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Apple’s much awaited OS Snow Leopard will sneak in a few days before its promised September release, the tune-up for Mac OS X Leopard costs $29 for current Leopard users, and packs just enough punch to be worth its cost.

Apple is careful to point out that Snow Leopard isn't a complete system overhaul, but rather a collection of hundreds of smaller refinements to make Leopard run more gracefully.

Hidden among smaller tweaks are some technical improvements that result in a smoother, easier-to-use Leopard with plenty for Mac fans to be excited about. The user interface and everyday tasks feel faster in general, although we didn't notice a substantive improvement in application performance.

Even if you're not a current Leopard user, the $169 package that includes Snow Leopard, iLife, andk is a iWorsteal for the system upgrade and two of Apple's major software suites, not to mention the long-pined-after inclusion of Microsoft Exchange compatibility.

Snow Leopard is offered on a single install disk--there are no separate, tiered pricing structures to worry about--and you're getting every feature and technical enhancement available in a single install. Unfortunately, for those on PowerPC systems, Snow Leopard only works with Intel Macs.

Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard is not a complete system overhaul and is instead a refinement of the current Leopard OS--some have gone so far as to call it a "service pack.

The largest of the feature enhancements are probably reason enough for Intel Mac users to spend the money on Snow Leopard. Added enhancements such as video, audio, and screen recording in QuickTime X were once only available to those who purchased QuickTime Pro.

But the killer feature addition for Snow Leopard might be Exchange support out of the box--not even Windows 7 comes with Microsoft Exchange support without buying Microsoft Office.

Overall, the Snow Leopard did almost everything Apple says it set out to do: it refined and enhanced Leopard to make it easier to use. Though the system performs well in everyday use, many of our tests indicate it is slightly slower than the older version of Leopard in more intensive application processes.