dell mini 10v

A big thanks to Dad for sending me his seldom-used Dell mini 10v Netbook. I had it for less than an hour before I started the hackintosh procedure. The 10.6 snow leopard install worked well, but I lost audio and some other functions when I upgraded to 10.6.2. Fortunately, there's a fix for that, and the creators of this excellent hack had it built right in. After searching the web for an hour looking for answers (I found many, but few were helpful), I came to the realization that all I needed to do was run Netbook Installer, which was conveniently added to my applications folder when the OS was installed.

Now everything's back up and running, and I've got a teeny tiny little Mac Snow Leopard netbook that's about half the size and a third the weight of my first generation 15" MBP. I got the netbook for free from Dad (who got it free from Dell when he bought a desktop unit last fall), but if you were going to buy this, it's available from dell for $249. It's another $30 to buy OSX Snow Leopard at the local apple store, and after that it's just time and patience.

So if you want an ultraportable mac laptop for less than $300, and you're not afraid to tinker, I highly recommend scooping up a Dell mini 10v. The only thing I'd add is the bigger battery option, which I think adds about $35.

hackintosh instructions here: http://gizmodo.com/5389166/how-to-hackintosh-a-dell-mini-10v-into-the-ultimate-snow-leopard-netbook