Acer TravelMate 4500 - Good Hackintosh Candidate? Or no?

[ReverseEffect]

I was thinking about getting a Mac for development purposes, but I don't have $700+ to spare.
Is an Acer TravelMate 4500 good for Hackintoshing? I haven't seen about this particular laptop after searching on the Internet.

Hardware:
Acer Support: TravelMate 4500 Series Specifications

Or would getting a Dell Mini 10v off of eBay be a better idea?

Also, I don't have Mac access in any way. So could I attempt to boot the Snow Leopard retail disk on another Windows-based PC and use Disk Utility that way?

Any help on this would be amazing and is greatly appreciated.

[H4CK3R]

I wouldn't reccomend the Intel Pentium. I hate that processor, it's slow. Not a ton of RAM either. Runs on Windows XP, I'd honestly say no. I'm no Hackintosh expert but this computer doesn't seem to fit the standards. I'd get an HP Pavilion G Series, I have that thing and it runs really smooth. Pretty good price too.

[Cer0]

You would get much better help on an Hackintosh forum on if things run OSX smoothly or not.

Hackint0sh.org

Was the one I used to go to.

[raduga]

One problem with netbooks (and other old/cheap laptops) is that even if you DO get it working,
you'll be stuck on ancient, dying OS with no further updates and increasing difficulty with XCode / development.

For 10.7 (the current system, shortly to be retired in favor of 10.8) you need an Intel Core II duo, minimum.

For 10.8 you'll need C2D, and an "advanced" GPU.

Can't give you any advice for 10.8 (which isn't even released yet), but if you're seriously on a budget
your best bet would be to save up money for a few more months/years until you can buy a real Mac.

If you're on a budget but also impatient and lazy, you could try something like:
Buy.com - Dell Latitude D630 Core 2 Duo 1.86GHz 2048MB DVD-RW Refurbished Laptop Notebook Computer PC

which is allegedly supported by the OSX Latitude guys.
Compatibility | osxlatitude.com
It should run 10.7, and maybe 10.8. You'll probably need to replace the wifi card.
Otherwise good luck.

[Pecans]

Have you considered a Mac Mini or refurbished MacBook air? I saw a refurbished air for 750 on apples website. Came with a small ssd as well.

[ReverseEffect]

Yeah I was thinking about getting a used Air on eBay, but eventually started looking to get a HP ProBook 4530s. People say they get excellent reports off of it. Has anyone tried the Acer Aspire S3 Ultrabook? It's the closest thing I can get locally. If there are bad reports of Hackintoshing it, then I'll just go with the 4530s. I just want the experience in Hackintoshing(More fun than buying a Mac to me.)

Thanks for the replies though you guys!

EDIT: I forgot to mention I had the Acer TravelMate for a long time already. I think I have the later one that shipped with Core II Duo. I'll have to check when I get home.

[raduga]

Yeah I was thinking about getting a used Air on eBay, but eventually started looking to get a HP ProBook 4530s. People say they get excellent reports off of it. Has anyone tried the Acer Aspire S3 Ultrabook? It's the closest thing I can get locally. If there are bad reports of Hackintoshing it, then I'll just go with the 4530s. I just want the experience in Hackintoshing(More fun than buying a Mac to me.)

Thanks for the replies though you guys!

EDIT: I forgot to mention I had the Acer TravelMate for a long time already. I think I have the later one that shipped with Core II Duo. I'll have to check when I get home.

I can't find anything specific on success or failure with the Travelmate 4500 series,
(or the S3 Ultrabook)
but what would be most helpful would be if you can tell us:

what CPU
what GPU (video chipset)
what WiFi chipset (make and model if possible)
what northbridge

These are the things that make or break compatibility.

[ReverseEffect]

I'll be sure to look at it when I get home and I'll reply here

[raduga]

I'll be sure to look at it when I get home and I'll reply here

Thanks.

Actually, I did manage to dig up a thread with discussion of the S3 ultrabooks, where people got 10.7 to boot but had a lot of issues (some of) which they were able to resolve through a fair amount of trouble.
tonymacx86 Forum • Information

the HP4530s, however, looks good. As long as it has the Atheros WiFi and not Ralink (which is unsupported).
tonymacx86 Forum • Information

[ReverseEffect]

Sorry for the long time to reply.

Anyways, I was wrong about the TravelMate. It does have a Pentium processor installed and all of the hardware listed in my first post matched my computer.

The only reason I was going to buy the S3 ultrabook was for its looks. I liked the cosmetics and portability on it Also looked like a reasonable question worth asking.

So far, it looks like I'm narrowed down to the 4530s or a Mac mini. What bothers me about the mini is its limited ram. It's like the mini would suffer if I attempted to develop on it you know?

[raduga]

So far, it looks like I'm narrowed down to the 4530s or a Mac mini. What bothers me about the mini is its limited ram. It's like the mini would suffer if I attempted to develop on it you know?

Depends on which model you're looking at,

but if the main thing you plan to do with it is development, you don't really need a whole lot of RAM.

2GB minimum, but 4GB should be fine.

[ReverseEffect]

So you're saying it should be able to handle:

- XCode IDE
- iPhone Simulator
- Media Editing/Creating (digital graphics/music)
- Possibly movie editing for quality YouTube vids?