My primary purpose for getting a hackintosh laptop was to be able to access the Internet with a laptop when I’m out of the house. The Dell Mini 10v, being a small and light laptop was perfect for that purpose. Apart from Internet access, I thought about what other ways I intend to use my laptop, and came up with this list.

I am using my Dell Mini 10v hackintosh to:

1. Surf the Web – I have Safari, Firefox, Camino and Google Chrome on my hackintosh laptop.
2. Read Emails – I am using Gmail as my primary mail account, Google Apps hosted email for work related email and Yahoo Mail as my backup. I don’t use the Mail application.
3. Chat – I connect to my Yahoo and MSN account using Adium.
4. Read eBooks – My collection of pdf, chm and lit files is handled by Adobe Acrobat Reader, iChm and Lexcycle Stanza.
5. Read digital Manga and Comics – FFView is the best comic book reader for the Mac OS X.
6. Listen to Music – iTunes.
7. Watch Videos – VLC player supports all the major video and audio formats.

My Dell Mini 10v hackintosh does what I need it to do perfectly. Having the proper expectations is key to being satisfied with your laptop.

After thinking about what I intend to use my hackintosh laptop for, I also thought about what I’m not going to use it for. Basically, it’s not going to be used for any tasks that is CPU intensive or require tons of memory. My hackintosh laptop only has 1GB of RAM and I don’t intend to upgrade to 2GB anytime soon.

I am not using my hackintosh for:

1. Software or Web development – The small screen and Intel Atom CPU is not really suitable for extended periods of programming.
2. Video or DVD Editing – Once again, the small screen and Intel Atom CPU is not suitable for this purpose.
3. Photo Editing – Once again, the small screen … you get the idea. Maybe I’ll use it occasionally for simple photo touchup using iPhoto.
4. Gaming – I’ll stick to my Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii, Nintendo DS and Sony PSP for video games.

What are you using your hackintosh laptop for?

favorite mac os x apps, laptop usage