This is great Andy. Thanks as usual for dispelling many of the worries and myths of the device (also got a Drobo and Flip MinoHD based off of your pieces).

I think you could go so far as to say it's currently 'the' best of all the netbooks as it's the only one for which all the major components work out of the box (wifi, ethernet, camera, video, audio).
gadgets.boingboing.net/2008/12/17/osx-netbook-compatib.html (for anyone interested in a comparison)

I've done an EEE 8G and a Samsung NC10 and both required a lot of effort and still have shortcomings compared to the Mini 9.

Oh king Live forever!

Great review Andy, thanks!

Really great review. Thank goodness this was for educational purposes and the Apple Legal team hasn't knocked on your door yet. Andy? Andy?!

Et tu, Andy? You wouldn't be evangelizing such hackintosh tomfoolery all over the internets if Steve were still alive.

Seriously though, I was about 90 percent ready to pull the trigger on my own Mini 9 [to hug it and pet it and call it George and UNLEASH THE LEOPARD (!!!!) upon its poor, unsuspecting Ubuntu soul (or XP - whatever install was cheapest that day)].

But then I read your Sun Times column. Then I looked at your video and darned if you didn't put the (Apple) seed of doubt and fear in my mind.

I imagined it just as you foretold. I'd be basking in the Mac OS enlightenment of my diminutive Dell, when there would come swift, terrible, unspeakable acts of retribution from on high (aka Cupertino). Tim Cook would give the signal to his henchman to throw the switch and millions of Hackintoshes would proceed to Sad Mac then BSOD then...whatever a Linux machine does when things go irrevocably bad (a penguin explodes?) and millions of voices would suddenly cry out in terror then suddenly be silenced.

And, only once we former OS transplanters had fully atoned for our EULA-related sins... only THEN would Apple unveil the holy (i)Tablets, whose commandments will dictate that "thy Snow Leopard will not lie with thine Penguin, nor with the Windows of Gates. And thy hardware should only bear the image of fruit."

Still, it's becoming increasingly difficult to resist the temptation of putting that Apple OS where it doesn't belong.

Thanks for the in-depth review Andy. It makes it very tempting. I really wish Apple would make a MacBook Air “for the rest of us.”

Great demo, Andy. Not sure a netbook would be the machine to hack for me, but nevertheless, great demo!

Fear not Chicken Little. The sky hath not yet fallen, Steve Jobs is still alive and the Dell Mini makes a GREAT Mini MacBook. I have purchased a copy of the Family license version of OS X 10.5.6 just for the occasion. There are now 3 Mini MackBooks floating around my portion of the COSMOS.

There will be many Minis that will soon begin to rule binary world because of their hackintoshability.

Billions and Billions (as Carl Sagan would say)

This is a VERY tempting solution for me... Mom needs something that can surf maps.google.com without crashing and apparently my 8 year old iBook is no longer footing that bill.

This looks great?! Anyone tried the same with a Dell Mini 10 to get real hard disk space? Wondering if the underlying hardware is the same with the same compatibility.
If not in 8GB can you get the Xcode editor there for some hacking on the go?!

The Mini 10 is a nonstarter; there's currently no working Hackintosh scheme for it. The Mini 9 works so well because many OS X drivers will work out of the box.

Great review Andy. Did you manage to test the line-in and headphone ports by any chance? The great thing about all current Apple hardware is that you are pretty much set for Garageband recording out of the box. I'm just worried the Mini 9 line-in will be terrible quality or will have a lot of latency. Do you have any thoughts on this?

Thanks for the review, Andy. I had been considering upgrading from the Eee PC 701 to the Dell Mini 9 for a while, but this video made me go for it! I ordered my Mini on Tuesday and am now eagerly awaiting its arrival so I can hackintosh it to my heart's content. :-)

FILLED A HOLE with this walkthrough! Most Hackintosh guides don't show it in action, so you don't know what to expect.

One suggestion for next time re: videos like this would be to film in HD, since this was kinda fuzzy and it was hard to see the screen's details.

THANX Andy!

lol. Why would you even want OS X on a device like this when Linux is much better suited?

This video walkthrough is marvelous. Here's a walkthrough of the OS X-on-Dell Mini 9 experience that's just as good, but written out. xlr8yourmac.com/systems/OSXonDellMini9/OSXonDellMini9.html

lose some wieghts . good video thought

Can you make a tutorial on how to do this. I would love to know how and will this work on a sony vaio pc
Adam