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Old 04-27-2009, 01:45 PM
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Voyn1x Voyn1x is offline
 
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Road Tested: Why the hackb00k is a fail

tuaw.com, April 27, 2009:

"A tweet this afternoon pointed me to a post by Dave "MacSparky" Sparks titled The Netbook Experiment, in which he talked about his disappointment with a Dell mini 9 netbook. Since I was about to send out a tweet to the world at large announcing the sale of my Dell mini 9, I found it fascinating that Sparks had a similar experience to mine.

I wrote about creating a hackintosh (AKA hackb00k) out of a Dell mini 9 in a long post back in October of 2008, and at that time I was fairly impressed with the low cost and capabilities of the device. However, after actually using the mini 9 for six months, I find it almost useless as a "real computer" and have decided that it needs to go. The moral of the story? You definitely get what you pay for, and a $499 computer is not going to be a productivity tool. Even if you delude yourself into thinking that since you're only going to use it for email it will be a worthwhile investment, you're wrong. If you want to know how I came to these conclusions, read on.
My first real work with the mini 9 began in November, when I decided to acclimate myself to its diminutive keyboard by using it during NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) to work on a novel. Sure, it was easy to carry, especially in the tailor-made Dell bag. Yes, it had pretty good battery life. It booted quickly with the 16GB SSD inside it. But other than that, it was a total pain to work with.

To begin with, I'm accustomed to using the trackpad on my MacBook Air with multi-touch gestures. After reading how some other hackb00k users had been able to get multi-touch gestures working, I applied the appropriate patches and gave it a try. Sure, it worked for a little bit, and then began to irritate me when the gestures would fail. I decided to use a cheap micro-mouse instead, which meant that two of the USB ports were now filled -- one with the cable for the mouse, and the other for the Sprint wireless broadband dongle that I use when I'm on the road. I suppose I could have used the Apple Wireless Mighty Mouse instead, but it just didn't seem right spending $79 for a mouse for a $499 computer.

Next, I found the keyboard almost unusable. I have relatively small hands, and even my little mitts had difficulty typing on the cramped keyboard of the mini 9. One problem I kept having over and over was trying to type an apostrophe (single quote). Every keyboard I've ever used to touch-type has the apostrophe in the same place -- just to the left of the return key in the home row (ASDF...) of the keyboard. On the mini 9, it was located down two rows near the space bar. Since I have been touch-typing for about 40 years, my finger kept hitting the Dell's enter key every time I wanted to type an apostrophe." [...]

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  #2  
Old 04-28-2009, 01:11 AM
xXrkidXx xXrkidXx is offline
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what can people expect? its not going to work EXACTLY like an actual Apple computer, your just modifying software, when I made my hackint0sh, i expected nothing more than the OS X software experience. Thats what I got, and for a little bit, more. I had sound for awhile but gave up after I understood my sound card was rarely supported(Realtek ACL860). I might buy a Dell Mini 9 because I leave all summer and I need a computer. I will sure try to get OS X on it, solely for the purpose of being able to stay connected to everything so far from my home.(and the fact I <3 Apple lol). I expect nothing more, multi touch gestures? Ha! Use keyboard macros. That is my 2 cents

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Old 05-09-2009, 02:18 PM
TechSgtChen TechSgtChen is offline
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The writer is a fool. He picked the wrong netbook. I never would have picked an SSD. The 120GB HD on my Wind is the perfect capacity for on the go. The Wind keyboard is also fine. Just because he didn't research the Mini 9 keyboard beforehand is no reason to say all netbooks stink. And the trackpad has no Multitouch so he gets an external mouse? What kind of logic is that? Does the mouse have Multitouch?

In fact, a few months ago, I sold my iMac and had to make do with my Wind with 2GB RAM while building my Hackintosh. It worked just fine for the two weeks it took to build the new computer. With my old USB keyboard and mouse, a 24" LCD and external USB drives plugged in, I barely noticed that I wasn't on my genuine Mac.
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Old 05-09-2009, 04:41 PM
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Taisto Taisto is offline
 
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"To begin with, I'm accustomed to using the trackpad"
"Next, I found the keyboard almost unusable. I have relatively small hands, and even my little mitts had difficulty typing on the cramped keyboard of the mini 9."

etc.

I guess that`s his problem that he has too big hands to use mini keyboard. Probably never heard about 'try before you buy', or just go to the shop and touch it.
What is rather dissapointing is that he didn`t say much about how the OS was doing. Most of the text is his complaints about how small, hard to use the netbook is. Of course real MacBooks are better working etc. but i think HackBooks are almost as good as real ones, especially if you put some research and work in it. Well, i wouldnt say that this is any valuable review of osx86 project on note/net books.


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Old 05-09-2009, 10:21 PM
throttlemeister throttlemeister is offline
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Why is everybody here reacting like they just have been anally invaded? The man tried something, and it didn't work out for him. Sure, the title is made up to draw people in, but still this is about him, not you or me. News value 0. Move on.

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  #6  
Old 05-10-2009, 06:10 AM
TechSgtChen TechSgtChen is offline
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Taisto got it right. The name of the article should have been "Why the Dell Mini 9 is a fail for me." Nothing the author wrote was about the Mac experience on a netbook. It was all, "I can't type on it. I can't point on it without a mouse." He would have had the exact same complaints if it was running Windows or Linux. He doesn't even know what full Multitouch is. If he ever used an iGesture pad, he'd learn how limited the Multitouch that he so adores on Macbooks really is. They can take my iGesture when they slide it out from under my cold, dead hand. I think it's just buyer's remorse for spending $500 on a netbook.



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