Posting this from my minty fresh Mini9 with a retail install of OS X on it. Amazing little netbook, easily as fast for what I need it for as my "real" Mac Mini. It took a bit of work to get the install to work (Finder kept crashing, there was a library missing) and the keyboard is a bit small but it's 2 pounds, will run 3+ hours on battery and fits in my glovebox. It also makes my 17" laptop screen seem HUGE when I switch back. For $230 I'm very happy.
How did you put a retail copy on it? I thought you needed to DL a special ISO to make the install work. I love my MBP, but I think something like that would be a lot of fun to mess around with, more useful than my iPhone, but way more portable than the MBP. Although I am interested to see what the supposed forthcoming 10" Apple touchacreen device ends up being.
The retail installs with the use of a bootloader to get the retail image to boot, and then there's a package of EFI modifications to make everything work properly. There's a good writeup at Gizmodo.com and lots of support at mydellmini.com I used 2 USB drives to install, one with the bootloader and the patches on it and the other 8gb drive with a restored image of the retail DVD on it. The process is amazingly simple, it took about an hour to get the install completed, but another 6 or so to figure out my Finder problem but thanks to google I'm typing on it right now. The 8GB SSD model I got is a little tight, I've only got about 1.2GB of free space and I skipped a bunch of things on the install like Address Book, iTunes, and Mail but I've got all the functionality I need, and I can us 2GB SD cards to expand the memory using the built in card reader. Once my bluetooth dongle gets here from Hong Kong I'll be able to use my crackberry as a bluetooth modem and be connected anytime, anywhere.
Did it recognize all the hardware? Do the Fn keys work properly?
I bought a Mini9 and promptly installed Ubuntu w/ Netbook Remix. I'm liking it so far. Took a few days to get all the Fn keys working properly, but everything else (wifi, bluetooth, touchpad, sound) was plug-and-play.
Everything, and I mean everything, was plug and play once the DellEFI script was run and works exactly as on my "real" mac mini. All the hardware works, all the Fn keys work, it sleeps and wakes up, etc. Hibernation doesn't work (I don't have the disc space for it anyway, and with sleep working or a 20 second full boot who cares!) and you can't use memory cards other than SD cards in the reader but that's it. It seems Dell chose the parts for this rig to mesh perfectly with OSX. I don't have built in bluetooth and haven't gotten my dongle yet but if it doesn't work well when I get it I can always retrofit the stock Dell bluetooth for like $20 in parts and 20 minutes of time, and that's known to work. It's a beautiful thing really.
I do not know anything about the Mini9. How close is it to an EEEPC?
mad_machine wrote: I do not know anything about the Mini9. How close is it to an EEEPC?
I bought a basic Mini 9 a while back when they were on sale for $199. So far, so good.
I'm taking it to Antigua tomorrow.
mad_machine wrote: I do not know anything about the Mini9. How close is it to an EEEPC?
Same concept. Tiny, well-priced, laptop. Good for surfing and light email. Too small for heavy productivity use, and not enough CPU for heavy processing (graphics, streaming 1080p video). But, for sitting on the couch in the evening, it's great. And for family vacation, it's great.
wonder how one would work as a CarPC?
mad_machine wrote: wonder how one would work as a CarPC?
That would depend on what you want the car-pc to do. Most netbooks don't have stand-alone video or sound cards - sound and video are on the motherboard - not a bad thing, but it does mean they have less capability. For example, no digital output, just an aux jack and headphone jack. No S-video or HDMI out, just VGA (except the Dell Mini10 - it appears to have HDMI). So, if you just want it to drive stereo audio and basic video on the laptop screen, it would work. But, driving Dolby (or other "surround sound") audio or external monitors is probably too much.
That said, there are plenty of 13"-14" laptops that are <$700 and do have better multi-media hardware. They would probably work fine for most car-pc tasks. Just find one with HDMI out if you want to drive external LCDs, etc.
I'm taking it to Antigua tomorrow.
Packing List for Antigua:
Shorts Sandals Cash
You need to get your priorities straight!
Couple questions: How does one find one of these for under $200? And is it possible to put a normal HD (or at least a bigger SSD) in one? I'd want to do a full install of OSX, iWork, and iLife with some room left over if I had one.
Dell Outlet has them at $199 once in a blue moon.
Not sure about swapping the SSD for a HDD - the SDD is pretty small, so I doubt if there is space. You can find 32gb and 64gb SSDs, which would leave a lot of space for apps and data.
FWIW, I have the 16gb SSD. The OS partition is 4gb and almost full (standard Ubuntu distro, w/ OpenOffice3 and a LAMP server). The /home partition has 5 gb of mp3s plus some other random stuff, so I still have plenty of space left for data.
I have an Acer Aspire One. I got it at Wally World and they are $298 with XP on them. My friend bought one to use as a MP3 player in the garage.
So from those reviews it looked as though the Mini9 was favored to the competition.
