[geeks] Netbook/OS X suggestions?

[Lionel Peterson]

On Jan 1, 2010, at 2:05 PM, William Barnett-Lewis  
<wlewisiii at gmail.com> wrote:

> Happy 2010 all!
>
> Well, the coke spill from a few months back is catching up to my
> Macbook. The fan has died  & overheating occurs rather often as a
> result. We can't afford a new Mac or even what Apple repair wants
> ($800!).

After Rebate, that's what I paid for a brand-new MacBook (2.26 GHz/2  
Gig/250 Gig/SD) at microcenter.com...

> OTOH, we _might_ be able to afford a netbook. What is the best
> compromise between cost, ability to take the SATA drive from this
> machine, & hacking OS X to work on it?  The MSI Wind looked good back
> when the spill first happened, but is it still? Is there something
> better? Cheaper? Faster :) ? I've got 3 gig in this, if the sticks can
> be recycled that would be a plus.

All the netbooks I'm aware of are hardware limited to 2 Gig, and  
usually ship with 1 Gig of RAM, to satisfy MS netbook pricing  
requirements.

Dell has some nice Vostro laptops in the $400-450 range, but dunno  
about Hackintosh-ability...

I thought the Dell Minis were pretty good for faux-Macs, but the real  
wildcats appeared to be the WiFi card, which can usually be replaced  
for $20-30 on eBay, IIRC.

> Any tips on this new year's day?

Keyboards and screen resolutions are the big differentiators, I'd say  
be sure and touch the devices your considering before purchase...

Consider the low-end laptops as well, you can get a lot more machine  
for $100 more than a netbook, IMHO.

Lionel