According to Wired, the recent Mac OS X 10.5.7 update has apparently given Hackintosh netbooks a significant boost to battery life of up to 33%.

Here’s a rather odd little tidbit regarding Apple’s latest update to OS X. While it doesn’t bring many -new features to the Mac, consisting as it does of-mostly-bug-fixes, OS X 10.5.7 apparently gives a significant boost to battery-life on hackintoshes. Reports from the MSI Wind forums are claiming a boost up to 33%, from-3 hr 45 min to a shade over five hours, using a six-cell-4400 mAh battery.

"It’s entirely possible that the OS update contains better power management for the Mac. What is surprising, though, is that it is having such an impact on these hackintoshes, which are notoriously bad for battery usage when running OS X. Needless to say, I’m grabbing the huge (729MB) update for my Wind right now. With its monster nine-cell battery, I’m hoping to get around ten hours of use out of it. I’ll let you know how it goes."

Recently there has been speculation that Apple 'might' be entering the netbook market with it's own fabled product. This update, which seems to provide better power management and support for low end processors such as the Intel Atom, has further increased speculation that a new product could be around the corner.

However, speculation is nothing more than rumours and guesses and should be taken with a pinch of salt.