Is hacking a netbook to run Mac OS X really worth the trouble? Two tech journalists today expressed grief with their Hackbooks, so I felt like chiming in with my thoughts about my somewhat controversial MSI Wind Hackintosh. In short, my Hackintosh and I have been pals for six months, but it’s been a pretty bumpy ride.
When I first bought my Wind in October, I was thrilled after successfully hacking it to run Mac OS X Leopard. I loved the netbook so much, in fact, that I almost stopped using my first-generation MacBook Pro altogether. To express my delight, I even made a custom wallpaper for my netbook featuring my favorite childhood ice cream flavor (Superman). The Wind was a great companion device: I use an iMac in the office, so when I got home the dumbed-down, lightweight netbook was perfect for web surfing, chatting and general unwinding.
But over time the problems started surfacing. Like Wired.com’s Charlie Sorrel, I grew to despise the Wind’s dinky trackpad: Whoever designed it had in mind an infant’s hands; navigating became so tiresome that I started carrying around an external mouse to make it tolerable.
Second, the software issues. Seeing as this netbook was hacked to run OS X, of course it didn’t work perfectly. I accepted that, and with some tweaks I got most software utilities working properly. But while I was traveling in Europe, my netbook’s Wi-Fi suddenly stopped working. The Airport utility simply wouldn’t light up, and I discovered a few fixes that worked temporarily, only for the connection to fail again. As you can imagine, a netbook without the net in a foreign country was a huge drag — a piece of useless plastic added to my luggage. I ended up barely using my netbook during my trip, and I instead heavily relied on my problem-free iPhone.
When I returned home, I completely reinstalled OS X, and Wi-Fi worked once again. And then the hardware issues kicked in. Minor ones, actually: Screws at the bottom of the clamshell kept falling out, even after I screwed them in as tightly as possible. I inspected the case more closely and realized it no longer clamps all the way shut, which is why the screws aren’t staying in. This issue was probably a result of cheap plastic or shoddy clamshell design. Unfortunately this created another annoying problem: The battery kept popping out of the case ever so slightly — just enough to shut off the computer whenever I nudged the netbook. I eventually resolved the problem with some double-sided tape, but I wasn’t happy about it.
Given all these issues, I became pretty jaded about my netbook — hence my lack of mentioning it here at Wired.com in recent months. I ended up selling my MacBook Pro and buying the latest unibody model refurbished, and now I rarely use my netbook. So unfortunately, I have to agree with Dave “MacSparky” Sparks and The Unofficial Apple Weblog’s Steven Sande, who both grew frustrated with their Dell Mini 9 Hackintoshes. It’s a fun hacking project, but it’s like the fixed-gear bicycle you built but left sitting in the garage, because over time you realized it was too impractical.
Photo: Brian X. Chen/Wired.com
