Mac Mini Has Arrived
I’m not made of money though it would be convenient. However, I did order a Mac Mini for a variety of reasons, and while I won’t be the first, or last, to write about it, it is imminent, complete with some HTPC (or would that be HTM?) impressions.
I can hardly wait to see what it’s like, especially after it gets a new hard drive and more RAM.
Oh, and this is an experiment in posting from my iPhone. I’m curious what it’ll look like.
Intel SU2700 and Intel GS40
Computex is going on strong right now in Tapei, and that of course means there’s a whole hell of a lot of announcements, product appearances, and generally, news, than I could possibly ever hope to cover. However, I’ll probably throw a note out here for the more interesting things, and it just so happens that I find the Intel SU2700, a new CULV CPU, and the Intel GS40 to be interesting. What are they? Glad you asked.
Lenovo IdeaPad S12 Netbook With nVidia Ion
Just when it seemed like netbooks were doomed to all be the exact same, chassis aside, Asus decided to unveil the Asus Eee PC 1000HE netbook that has been racking up almost nothing but rave reviews, and for good reason. And then Samsung decided to bring out the Samsung N120 netbook, a 10″ netbook with a 100% sized 12″ keyboard, and it’s good. So what else can come out now that would shake up the netbook community? How about one of those damn promised nVidia Ion based netbooks? Here’s where the Lenovo IdeaPad S12 netbook comes into play.
OS X 10.5.7 Battery Boost For Hackintoshes?
Update: 10.5.7 appears to be installed and working on my Samsung N120 netbook. At the lowest brightness setting (since brightness control is flaky in the Samsung N120 netbook) OS X is predicting over 7 hours of battery life (6 hours for the LCD at full brightness). This is up from ~5 in 10.5.6. Apple has definitely tweaked OS X for the Atom, or something close enough that it still affected it.
As you may or may not know, Apple released the 10.5.7 update to OS X just a couple of days ago, and reports are trickling in to various sites (including our forums here) and they seem to suggest that the 10.5.7 update adds support for Intel Atom CPUs. Furthermore, it would seem that officially (?) recognizing the CPU, Apple has worked out superior power management that is resulting in a significant boost to battery life.
Samsung N120 Netbook First Impressions
Update: Guide to install OS X on Samsung N120 netbook
So I received my Samsung N120 netbook today and figured I’d go ahead and blab a bit about since I have for all of the others as well. Here’s the deal: in person, white looks pretty cheap, there’s a fair amount of wasted bezel space, and it has an absolutely miserable out-of-the-box experience that’s bound to seriously annoy some people (and maybe even get it returned because it’s so unbearable). But, it’s not all bad.
Samsung N120 Netbook On the Way (OS X Install Imminent!)
Samsung N120 netbook - can't you see it's just dying to have OS X installed on it?
Update: Guide to install OS X on Samsung N120 netbook
Okay, so I’m a sucker for a big keyboard on a small computer, and within about 20 minutes of realizing that within the grossly obese pantheon of netbooks that the Samsung N120 netbook was actually available (and had been for about a week — oops). I know I haven’t mentioned this one here, but in case you’re wondering what makes this one special, well, two things: 10.5 hour (yeah, right, we’ll see about that) battery, and more importantly, full size keyboard. Read that again: full size keyboard.
Acer Aspire Revo Nettop Coming Soon – Ion-based HTPC?
It’s not secret I’m a fan of low-power, high-utility computers, and while we’re waiting for the Asus EeeBox PC B208 to come out and fill the gaping void of a low-powered, low-cost computer that can serve as an HTPC, it looks like Acer is getting ready to hit the market with their own. While the specs don’t look to be fully decided yet, one thing is very clear: this is going to use the nVidia Ion solution that Intel should have adopted (or at least made their own sucky graphics card on par with) some time ago.