I have used CD since ver.3 and 10 is my latest. I upgrade to win7 and thought that since I have a new operating system with all the bells and whistles I should go with a new X5 as well. I downloaded the trial, used it for 30 days and was not impressed. After that many new releases you would think I would be overwhelmed and elated to say the least. Slow, same contour problems, slow, crashes and did I mention slow? Not that many changes. Importing Illustrator files is usually followed by a crash or just nothing happens.
This program is (was?) the best vector program ever! Why would they not add to it and fix things. I am not a fan of Illustrator but Photoshop I am. That program works. Fine tune it then add some wow! Maybe there tired and bored with it and don't need it any more. Sad. I wish it was more of what I expected. Old version 10 stays on the computer until they step it up or windows won't let it run.
59Graphix
The upgrade or change of any program is reltive to the use you need. For some users, CorelDRAW 9.0 is good enough, and some users don't need more than this. For example, if you don't use Mesh Fill, you don't need X5, but if you need to use it, nothing is the same. X5 handlethe Mes fil much betthr than x4 and olders. Also, if you don't work with newest versions of Illustrator and CorelDRAW, you can use an old version of corelDRAW, but if you need to use both everyday, you will need to use X5, since you will have more compatibilty than X4 and olders. If you have a Pentium 4 computer and Windows XP, perhaps you don't need more than CorelDRAW 9.0 (version 10.0 was one of the worst version ever), but if you a multi-core processor and Windows 7 (and, in a few days, Windows 8) X5 allows you to use more than one processor, save, print or export in the background while you work.
I can appreciate your comments but I don't think you understand the frustration. I have used CD since ver3. I have designed thousands of graphics with this program. I have always looked forward to the upgrades but this time since I waited so long between 10 and x5 I was hoping for massive changes. As far as my computer goes, I have an AMD 6 core Phenom 1055, 6770 Radeon graphics card, 16 gig ddr3, 3 terrabytes plus of drive space with sata hard drives and usb 3.0 all running on win7 64. I use Adobe CS5 with no problems. I was just hoping that Corel would fix some of the buggy stuff like contour and font control. There are several other things that are just kind of a thorn in my side that just pass by the big heads at Corel. To bad, I love the program!