Everyday Mac Netbook | theKitch

Everyday Mac Netbook

Published on March 16, 2009 in Tech and mac. 17 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , .

DeskThis is my workstation at home now. It’s my Lenovo S10 running Mac OSX 10.5.6 hooked up to my 20″ Dell display and wired keyboard and mouse. Also includes the iPhone dock and a 250gig WD drive hidden away for storage and Time Machine. It’s definitely not the fastest system in the universe but it’s been responsive enough overall. With 2gigs of RAM I can run downloaded TV shows on the S10 screen and switch on the main screen between Safari, Adium, and Lightroom. I’ve easily gotten used to the workflow speed on this setup. Here I just have it running Windows XP in a VirtualBox VM because it’s kinda meta.

I’m really shocked that I’m able to use a 350 dollar system (plus 20 dollar RAM upgrade) as my only personal system.  So far the only thing it really can’t cope with is “HD” flash video streams.  Even non-HD flash video gives it a serious run for it’s money.  If flash would stop sucking so much it would be far less of an issue.  Another good test has been playback of Apple’s Quicktime movie trailers.  480p is handled with ease.  However 720p is too much to handle.  It’s close, but it’s dropping a few frames making it choppy.  Still, none to shabby.

Extra bonus, when the next gen of these little buggers comes around in a year or so I won’t feel to bad about making the upgrade, as long as I can still run OSX.  If not I may have to bite the Apple bullet.  I’m getting kinda hooked on OSX all over again.

17 Responses to “Everyday Mac Netbook”

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  • Matthew R. Miller
    March 16, 2009 at 11:00 pm

    Love it!

  • Abby
    March 16, 2009 at 11:11 pm

    No WONDER it looked so pretty and clean in there. It was getting ready for its close-up!

    This is such an @ocell post. You and he really should be bestest friends!

  • Ocell
    March 17, 2009 at 9:37 am

    Beautiful.

    Hopefully next year you’ll have an official Apple option for a netbook type device. Of course, there goes the $300 price point.

    Yes Abby, this IS my kind of post. I’ve actually got a few pictures of my new Macbook Pro + Cintiq setup that I’ve been meaning to edit and post, just like this. Maybe now I’ll actually do it.

  • kitch
    March 18, 2009 at 7:59 am

    Looking forward to the shots of the setup Chris. Are you using the tablet for photo editing?

  • Ocell
    March 18, 2009 at 4:36 pm

    Occasionally I’ll use the tablet for masking photos, but usually my adjustments are coarse enough that I don’t need the added control. The tablet is primarily for sketching.

  • M.Norberto
    March 28, 2009 at 11:44 am

    Hi,

    what’s the program that You use in your iphone (digital Clock)?

    Thanks.

  • kitch
    March 28, 2009 at 11:46 am

    The iPhone clock app is called Flip Clock

  • tyler
    April 2, 2009 at 2:39 pm

    What resolution are you using on the external? Did you have to modify any kexts or install anything to prevent it from artifacting? Does it switch between the external and internal display quickly and easily? What about scaling? Thanks.

  • kitch
    April 2, 2009 at 3:59 pm

    When I first plugged in the external display it defaulted to something like 1024×768 on the external display and then the native 1024×600 on the laptop lcd. You can then open the display prefpane and choose the native resolution of 1600×1200 for the external display. You can also move the menubar to the external display as well.

    Now when I plug in the external it automatically moves my menubar and dock over to the external as my main display. External at 1600×1200 and laptop at 1024×600.

    However, DO NOT DO MIRROR DISPLAY. This will screw things up big time. Hope that helps.

  • tyler
    April 3, 2009 at 9:01 pm

    It does. Thanks.

  • M.Norberto
    April 5, 2009 at 1:45 pm

    Thanks.

  • produ
    May 14, 2009 at 11:35 pm

    your setup is really tempting… what do you think of the s10e? do you think it will work as well? the screen res is only 1024×576, which seems to be an odd native size… i wonder if osx would work as well as on your 1024×600 s10?

  • Vic
    June 29, 2009 at 8:16 am

    hi
    i have problems connecting the s10 to projectors to give presentations: how do you duplicate your screen to another monitor? it sometimes crashes the entire s10 screen.
    will be good to know how you connect to an external monitor and yet not have any problems
    thanks
    cheers

  • Pat
    July 27, 2009 at 11:45 am

    Hey Kitch the video problems are only with streaming or with AVI as well? like downloaded stuff is working ok or not so good as well?

    I’m planning on getting a dell mini 10v or lenovo S10 as an add on computer to my macbook 13 which I Found too heavy to carry around (before my switch to mac, i was a hardcore thinkpad X user)

    Thanks

    • Kitch
      July 27, 2009 at 2:14 pm

      Pat,

      The video issues were mostly with streaming flash video. Downloaded videos from H.264 to XVIDs work fine for me in the 480p neighborhood. Some have even had success with up to 720p using certain codecs.

      If you are interested I have my S10 for sale, shoot me an email at jake@thekitch.com if you are interested. I broke down and bought a 13″ MBP and am not using the S10 any longer.

  • Angelica Langston
    June 23, 2010 at 7:51 am

    Bizarre… I just found your web site by looking for ‘cheap laptop’ on Yahoo. But I haven’t found any articles on that topic on here?

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