Why The TUAW Dell Mini 9 Road Test is a Fail
April 28th, 2009Normally, I try to keep a strict “do not feed the trolls” policy, but I’m not above a good Internet fight now and again. And let me tell you, TUAW’s “Road Test” of an OS X hacked Dell Mini 9 is certainly bad enough to risk a few punches over.
“My first real work with the mini 9 began in November, when I decided to acclimate myself to its diminutive keyboard by using it during NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) to work on a novel.”
Fantastic test case for a computer designed for mobility and web access—a monumental, offline task involving hours of ass-in-chair typing. The reason people still fetishize the heavy, zero-connectivity Smith-Corona for this task is because it’s nearly perfect for it.
And yes, I have written a novel, so I would know.
“Sure, it worked for a little bit, and then began to irritate me when the gestures would fail. I decided to use a cheap micro-mouse instead, which meant that two of the USB ports were now filled — one with the cable for the mouse, and the other for the Sprint wireless broadband dongle that I use when I’m on the road.”
So wait—that’s three USB ports, which is one more than any but the most expensive Apple-branded laptop. The laptop I own only Mac laptop I can afford has only two, and since I’m stuck with the early 2006 model, other than two-fingered scroll, none of the mouse gestures work, either.
“My fingers felt like they were tripping over each other when I was typing, to the point that I found that I was actually taking longer to type emails on the mini 9 than it took me to tap them in on an iPhone!”
The choadiness and inaccuracy of my fingers is a matter of record. I’m typing this on a Mini 9, right now. Not suffering. Quotation marks are a pain. They are infinitely worse on the iPhone—the author could at least learn to lie plausibly.
“16GB is not enough capacity to load an OS, a complete office suite, and actually do some work.”
I’m sorry if this guy couldn’t run the Mail Merge Wizard, but no one I know wants a netbook so they can use Office. If you’re seriously writing blog posts in Word or coding pages in Dreamweaver, there are tons of fast, light, and awesome text editors, writing programs, and blogging tools out there for OS X. Can’t store all your music? Put it on a server and mount it with ExpanDrive. Even Photoshop has lighter alternatives.
Once the OS is on (and it fits on 8GB machines), hard drive space should be a non-issue. If not, you’re doing it wrong.
“Next, the limited screen resolution (1024 x 600) of the mini 9 made it virtually impossible to use some Mac apps that have default minimized screen sizes that are larger than that. Those apps simply had to be removed from the device, and I was stuck with a somewhat crippled hackb00k that didn’t have the software tools I normally use.”
What tools? The author is completely non-specific in what he could and couldn’t do, which is infuriating behavior for a reviewer. It’s not like he’s just avoiding brand names—aside from basic text entry, he fails to name even the tasks he attempted to carry out. How is this supposed to be helpful to anyone?
Some solutions do exist to keep peace in the battle between windows and screen space. That having been said, a netbook is “somewhat crippled” by definition. Anyone conisdering a Mini 9 needs to take careful stock of what exactly they intend to do. For broswer, mail, text editing, writing, blogging, and IM, I’ve got no beefs.
I don’t mean to belittle the author of this piece, but even his solutions are ridiculous. The 25,000 iPhone apps he cites are nothing even close to what a netbook brings you. Terminal, real SSH, multitasking, a little thing called root access, and gobs of other critical real-world features are all still only available on jailbroken phones—and I wouldn’t expect Apple to change that anytime soon. Let’s not even mention the AppStore’s strict and largely arbitrary acceptance protocol.
The sort of hybrid touch device he suggests is similarly inapplicable to this situation. It would cost far more than regular laptop, and be at least as large and cumbersome. When low cost and small size are the only reasons anyone would ever buy a netbook, I can’t see how this product would fill a similar niche.
The OS X hackbook appeals to hardscrabble, substance-over-style users who value stripped-down, efficient tools. The author of this post owns a MacBook Air, which, with its ludicrous debut price and limited features, is the epitome of all we hate about Apple. Working with a Mini 9 doesn’t live up the Jobsian Ideal, but for those of us who can manage sleeping on a bed with fewer than four pillows, it’s a Mac by any other name.
OS X is a phenomenal work environment. I’d never chose to use anything else. But for way too long, it’s been chained to machines that are, if not overpriced, certainly a financial hardship. The ability to elude this monetary burden, combined with optimized portability, is a fantastic thing—and you shouldn’t need to be the World’s Toughest Writer to appreciate that.
April 28th, 2009 at 3:06 pm
I totally agree with all your points – the TUAW doomed it to failure with the tests and ended up looking a little silly because of it.
The key to what it should be used for is in the name “Netbook”.
