We haven't heard much about them, but they're rumored to run Symbian OS. We're sure you're now looking down at your new Samsung Galaxy Nexus with disdain, but we bet you could hire a few master craftsmen to make your own hand-engraved dragon for around the same price to help alleviate the regret.
ENGADGET: Vertu rings in the Year of the Dragon by welcoming a trio of Signature luxury phones
If you're coming to Linux from Mac OS X, you're in somewhat better shape.
ENGADGET: A guide to Slackware and Arch Linux: getting your hands dirty with Linux
Sounds like they're trying to promote widescreen monitor usage with their new OS, and we're guessing Microsoft wouldn't mind making a few bucks while they're at it.
ENGADGET: Microsoft to team with Samsung on 22-inch LCD for Vista?
Moving on, the external touchpad is a Magic TrackPad competitor if ever we saw one, with support for all the multi-finger gestures you're used to making in OS X.
ENGADGET: Logitech intros two Mac accessories: the Easy-Switch Keyboard and an external trackpad
On the inside, you've got a dual-core 1GHz TI OMAP 4428 CPU and 8GB 1GB of RAM to keep performance hopping, which is plenty -- this is, after all, a mobile OS we're talking about, even if it does live inside what appears to be an all-in-one PC.
We've been waiting on pins and needles for Google to announce some official Android tablet plans for so long we'd almost forgotten about Mountain View's other operating system -- but from what we're hearing, Chrome OS is about to jump to center stage with a tablet debut on Verizon just before the holidays.
ENGADGET: Chrome OS tablet coming from Google and Verizon on Black Friday? (update: probably not)
No matter what shell you layer on top, you're still stuck with a PC OS underneath that's not optimized for the TV experience.
QNX, the OS behind the Blackberry re-launch has interesting projects in cars and healthcare but cars are a small market and healthcare is a difficult one to crack.
FORBES: With Facebook, Apple and RIM Down, Why Is Amazon Up?
If you're on a Mac and using OS X, Spotlight comes with your operating system and is actually quite useful -- I'd even go as far as to say it's awesome.
If you're eager to make the move to OS 5 but have resisted because the devices seem expensive, price competition should start pushing prices ever downward in the coming months.
One interesting feature of the Zodiac is how the software switches effortlessly from portrait mode, which is how you're likely used to looking at Palm OS devices, to the horizontal landscape mode.
Of course the Mac was created in part as sort of a backlash against the command line interface of DOS (typing long strings of complicated computing commands, not pointing and clicking with a mouse like we're used to now), though Mac OS X now boasts a Unix Shell terminal with its own command line interface.
It doesn't matter if you're running some flavor of Windows, UNIX, Mac OS X or Linux -- this isn't about OS wars.
ENGADGET: Entelligence: Stains on the sleeve of my operating system
Except maybe a happy beginning, which is precisely what you're looking at above -- Microsoft's new OS captured in all its glory within minutes of completing the installation.
ENGADGET: Windows 8 upgrade diary: a defiantly successful installation
We're guessing they figure that as long as they aren't loading OS X onto the computer themselves, they won't have any trouble from Apple, but that's where they go wrong.
ENGADGET: Open Tech's "Mac clone" demonstrates a firm misunderstanding of the law
Developers of the Metasploit framework for hackers and penetration testers have released a module that should exploit the vulnerability on machines running Windows, Apple OS X, and Linux regardless of the browser they're using.
Users who choose to update their hard drive will need to have the original OS installation discs that was shipped with their system in order to re-install their operating system, and applications, along with any backed up data, will need to be reinstalled.
FORBES: Your iMacs May Be Eligible For A Replacement 1TB Hard Drive
We definitely cannot attest to the reliability of Mac OS Rumors as a, um, rumor site, but they're reporting that Apple is working on some sort of high-definition satellite TV network.
ENGADGET: Apple's working on a high-definition video network?
Those with truly ancient PCs (we're looking at you, corporate customers) can even bring over personal files from an OS as dated as Windows XP SP3.
If you're particularly attuned to tech gossip, you'll know that Google's Chrome OS announcement has prompted a lot of whispers about something called "Gazelle" being cooked up in Microsoft's labs.
ENGADGET: Microsoft's "Gazelle" browser detailed -- it's more of a research project
We're not sure why the Wall Street Journal just posted up a piece talking about BlackBerry OS 6.0 and the Bold 9800 QWERTY slider as though we haven't been running leaked pictures and videos of them for months now, but whatever -- the story also apparently confirms RIM's Foleo-like tablet plans and says the device could be out by the end of the year.
ENGADGET: WSJ: RIM testing Blackberry tablet for potential release by year's end
We'll admit that most of our attention as end users will be focused on what happens several weeks from now, but if you're one of those rare server operators that can't wait to start testing a new OS release almost immediately, you've got a head start on most of us.
ENGADGET: Microsoft delivers Windows Server 2012, puts the enterprise on cloud 8
Don't get me wrong -- we're making progress, but most of that progress has been restricted to mobile platforms. webOS, iPhone OS and Android all have driven some degree of innovation beyond the PC desktop.
ENGADGET: Entelligence: Stains on the sleeve of my operating system
It will also work with most of Apple Computer 's (nasdaq: AAPL - news - people) Macintosh computers, as long as they're running a version of the operating system that is 8.0 or higher, but not the upcoming Mac OS X, at least not yet.
应用推荐