chart by Engadget (they give Leopard 46-41 Leopard)
• Leopard vs Vista: How they stack up by Todd Bishop

If you liked this post, you might want to subscribe to our full RSS feed (what is RSS?) or receive updates (latest posts) by email.)