Before Vista's January launch, eagle-eyed computer geeks who pored over every press release, statement, and image released by Microsoft in regards to the new operating system noticed a not-too-subtle resemblance between the new Vista OS and Apple's Mac OS X Tiger. Some said Microsoft shamelessly lifted key aspects of OS X Tiger; the more level-headed saw the similarities as a natural progression in the evolution of Windows. Regardless of where you stand on Vista's "originality," its changes and upgrades make it more intuitive and user-friendly than XP.

 

With the postponement of Mac OS X Leopard until October (Apple says the delay is due to putting the finishing touches on the iPhone), OS X Tiger will get a few more months of action out of it before Apple's new OS hoopla hits. So as we await Leopard's release, it must be asked: How does Vista compare to the venerable OS X Tiger? To find out, we pitted the Apple MacBook Black running OS X Tiger against the HP Pavilion dv6000 running Vista Home Premium.