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Sell OSX Netbook for iPad?

D

dazcox5181

Suspended
Original poster
Jun 12, 2005
342
75
Essex, UK
My situation is this.

I have a real mac, a 2007 macbook pro 17" that i'm happy with for heavy use.

My main machine that goes everywhere is my MSI wind running OSX 10.6.3 quite happily - note this is a 10" netbook as Steve put 'that isn't good at anything'...

Well, mine running OSX does 90% of what the macbook does. Every day it runs connected to a 22" lcd as my work machine; and comes with me when I travel for work.

I think though that I want an iPad, and to help finance it am considering selling my netbook.

My question is has anyone here done similar - I'd still have the macbook for development work or video editing/itunes/photo editing; but for me most of what I do is based on email and web...

Just want some opinions (of which there are always plenty on here)

Thanks
 
I'm selling my quad core Win 7 machine after getting my iPad. I didn't use it much after I got my MBP, but I really stopped using it when I got the iPad. I still have a server in my basement, and if I need more processing power for something, I just use the RDP Lite app on the iPad to connect to the server.

My PC ended up being just a machine for browsing the internet and listening to music. I use to tinker around, but now after coming home from work troubleshooting servers and fixing stuff the helpdesk can't figure out, I just want something that works. Which is why the iPad is so great and I don't miss my PC at all.
 
I am all for buying an iPad, especially a 3G. But I think you should know exactly what an iPad is before selling something else to buy one. Have you spent time with one at an Apple store?
 
It depends on how you are going to use it. I haven't used my laptop since the iPad arrived.

This is a pretty good article on trying to use the iPad instead of a notebook/netbook:

http://www.slashgear.com/two-weeks-of-travel-ten-ipad-lessons-1385488/

From the article:

Overall, I’ve been pleased with the experience and find that there’s enough functionality to make the iPad useful for not only content consumption but content creation. So why not just use a netbook? Easy, while netbooks offer much of the functionality I lack on the iPad, it comes at too high a price. Lower screen resolutions, slower than my laptop performance and cramped keyboards are too many tradeoffs for me. The instant on capabilities, fast performance combined with a full XGA screen make the iPad experience unique, not quite a laptop but certainly more than just a large iPod touch.
Click to expand...
 
Dell Hackintosh is a dust collector...

Dude..I would sell the MSI and get an iPad in a heartbeat. I have a Dell Mini 9 that I hacked to run OSX. It's nice but the iPad is MUCH nicer. I'm not going to get into the specs (they are everywhere) but the screen is #1 reason. The battery life is #2. The bullet-proof (but sandboxed) OS is #3. You can list the next 3 or 4...but I would say the 'handiness' is #4.

And yeah, the iPad is Mobile OS based and the MSI is OSX based..but for media consumption (it's targeted feature) and general use, the iPad is great.
I would say it does a better job as an 'Apple Netbook' than a 'Hackintosh Netbook'.

YMMV...just my personal answer to your question....
 
My Hackintosh Netbook (Lenovo S10) has always been a toy to me. I mainly bought it and gave it the hackintosh treatment because it was cheap ($250) and looked like "fun" rainy day project. I got it running just fine -- dual boot 10.6, Win 7 last time I updated -- but the OS X part is always quirky, and the keyboard is downright lousy. Still, pretty neat trick for $250.

I bought an iPad because I wanted an iPad. It was not to relieve my S10, but in a way it did. My S10 was at my breakfast table. I used it mostly to surf when eating or look something up when cooking. Well, a few days after my iPad came home, the S10 went in the closet. I just did not have a need for it anymore.

I did not sell it because 1) I paid $250 for it new. What's a used netbook worth $100. That's like giving it away, esp. with Win 7 installed. And 2) It has Win 7. At the least I can use it as an emergency Win machine when some gadget does not like Boot Camp -- especially some older legacy devices I have that require a serial to USB adapter.
 
dazcox5181 said:
My situation is this.

I have a real mac, a 2007 macbook pro 17" that i'm happy with for heavy use.

My main machine that goes everywhere is my MSI wind running OSX 10.6.3 quite happily - note this is a 10" netbook as Steve put 'that isn't good at anything'...

Well, mine running OSX does 90% of what the macbook does. Every day it runs connected to a 22" lcd as my work machine; and comes with me when I travel for work.

I think though that I want an iPad, and to help finance it am considering selling my netbook.

My question is has anyone here done similar - I'd still have the macbook for development work or video editing/itunes/photo editing; but for me most of what I do is based on email and web...

