If you're into hackintoshes, today may be the final day to pick up a truly OS X ready netbook--the Dell Mini 9.
The little road warrior from Dell has been available for some time already. Most recently, Dell reduced the price of the Mini 9 down to $250. But just for today only, Dell is selling the Mini 9 for a stealing deal of $200.
But what makes the Mini 9 the perfect hackintosh platform? The hardware. All the hardware that's included in the Mini 9 works natively with Apple's OS X Leopard. Everything from graphics acceleration, sound, Ethernet, WiFi works--heck, even the webcam works. The standard hardware that comes with the $200 base build of the Mini 9 include the following:
- Obsidian black color (any other color choices will tack on a minimum of $30)
- Intel Atom N270 (1.6 GHz with 512 KB cache)
- 512 MB of DDR 2 (upgradeable to a single 2 GB SO-DIMM)
- 4 GB SSD (you need at least the 16 GB option to properly install and use OS X, although we recommend 32 GB or the 64 GB option)
You'll have to pick up an external DVD drive too, unless you plan to use a big USB stick to install Leopard (Gizmodo has an excellent guide on this).
You will also need a retail copy of the Leopard installation DVD. No patching of the OS is required, and everything works, so you'll be able to perform system updates without worrying about hosing your Mini 9.
As a side note, Dell's 3G option for the Mini 9 works with OS X just fine, making the Mini 9 a really good travel companion. For those who don't like the Mini 9, consider possibly the Lenovo S10. The only issue with the S10 is that Ethernet doesn't work properly, but WiFi and everything else works. Check out the netbook OS X compatibility guide from BoingBoing.