Is this still the case? What about the Mini12?
I've been wanting a netbook for school, to take notes in class, have in the car for internet cafes and locality research when on vacation.
I have the Acer too...I am using it right now.
I mainly use it to take notes in class, browse the internet, and play pandora.
PHeller wrote: So from those reviews it looked as though the Mini9 was favored to the competition. Is this still the case? What about the Mini12? I've been wanting a netbook for school, to take notes in class, have in the car for internet cafes and locality research when on vacation.
The Mini12 is a lot like the Mini9, just bigger. I think the main difference is going to be HDD availablity - the 12 has a normal HDD, while the 9 has a SSD. They both use a variant of the Intel Atom processer. Different chip-set, but similar features.
The Mini10 is a newer design (at least ergonomically) with a closer-to-full-size keyboard and HDMI output. That would be my pick if I were buying today.
My wife has an EEE with the larger 10.9" screen and a 120 GB hard drive, running XP. She loves it. Since most of her computer time is of the "reading email on the couch" variety, it's perfect for her and I get to borrow it to take to the track and run with the Traqmate :) The battery life on the thing is at least 5 hours.
Haven't been tempted to pump it full of OSX, though.
In for 2 :).
I saw them at $189 and $199 this morning and got one of each (a refurb for $189 and a previously ordered new for $199). I fully plan to get OSX running on both of them. One will be mine and one will be my dad's, so we don't have to drag our MBPs everywhere :). The cheapy configurations I got are both 4gb SSDs, but I plan to install something bigger before I set it up. Dad's will get 32GB and mine gets 16 (he wants more apps on board and has more money than me 
). They also come with 512mb of ram, but I have a pair of 1GB chips that came out of my MBP that will fit nicely. If I can get these things tethered to my iPhone 3G once the 3.0 software is out that will be great.
Any other OSX tips for these things?
Pigeon, does your bluetooth dongle work? I just ordered one for $3 shipped (HA!) off ebay. Even if it doesn't work I'm only out half a beer, big deal.
First post from the Mini9 after the OSXification! Got both of them up and running, going pretty well so far. I have 6gb free on a 16gb drive after installing without printer drivers or languages I'll never speak. Some initial thoughts - still getting used to the keymapping. I constantly enter instead of shift, and quotes on the space row are just WRONG imo. Also am a bit annoyed by the sleep performance. Sometimes it wakes right up on open, sometimes it needs to be prodded with the spacebar. Other times it needs me to hit the power button before it will wake. Is this happening to you, pigeon?
Other than that, and the lack of touchpad scrolling for now, this thing is AWESOME. Very good use of $240 :).
The sleep thing may not be a Mini9 issue. My MacBook occasionally needs a spacebar prod to wake from sleep. I suspect that's an OS bug. I've never had to hit the power button, though.
I just got a mini9 on tuesday, so far just keeping ubuntu on it for now. Got it brand new on special with the 8gb ssd for $199 ... with free shipping ... then tacked on the AAA discount dell offers. Ended up being $195 to my door.
As Josh noted, the keyboard is a little goofy, but definitely useable. The " location, and not having a tilde key or F11 or F12 is a little bothersome. But the actual typing is pretty reasonable, the keys are large enough with a good feel.
Next step is going to be throwing in the 2gb memory upgrade and the 32gb ssd upgrade ... a pretty formidable little computer for less than $300.
Josh wrote: If I can get these things tethered to my iPhone 3G once the 3.0 software is out that will be great.
You can do it now, just Jailbreak it with Pwnage Tool, and install iPhonemodem. The whole process takes about two hours (by the time you have synced again, etc, etc.)
I have done this to mine and my dad's iphone, and it works great. We use it all the time when we are traveling.
By the way, as a side benefit, you get video recording, different themes, and all the other goodies that come with jailbreaking.
Sorry I was away from this thread for a while. The bluetooth dongle sort of worked, it recognized and talked to my cell phone but wouldn't ever pair with it. I intend to order the Dell parts to install the internal bluetooth one of these days.
Sleep with the lid isn't wonky at all for me, but I think I know what you're talking about. Did you use DellEFI 1.1? I had all sorts of minor but weird issues with that. I backtracked to version 1.07 and it works flawlessly again. It's usually fully awake and connected back to my network by the time I get the lid all the way open, and I never have to prod it to wake up. Also make sure the BIOS is up to A04.
I did the 2gb memory upgrade, and don't see much if any performance improvement, but I really only use it as a netbook and never exhausted the memory so I'm not surprised. If I ever get around to throwing a 16 or 32gb ssd drive (SuperTalent seems to be the cheap hot setup, vs the Runcore which is fast but pricey and limited availability) I'll install the full iLife suite, iTunes and Aperture and then we'll see what this puppy can really do 
There are fresh (within the last week) touchpad drivers out on mydellmini that are supposed to give touchpad scrolling and make the touchpad two finger enabled, but I haven't wanted to mess with a good thing.
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