Rating: 
Summary: For Pro's or ppl serious about their vector graphics!
Review: A clear fresh breeze that is what Illustrator 10 is compared to previous versions, particularly no 7. When I went to uni I was confronted with no 7 and it's inabilities, I was so annoyed over how hard it was to make the easiest thing and how un-intuitive this software was - but it has gotten so much better since. Sure it still isn't the most intuitive way to work with drawings when you put out two anchor points and create a shape from that, but the things you can do when you have learned how to work around your natural way of drawing it's excellent. No of undo's has increased, transparency works better a long with the new tools, it's great.
Rating: 
Summary: A step backward in the Illustrator franchise.
Review: Before I begin, let me say this: Illustrator as a whole is a good product. Unfortunately, Version 10 is not. In fact, I am surprised it ever made it passed Beta testing. I am constantly plagued with "This program has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down." Adobe's programmers have also been playing with the grouping commands, and have failed address a significant (and obvious) flaw when attempting to align groups.Yes, the ability to create symbols is incredibly helpful. And while the new morphing utilities are also quite interesting, the new features in Illustrator 10 have not outweighed its shortcomings. Perhaps when Adobe comes out with a patch for this block of wood I'll come back, but until then I'll continue using verion 9.
Rating:
Summary: A step backward in the Illustrator franchise.
Review: Before I begin, let me say this: Illustrator as a whole is a good product. Unfortunately, Version 10 is not. In fact, I am surprised it ever made it passed Beta testing. I am constantly plagued with "This program has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down." Adobe's programmers have also been playing with the grouping commands, and have failed address a significant (and obvious) flaw when attempting to align groups. Yes, the ability to create symbols is incredibly helpful. And while the new morphing utilities are also quite interesting, the new features in Illustrator 10 have not outweighed its shortcomings. Perhaps when Adobe comes out with a patch for this block of wood I'll come back, but until then I'll continue using verion 9.
Rating:
Summary: Buggy and slow
Review: Great new features finally bring Illustrator up to and even beyond Xara levels, but the program is full of bugs and cannot export a decent PDF, bitmap or vector file. Even Photoshop compatibility is compromised as Illustrator vectors turn into jagged, aliased shapes when pasted into Photoshop. What an embarrassment! I suggest you get a copy of Xara--for a third of Illustrator's price, and you'll never look back. Otherwise, spend your money and suffer.
Rating:
Summary: Fine for Design, Bad for Production
Review: Having been a working user since Illustrator 5.0, I've seen a great deal of changes in this fine design and production program. Adobe was in my opinion at their pinnacle with release 8.0. Version 9 added transparency effect, but it seemed to drag on the OS (9.x), and one huge change that was unnoticed by most designers put a huge thorn in the side of those working in print or production: Adobe changed their post script management in the exporting of most files to be ripped from true post script, to .pdf. This caused a myriad of problems in the rip world, where the "new and improved" .eps format would not rip, or caused serious rip problems, with images needed embedding (doubling or tripling the final file size), or other work arounds. Hence, many of us never used verion 9.0. Now comes version 10. This version has the beautiful aqua interface, is much faster than version 9, and a lot of designers will love it for that. Have the problems been fixed? Well, no. As a matter of fact, some are worse. .eps files saved out of 10 as version 8.0 (to hopefully rip better) causes placed files to appear as fragmented, embedded, unnamed, files, causing a total re-design. Files with transparency often rip as solid blocks, or have Pantone colors fall out when used as transparency. While one could argue this is a problem with the rip, it's not the best business ethic to let your customers (production users) have to deal with these hassles, when they should have been ironed out between Adobe and other (rip) software manufacturers. Another feature that appeared in 9.0 is still useless: Automated (batching) actions. Illustrator 10 wants to name every single file the same as the file used in the writing of the action. Making what could be a huge, huge time saver for production works, totally useless. There are also network security issues, where OSX wants to hide AI 10 files when saved to a Windows based server. Adobe also missed the boat in that the save window doesn't allow anything other than the power user window in OSX, and won't allow collumn width adustments. Again, this may all be Apple, (or Windows). But I say iron these issues out before releasing the software and charging users for it, and letting them deal with the headaches. But before I create a huge laundry list of things wrong with the program, Illustrator does deserve some praise. It's the best looking version to date, that isn't even close. It also makes jumping into basic design easier than ever. And it has many, many web friendly features. Most any designer out there working on basic (or complex) logos, designs and illustrations will find AI 10, for OSX to be the slickest version to date. So you're likely to see a lot of 5-star reviews from those users. Bottom line: If you're a designer working in OSX, this is a much faster, and nicer version than 9. But a lot of prepress and production workers who use Illustrator day in and day out for print export and rip are going to find the program still has several problems that make it very difficult to use in a production environment. And as that was once Adobe and Illustrator's bread and butter, it leaves me having to give this somewhat negative review.
