As you surely know by now, tomorrow is the big day for folks waiting to upgrade to version 10.5 of the Mac OS, more commonly known as Leopard. And right on schedule, here come the reviews. Of course, the usual suspects got their mitts on a pre-release copy of the OS, including the Wall Street Journal‘s Walt Mossberg, the New York Times‘ David Pogue and USA Today‘s Ed Baig. So, what did they think? For the most part, all three found Leopard to be an improvement over Tiger, though the consensus seems to be that it’s not quite a landmark release. “[W]hile it is an evolutionary, not a revolutionary, release, I believe it builds on Apple’s quality advantage over Windows,” Mossberg writes. Nonetheless, it seems that everyone found something to like, especially the Time Machine backup interface, which managed to impress all three critics. “When you connect [a] second drive, Leopard asks if you want to use it for Time Machine,” Pogue writes. “If you click O.K., that’s it. One click – that’s got to be the shortest setup of any backup system in history.”

For more on Leopard:
– watch Walt Mossberg’s video review of the new OS
– read David Pogue’s NYT review
– and see Ed Baig’s review for USA Today