Rating: 
Summary: 10.3.2 is a winner
Review: The early versions, 10.3.1 and 10.3.2, of Panther would NOT allow more than one Mac and/or Airport to connect thru a hub to a printer or a cable modem at the same time. This problem has been solved with 10.3.2 and Panther is now a real winner. Buy the Family Pack if you have more than one Mac.
Rating: 
Summary: Best parts are modest improvement, worst parts are dreadful
Review: Having used personal computers for over 20 years, I'm fed up with the perpetual software upgrade treadmill. This upgrade is one I could do without, as the best parts of mildly interesting, and the worst parts are horrid.Apple has nicely improved the Preview application, and I'm sure I will benefit from the ability to search PDF text. The Finder change seems to hold promise, though it will takes months of usage to reveal the true story. Hurray for the ability to encrypt files, but given Apple's track record for sloppy quality control of late, I'll step into that one after reading other user reports. (Postscript: Apple has already announced that FileVault encryption can cause data loss.) Apple's Mail application is still primitive compared to Entourage, the product I use; the new Panther fax capability is bare minimum. The Font Book is one of the worst software products I've ever used. It unexpectedly quits, it's methodology is unclear, it gives little feedback about what is happening aside from a spinning wheel, and it functions poorly. It automatically activates newly added fonts, so when I added 400 of them my system performed like a Mac Plus. Even when you turn fonts off -- or even delete an entire Collection -- the added fonts continue to appear in application menus. "Fast User Switching" is a bit faster, but, then, it makes other functions slower, like shutting down or entering a password to awaken a sleeping Mac. iTunes 4 has frozen, which it never did under Jaguar. Expose does allow immediate access to the desktop, but I doubt I'll find much use for its other features. I haven't noticed any other Panther features that would be of value to me. So far as I'm concerned, this is a reluctant upgrade. I've installed it for the reason that many people install OS upgrades: if I don't I won't be able to run present-generation software. But if you have no pressing need to run new software, don't bother with Panther. In addition, Apple has recently shown a disturbing lack of product quality consistency. For instance, the last free upgrade to 10.2 disabled my iBook DVD player. Also, Apple's web browser, Safari, has problems with far more sites than any other Mac browser I've tried. If Panther turns out to be fantastic, you will do better to buy it after fools like I have first stepped in, and Apple produces a raft of fixes. Apple always touts the "tight integration" of the OS with its hardware, but it doesn't seem that Mac OS upgrades are any less prone to glitches than are Windows upgrades.
Rating: 
Summary: A nice update.
Review: Excellent, highly polished OS, and a nice update for Mac users. Standard price is a little steep, but if you can fit this into budget, it's well worth it.
Rating:
Summary: Nearing Perfection
Review: Panther is everything I want in an OS: Elegant, useful, and painless. Be aware that most negative reviews of this product on Amazon are the property of Microsoft and it's FUD machine.
Rating:
Summary: Fast OS! Buy it.
Review: I clean installed 10.3 on my 1Ghz G4 powerbook. The first thing i noticed was the speed increase. The pop up/drop down menus feel snappy and quick. The new finder layout makes finding buried files a breeze. When you launch an application it appears as if it "jumps" out at you! Very cool. Expose should be reason enough to upgrade. Switching between multiple application windows couldnt be easier. I just mouse to the corner of the screen, then all my windows shrink to to fit inside the screen. Another nice touch is the new command-tab quick key. When you press command-tab, you get a pop up of all your running applications to choose between. so easy to use. Truly a must have. I consider this version release to be the best so far!
Rating:
Summary: Proceed with Caution, but...
Review: I've installed Panther on 4 different computers and the only one I had trouble with was the one with a non-stock video card. After putting in the original card and doing another install (the first died), it installed. I then had to put in a nVidia GeForce4 card (the ATI 9700 produced a black screen). Many of my Mac-friends have also upgraded Panther and I would say that half had terrible problems while the other half had only minor ones (like myself). This is by far the most problematic upgrade of an Apple OS that I've seen in quite some time. It really needed to be left in the cooker just a little bit longer. Suggestions: Be sure nothing is loading in your login items (system preferences) before the install. Be sure nothing is in your /Library/StartupItems folder of your main drive and home folder. Be sure you disable any menu bar applications until you know they work with Panther. Be sure you don't have any third party preferencepanes loading until you know they work with Panther (Haxies, etc...). These are in your /Library/PreferencePanes folder of your main drive and your Home folder. And be sure to do a customized install, selecting clean install and preserving your existing username and settings. These are the steps I took with each computer and the problems I encountered were utterly minor. Hope this helps as Panther is worth it, and you'll notice a significant speed boost a la OS 9, and so many cool, productive features you'll tend to overlook some of the smaller stuff.
Rating: 
Summary: Ugly and dangerous upgrade
Review: Do not buy. There are soooo many hardware issues with this upgrade that unless you have a brand new machine with Panther installed or have no peripherals and do not depend on your computer to work, avoid this like the plague. It is certainly more of a dog than a cat. I have reverted to 10.2 which is still very slow, and although I am a loyal Mac fan, I will use XP if I need to be productive in spite of security issues.
Rating:
Summary: Do Not Buy Yet
Review: I have had a lot of trouble with this upgrade. It is still has some bugs. Has some nice features but not worth the headaches, yet. Explorer stopped working, locked out of iTunes, mail became read only, etc maybe related to FileVault in Panther. Apple support fixed the problem quickly (after I wasted three days) Panther seems quicker, sharper, and very stable - even while some applications were driving me nuts others were completely unaffected. Just wait a month or two, then enjoy.
Rating:
Summary: Most have upgrade
Review: System 10 is coming in to it's own with this udate, things sre looking more like when OS 9 came out with all the little refiments that make the diference in an OS. I love the new features, (users swicthing, faster response, fonts, )
Rating:
Summary: Well worth the money!
Review: We've got two Macs - an 800Mhz iBook and 1Ghz Dual CPU PowerMac - so we bought the Family Pack. My wife reports that her iBook is a lot more "snappy" running Panther. I've only had one problem with a piece of software not working with Panther, and that is the Palm Sync application. It seems that Palm didn't bother to ensure their software would work with the new OS. As others have said, the new Expose feature is great! There are a lot of subtle improvements throughout the system, including new address book and mail features, updates to the disk utility, the file browser, the terminal...too many to mention. The search functions in the finder and email are much faster now, too. Was it worth the $200 we paid for the Family Pack? Heck yes!
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