Rating: 
Summary: For Serious Artists Only!
Review: I am well versed in alot of Adobe's as well as Macromedia's products. I learned Ilustrator 9.0 and then moved up to the new Version 10. And I must say, It is quite an improvement! I think this is the best Illustrator to date and has many new worth while features. The new shape warping tools, lens flare, object saver, and other cool tools make this version great. You can get by on older versions, but I feel this version is a lot less twitchy when it comes to drawing and shape creation/modification. Version 9 was terrible for this. I will agree that if you do not have a newer and more powerful system then maybe this version is not for you, but if you're still running windows 95, and a Pentium 2 or 3 with less than a gigahertz cpu, then you have no business being in this business. That's why I say: "For Serious Artists Only!"
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Software but....with Xp. Yuk!!
Review: I have been a Graphic Designer for 6 years and I have been using Illustrator the whole time. The program has been upgraded with some good new features, although Corel (which is evil) has Illustrator beat with the Envelope feature. Illustrator is EXTREMELY glitchy with XP. I find that it works well with 2000 and even 98. This is the program to get if you are in the field of Graphic Art, I have been teaching it for 3 years as well and new users really enjoy this Program. Once you get the basics down you can go many places with Illustrator.
Rating:
Summary: For Artists Only Plus Buggy
Review: If you are thinking of using this program without having any art ability, I have one word for you: DON'T. Unlike Photoshop, which can be used by people with a variety of image needs, with Illustrator you better already be an artist. I am an artist and this program is taking everything I've got. I find it extremely difficult. This is not to say that it is more or less difficult than any other drawing based art program, just that it is hard. I've always been a better painter than a drawer so that could well be bedeviling me in learning it too. What lowers the grade to a 4 though is that Illustrator 10 seems to have a lot of bugs when you use it on Windows XP, which is what I'm using. I notice another reviewer here catalogs all the problems it presents on a Mac so I caution you that installing it on Windows may not solve those problems. Perhaps Adobe just rushed it a bit prematurely into production. If you go to the Adobe website and then to the Illustrator User Forums, you can see all the computer bugs that users are running into with Illustrator 10. That can give you a better idea than I ever could about some of the problems you will need to work around after installation... The reason I went with this program is that it is the one that is the industry standard. It is also the drawing program taught in most colleges' commercial art departments. Apparently some advanced drawers also use a program called Freehand so you might want to read about that one as well before taking the plunge with Illustrator 10.
Rating:
Summary: For Artists Only Plus Buggy
Review: If you are thinking of using this program without having any art ability, I have one word for you: DON'T. Unlike Photoshop, which can be used by people with a variety of image needs, with Illustrator you better already be an artist. I am an artist and this program is taking everything I've got. I find it extremely difficult. This is not to say that it is more or less difficult than any other drawing based art program, just that it is hard. I've always been a better painter than a drawer so that could well be bedeviling me in learning it too. What lowers the grade to a 4 though is that Illustrator 10 seems to have a lot of bugs when you use it on Windows XP, which is what I'm using. I notice another reviewer here catalogs all the problems it presents on a Mac so I caution you that installing it on Windows may not solve those problems. Perhaps Adobe just rushed it a bit prematurely into production. If you go to the Adobe website and then to the Illustrator User Forums, you can see all the computer bugs that users are running into with Illustrator 10. That can give you a better idea than I ever could about some of the problems you will need to work around after installation... The reason I went with this program is that it is the one that is the industry standard. It is also the drawing program taught in most colleges' commercial art departments. Apparently some advanced drawers also use a program called Freehand so you might want to read about that one as well before taking the plunge with Illustrator 10.
Rating:
Summary: The Best Version Yet!
Review: If you've used Illustrator before, you'll be amazed how much faster this is than the previous version, how many new features have been added, and how much more powerful it is than ever before!
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