Life with a windy hackintosh

I dropped my expensive macbook pro. It broke. Fortunately insurance paid out and I bought a new one. Then I dropped it, in exactly the same circumstances (although this one didn't break). So yes, I'm an idiot. Because I'm not as wealthy as Stephen Fry I can't afford to keep buying Macs so decided I needed something cheaper as a day to day carry about computer.

I'd been interested by netbooks but the few I'd looked at didn't suit my needs. However the MSI Wind U100 seemed to be getting generally good reviews, and a lot of people had successfully installed OS X.

I ended up with the Advent branded version called the 4211C (£200 from the PC World online refurb section). Installed a bigger hard disk, another gig of RAM, OS X Leopard and I'm very happy. I also bought an extended battery, it adds weight and bulk to the machine, but also doubles up as a handy carry handle. That wouldn't be for everyone but it gives me a good 5+ hours use. I like that.

I've been using this machine now for several months and it's become my main day to day computer. The wind is a well built little machine for the money with a very usable keyboard and a nice bright screen. It runs OS X well. The user experience is nicer than the installed Windows XP Home, then again I do just prefer OS X. Give it some serious thinking to do and you soon encounter the limitations of the Atom N270 processor, but I'm even using the machine to put together some radio programmes for the BBC. Rendering the project on Reaper can take a little while, but that isn't the end of the world.

There are a few little niggles with Leopard on the Wind however. It's necessary to mess about with some drivers (.kext files) to get the display working in the correct resolution. Sound isn't perfect: on install it's built in speakers only. A bit of messing about can give you the headphone socket but no mic or external input. I also haven't managed to get the webcam to work at all. Wifi is something of a compromise: the standard realtek card isn't recognized by OS X, but realtek have made a utility that makes it work well enough. On the subject of networking the ethernet needs a manual DHCP prod after the machine's been asleep.

That's quite a list of niggles, but for me it really hasn't been a problem. What I've gained in a small, cheap, highly portable and adequately powerful computer running my favourite OS makes it worth dealing with these things.

I do hope Apple enter the netbook fray and build something like this, complete with the perfectly smooth user experience us Apple users have come to expect. In the meantime idiots like me who can't be trusted not to drop their Macbook can instead potentially destroy something that's about a 7th of the cost.