When you use a Dell Mini 9 with (or, I assume without!) Mac OS X for web browsing, Twitter, email and music (Spotify is awesome because you don’t have to use a lot of HDD space) it’s great. I don’t use my Mini 9 for development, that’s a job for my MacBook Pro.
It turns out that picking the right tool for the job makes your life easier. Maybe TAUW could write about that next week ;).
Thanks for bringing some sanity to the internet.
Cheers, John Rowe
April 28th, 2009 at 3:32 pm
There is many moons ago since I trimmed the subscriptionlist in NetNewsWire. TUAW was one of the first to go.
But clearly you are wrong about the Air. It is the best Mac ever ;) I bought it to replace an aging PB 12″. Had hoped for a 4:3 12″ replacement instead of the 13″ widescreen, but alas. Luckily the Air was the perfect fit for me.
April 28th, 2009 at 3:35 pm
The main reason for software developers to avoid putting Mac OS X on a Dell Mini 9 is because we depend on other people following our license agreements. If we crack other peoples’ software, we lose all respectability defending against someone who cracks ours.
April 28th, 2009 at 4:46 pm
Tor: If I were the sort to consider $2499 a pittance and 5.4lbs a burden, I would own a MacBook air.
Steven: I can’t claim the technical nous to say what’s going on in the Mini 9 OS X install. But what I can say is that an unadulterated 10.5 install disk will boot the machine, needing only the assistance of a previously run, third-party bootloader. That doesn’t sound like an especially deep level of cracking to me, especially when I’ve needed far more extensive workarounds to install OS X on “legitimate” machines.
The Supreme Court has explicitly stated that Paramount Pictures cannot dictate what chain of theaters I watch their movies in; why is it OK for Apple to dictate the machine on which I use their OS? There’s a difference between protecting your intellectual property and dismantling consumer freedom.
If you want to hold the ethical line that every bit of text in a EULA is as sacred as the next, that’s your prerogative. But saying my “unauthorized” installation of legitimately purchased software means I can’t protest large-scale piracy is kind of like saying I can’t condemn terrorism because I jaywalk.
April 28th, 2009 at 7:59 pm
Having put OS X on an Asus eeePC, I can say the worst part for me was the truncated right shift key; I keep hitting the up-arrow next to it instead, which makes typing a pain.
As for the licensing stuff, I gotta agree with Steven; if you disregard Apple’s EULA, you can’t complain when I disregard yours. Pot, kettle, etc. Both EULAs limit the machines on which the software can be installed so they are very similar there.
And yes, Neuromancer is awesome! Try Burning Chrome if you haven’t already read it.
April 29th, 2009 at 1:13 pm
I’m not taking the position that it’s illegal. I don’t know if that’s true. I don’t even care. Whether or not a condition is legally enforceable isn’t part of the discussion.
What matters is that a user agrees to the terms as part of the install process (or, I suppose, knowingly applies a hack to bypass them). That doesn’t make this a legal issue as far as I’m concerned, but an honor one. Is the user going to abide by their agreements, even when it becomes inconvenient? The user does have a choice in the matter; they can choose not to install the software.
Don’t get me wrong, that choice is up to you. But for me, I’ll follow the terms I agreed to, even when they become inconvenient. Not because I believe they’re correct, but because I agreed to them.
May 3rd, 2009 at 11:29 am
Steve, in my mind, which I think reflects the vast majority of consumers, the time at which I made an agreement with Apple was at the store. I gave them money, they gave me an operating system. These same customers also think that piracy is illegal whether or not there is an EULA that specifically says “I solemnly promise not to put this on bit-torrent.”
They don’t jump through the same hoops as you that enshrine the EULA with any more status than the LICENCE.txt file that it replaces.
May 7th, 2009 at 7:18 pm
“The author of this post owns a MacBook Air, which, with its ludicrous debut price and limited features, is the epitome of all we hate about Apple.”
I agree 100%. I’ve said this to people myself almost word-for-word. The Air is Apple to the extreme, when allowed to run unchecked and rampant without a voice of reason to tell them to pull back the reigns.
And I agree with your article, the author of that “Road test” is a hack… I posted a response to his fan-gravy dripping photo as well…
May 9th, 2009 at 7:41 am
Steve Fisher is talking about a point of honor and I happen to agree with him. If I buy a product assuming that “the time at which I made an agreement .. was at the store”, can I then later claim “foul”, when I discover that said product had a fault? But that is exactly the shady moral ground upon which one ignores the license agreement. If you are going to claim the right to violate the terms of the OS X EULA then Apple may also claim the right to say “f**k you” when your iPod/Mac fails 10 days after purchase.