Just want some opinions (of which there are always plenty on here)

Thanks
Click to expand...

What's the battery life like on the netbook and is that a consideration? A netbook running OSX sounds like a nice tool............. assuming the bat life is decent (which I assume it isn't).
 
I'm in the same boat as the OP, I also have a hackintosh netbook (Advent 4211 which is a re-badged MSI Wind) running 10.6.x

I've pre-ordered the 32GB WIFI iPad since I believe it to be much better and more practical than the netbook. For example, screen display & resolution, multi-touch, battery life (6 cell battery on netbook = 4.5 hrs approx)

I am planning to keep the netbook since it's not worth much now and is still a good fallback device.
 
I've never found OSX on the netbook anything less than rock solid - sure it took more initial work than a 'real' mac but now it justs plods along with whatever I throw at it. (currently running as I type itunes, safari with about 8 tabs, xcode and handbrake encoding a few tv shows for the apple tv)

Anyways. Thanks for the insights :) Someone is interested in the netbook over at insanelywind.com, I'm asking about £170 as I've upgraded ram to 2GB, wifi card to an airport and HDD to 320GB. That combined with a few ebay items should get me in the right ballpark for an iPad purchase:

Also, no haven't played with one at Apple store as I'm in UK and we still don't have them!

Have briefly used a friends when he came round to show off his latest purchase :)
 
dazcox5181 said:
Someone is interested in the netbook over at insanelywind.com, I'm asking about £170 as I've upgraded ram to 2GB, wifi card to an airport and HDD to 320GB.
Click to expand...

I would sell it in a heartbeat for that price. In US, used netbooks worth less than $100, when the new ones are < $300.
 
iPad

I really dont think your netbook is gonna be worth selling. My wife had a Sony Vaio P series from Japan, hooked up. She used it for about everything. Then she got the iPad for her bday. She hardly use the Vaio. Only time she use it is to remote to it from the iPad to play her Facebook games. Tried to sell the Vaio for at least half the price, i got it originally for $1350 when it first came out in Japan. ended up selling it for $400.:( But it's okay, wife is happy and got $400 back, $500 more to get the 64gb 3G iPad.:D
 
I have an Acer Aspire One running Ubuntu 9.10. I've been saying I would sell it when I got my iPad. I haven't used it since getting my iPad and I have "good intentions" to eventually sell it. I just haven't gotten around to it. I'm thinking I might possibly let Ubuntu 10.04 install itself on the thing before deciding to sell it. I tend to hang onto "old junk" for way too long. I still have old Palm devices including an AAA battery based m105, a Tungsten T3 and a TX, neither of which holds a charge. I've also got old cell phones lying around. I made it a point to set my old windows boxes out at the garage sale and take those that didn't sell to our county recycling center but I just haven't found the time to get rid of these smaller devices... yet.

If you want to "tinker" and don't like losing so much money selling the hackintosh, by all means keep it. However, there is one note of caution I should share from my experience: It's better to get a hundred bucks for it now than let it sit around until it breaks and becomes absolutely worthless.
 
r0k said:
However, there is one note of caution I should share from my experience: It's better to get a hundred bucks for it now than let it sit around until it breaks and becomes absolutely worthless.
Click to expand...

Amen to that!
I too have too many old PDAs and phones etc that sit in cupboards until they're worth nothing.

The netbook was £280 new, about 18months ago. Selling for £170 - not bad loss for the amount of use it's had!

As you say better than waiting and getting £50 for it!
 
I'm keeping my Dell Mini 10v for the time being. The iPad is awesome, but I feel the iPad is still extremely limited in what it does. There's nothing more convenient than having full Win 7 and OS X in a 2 pound package.
 
I sold my Dell Mini 10v (windows 7) for an iPad. I have a desktop PC (buying a Mac Mini this week :)) which I always use. The netbook was crap to use because lets be honest, netbooks are limited and kind of pointless. I see it as:

Smartphone | iPad | Laptop | Desktop

So I got rid of it and have been using my iPad a lot more than I used my netbook anyway. I pretty much use the iPad instead of my PC for watching films and browsing because it is a more enjoyable experience + I can just chill while browsing, with the internet at my fingertip!

In your situation I would get the iPad because it is a revolutionary device (lol it is true) and you have your Macbook as you say for doing what you could do on the netbook but better.

Macbook + iPad = Win Combo
Macbook + netbook - iPad = Sad Combo :(
 
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