Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Best Netbook ?

The dell mini 9 coupled with a runcore sdd is by far the best netbook experience one could hope for. I personally own a macbook pro 15 inch unibody, a macbook, and a mac pro and this little thing holds its own against all of its other siblings in my mac family. However, it should be noted that this netbook doesn't contain a dual core processor it's a hyperthreaded atom processor. Nevertheless, with the runcore, if you don't run more than a couple of applications at a time you can't tell any system difference. It actually boots in 20 seconds and safari loads in half a bounce. If you try to save money and buy a subpar non runcore drive the mini will run sluggish and you will be disappointed.

As far as everything working, it works as advertised. Sleep works, updates work, wifi, ethernet. You should just google runcore direct install and do it that way using the supplied usb cable and a genuine mac.

Instead of carrying my huge 15 inch macbook pro or even the smaller macbook i use the mini. It is light and great for on the go work. The keyboard is small and a little uncomfortable but you get used to it. :apple:
 
It may be a good idea to wait a couple of weeks before you get the Dell mini 9. Dell just started shipping the mini 10v, which is *likely* to be hackintosh-compatible. The 10v has a larger screen, regular (upgradable) 2.5" SATA drive, and 6-cell battery. People are receiving the first wave of orders. You should be able to hear the results on OS X installation very soon.
 
Be aware, Hackintosh Netbooks tend to be buggy! There are a few articles on the web concerning this, but apparently, I've been drinkiah too mich to fund tose!
 
well, I have an ASUS eee900a that i bought from mwave.com for $165. It is great with linux, but I haven't tried OS X yet, as it needs a larger SSD for that. If you want a hard drive, go with the MSI wind. the u100 is the most common, but the u90, which is the u100 with a smaller screen and a bezel, which can be had for under $200 at zipzoomfly.com if you can get one. I hear that it is nearly 100% compatible with OS X right out of the box. No matter what you do, it will have some bugs though. I have a hackintosh, and I have had to do a lot of work to get the drivers working. then, I upgraded, and had to do it all over again.

It will work, but just be warned. It will require a lot of work.
 
The Acer Aspire one is dead simple to get 10.5.6 onto. I did 2 in 2 days. everything works except the internal wifi, but I bought a USB wifi dongle for 10 bucks and all is good. Very easy to replace the internal card also.



The web cam works, scrolling on the track pad, battery indicator.., very stable. Plus a bigger hard drive than the dell.

Just my 2 cents.
 
Hrududu said:
Okay, I really don't understand the whole "netbook" thing, but here is how I see it. I got a 1.5GHz 12" Powerbook for $320 and I honestly don't see why anyone would choose a netbook over a 12" PB aside from maybe the weight. I'll just start with the Dell Mini 9 since it seems to be the most popular for OSX installation. What do you get that makes it worth the price? It's hard drive is MUCH smaller than what came stock in the PB(unless you pay a fortune for the 64gb SSD), the processor is cheap Intel Atom that clocks no faster than the G4 did, it doesn't really hold much more RAM, the screen runs at the same resolution, and the battery life doesn't seem that much better. With the Powerbook you get the optical drive, a full set of ports to take advantage of, and a much cheaper option for hard drive upgrades. Not only that, but its got 64Mb of VRAM and runs OSX native without any hacking. Really, aside from the weight difference and the webcam (who honestly uses the webcam that much anyway?) why do so many people jump on these netbooks?
Click to expand...

I feel the exact same way. I'd much rather have an actual Apple product than try to rig up my own. Not to mention that the PowerBook 12" will always be cool :D
 
I have the HP Mini 700 and it runs OS X fully and perfectly.

My choice was between that and the Dell Mini 9 and the HP won it on looks (and the Dell was £30 more expensive).
 
Markleshark said:
I have the HP Mini 700 and it runs OS X fully and perfectly.

My choice was between that and the Dell Mini 9 and the HP won it on looks (and the Dell was £30 more expensive).
Click to expand...

I must agree that the HP does win in styling.

Is it just me, or does the bear resemblance to Alu MacBooks?
 
What size drive is the Mini 9? 1.8"? Is it easy to replace? The 16GB max is kind of a deal breaker for me. Otherwise I like it, for $250.
 
Why hasn't someone mentioned the Samsung NC10? It's a great netbook, not just good. It's got the best keyboard and battery life is rated accurately at 7+ hours. It's also pretty simple to Hackintosh with a guide you can find online. You would have to get a Dell wifi card though (1390, 1490, 1505 etc) to have the wifi work right when you install OSX. I have it dual booting XP & OSX 10.5.7 right now.

0330091447aMedium.jpg
 
Love my NC10, but when I tried installing Mac OS, too many things didn't work. The screen was stretched, audio out and ethernet didn't work and as you mentioned, WiFi.

XP ain't so bad so I've been running it and not bothering anymore with Mac OS. Now if I was trying to do heavy lifting with this computer, I wouldn't want to use XP, but I only use it for couch surfing and occasionally loading some digital photos when on the road.
 
No love for the original MSI Wind?

About the only thing that doesn't run reliably is the microphone in socket (not bothered personally) and work is well underway to resolve that. Am only personally interested in the headphone socket and there is a utility to make that work. There are also some issues with the webcam (again, not personally bothered) but most are resolvable.

