Has anyone here installed the latest Apple OS, Big Sur...
Other than slightly improved definition and some very bright colours it doesn't seem to be that different, although it does seem to be faster and shows changes that make it closer to the iPhone OS.
The writeups suggest better security and for laptop devices, less power usage.

One oddity: as it installed a box came up telling me to delete Amazon Music as it would "Damage my Computer"
Very odd..

Nope, my 2012 Macbook Pro Retina has been deemed unworthy by Apple, despite its 2.7GHz quad-core i7, 16GB RAM and 512GB SSD.

Yes have installed it on the iMac and laptop and as you say looks very similar apart from the control centre but I presume most of it goes on to the bits we don’t see. Will have to do a bit of reading on the improvements.

I've got it on my main desktop 27 inch I5 quad core 2015, 28Gb and it stalled installing. Sorted now though.

Looks OK but the trend for childish icons continues.

Other than that, not noticed any improvements.

MacBook Pro and MacBook Air are too old to be 'updated' but continue to perform perfectly!

Yes.

Took about 35 minutes all told on my 2015 MacBook pro with no issues.

Apparently Big Sur contains the biggest ever Safari upgrade although whether I'll notice any difference remains to be seen.

All working well on my iMac. Not really noticed any major changes yet apart from the brighter colours and slightly faster start-up.

I am waiting a couple of days to upgrade the MacBook Air - just in case.

The only annoying coincidence was that Micros***t chose yesterday (the day I upgraded the iMac) to tell me that my office installation is unsupported. The difference between Office 2016 and 2019 is marginal.

No idea what Big Sur is but my Mackintosh is still working perfectly after 30 years and keeps the rain out, just like it did when it was brand new. I don't feel any need to upgrade it at this point.

I've only just taken the leap to Catalina!

Here's a full run down from Apple on the features in Big Sur

Nothing there which will make my life any better!

I believe that the Mackintosh was invented in Basingstoke? I saw something on a poster in the shopping centre there. Given they only built the place in the 1960's this is a bit of a conflict!

Re Big Sur
Most of the stuff going on in the latest MacOS releases is around

1. Increasing security (web, APIs for other programs, tightening up system as it is being targeted a lot more than it used to be as it has become popular.
2. Integration with Apples Cloud services (a.k.a. pay us per month) for seamless experience
3. Integration with iOS for Phones (handoff and other areas
4. Preparation for the new CPU's coming along.

4 is going to be the key one so brace yourself. It won't end the life of all our existing shiny aluminium slabs but it will hasten change.

If any of you are keen enough to have owned a Mac from the OLD days and it ran on PowerPC CPU then the same is about to happen again. Apple is reducing the Intel reliance and using the same (ARM) chips that it has been using in the iPhone/iPad. Last week the new ones were announced and show good progress. In theory lower power consumption, Equal or higher performance when well optimised software is used. Code that is Intel based will be run in a software emulator which may make it a bit slow but this process is well understood and has been around for a while.

Pretty soon they will have more shiny toys of differing shapes and sizes that do the same thing pretty much the same way than anyone It will even put JLR to shame.