Panther

It seems like every time Apple releases a minor update, the mac lovers from all over exaggerate their upgrades into gifts from god that made their computers faster, their bodies sexier, and their lives richer.

Not being a huge Apple fanboy myself, I just want the thing to work, to come close to the speed of my PC, and to be more stable. It looks like Panther is the first release that lived up to the hype, for me at least. My powerbook seems downright peppy and I haven't seen a swirling beachball since I upgraded. Mail and iChat finally seem stable and Mail isn't going unresponsive when I have more than one window open. I finally see what everyone was raving about with Expose, having a quick keyboard shortcut to get to other windows on a crowded monitor is a lifesaver.

I haven't dived in much deeper than that, but so far I'm very happy with the $130 package.