Most stock wifi cards in a Wind will operate using the Railink utility (although I installed a Dell wifi card so I could use Airport - if you're going to open the machine up to install more memory anyway you might as well pop a more OS X-friendly wifi in there while it's open).

I have two finger scrolling working on the Wind's touchpad, Speedstep-compatible power management (so I get a full 7-odd hours out of a 9-cell battery). The OS X forum on forums.msiwind.net tell you everything you need to know and there are some excellent guides. The msiwindosx.iso that many Netbook guides refer to was originally intended for the Wind and will in most cases give you a fully operational install.

OS X is also a fine Netbook OS. Safari 4 particularly with the full page zoom feature helps eke out more screen real estate when browsing the web.

Ignore those who say "Hackintoshed Netbooks are always buggy". With all due respect to them, they don't know what they're talking about. You do need to be prepared to do a bit of work and research to get the machine right. I would also recommend you choose a machine that has an active OSX community who can help you. But once it's up and running (at least in my instance with my Wind) it's solid as a rock. I often find myself thinking that it's a better Mac than my Mac because I can just pop it into a bag without it taking up acres of space. In terms of processing power, clearly it's not on a par with top-end Macs or even my dual core Macbook, but I've even done Java development in Netbeans and JDeveloper on it at a push. It is nothing short of a crime that Apple haven't produced an official Netbook-format Mac. The form factor makes Netbooks the perfect compromise between PDAs and laptops, the price factor means you can just sling them in your bag and they take up no practical space, and if you lose them you're not going to be (too) suicidal over it.

Psystar have missed a trick here. And Apple have missed several.
 
I'm sure someone has brought this up already, but boing boing has a good netbook hackintosh compatibility chart that they update regularly.

I've done this to an msi wind and lenovo s10. The msi wind had the most compatibility of the two, but I was put off by the keyboard and the mattel build quality. The lenovo was a nice, well built solid little machine, but the right shift key drove me nuts, and the postage sized trackpad on both machines was less than desirable.

I'm using a last gen g4 powerbook as a netbook, and I honestly can't be happier with it. Keyboard, luxurious trackpad, and form factor makes it more usable to me than any netbook. 1. Why can't apple put an led backlit screen, preferably matte and intel core 2 duo goodness in the same form factor? 2. Why does everyone use the widescreen format? Do they think our favorite thing to do on a computer is scroll down?

That being said, I've been reading that they're preparing new 'ion' hardware for netbooks that include a more robust intel processor along with an nvidia 9400 gpu. That hardware in a hackintoshable machine MAY be enough to get me to reconsider...
 
Have an Acer Aspire One and was pretty satisfied. But I have to give some love to my actual laptop...
 
I had a Dell Mini 9 (top stock spec with 2GB RAM, 64GB DellS SSD, wifi, bluetooth, 1.3MP webcam etc.) running OS X flawlessly. It was great, sleep, iChat with webcam, bluetooth, everything worked fine.

Alas, the Intel GMA 950 and Intel Atom 1.6GHz wasn't powerful enough to play some movies I had and flash video on websites smoothly so that was kinda a deal-breaker for me. For everything else it worked perfectly though. Ended up giving it to a family member and she loves it!

If they ever develop an easy-to-install guide for one of the new Netbooks with the nVidia ION I'd give it another go since it can probably handle video better.
 
BlackMax said:
I've read the Eee PC 1000HE Netbook is really nice and can run nine plus hours on its battery. Not sure about OS X compatibility.
Click to expand...

I would go with Dell mini 9 or the mini HP. Al these are nothing special..Really, the only advice I have is - don't buy the Eee :eek: I know a couple that were returned, and personally I would spend an extra hundo for an HP or Dell even though the netbooks are all very cheap. The Dell and HP can be somewhat practical with their hardware, as the Eee is not going to cut it...

CrackBookPro:cool:
 
Anyone in the UK looking for a Hackbook Nano should check out the deals on PC World's website for the Advent 4211. They are reconditioned models which come with a full warranty for £199. The Advent 4211 is PC World's rebadged version of the Wind. Only a 80Gb disk but for a Netbook that should be plenty and you can always upgrade it if needed.

Edit: I hasten to add that I don't work for PC World, in fact, neither do I think they're any good particularly - but any UKers in the market for an OS X Netbook could do worse.
 
i had the hp mini. it has the smallest chasis out of any netbook. also the extended battery is located of the middle bottom of the laptop not the back. so if you buy an extended battery it doesnt stick out the back like many others.

my only beef with the hp mini is the screen doesnt open enough. its like it opens to a perfect L shape and thats it. not a big deal but takes some getting used to.

I didnt use it much so ended up getting rid of it. as long as you buy a netbook because you need one not just for the glory of having a netbook things will be fine. otherwise you will throw it into a corner next to that psp and end up selling it.
 
Acer

I have the Acer Aspire one white model. It is great and have had no problems with it. I am in lots of classes and it is the best little computer for the job. THey are very reasonably priced. THe acer I think has the biggest keyboard out of the netbooks. Hope you find what you are looking for.;)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back