iTWire - The Mac clone that isn't

Stephen Withers turns his gaze on the world of Apple, with detours into other aspects of IT and communications as they catch his attention.

The Mac clone that isn't

by Stephen Withers
Tuesday, 15 April 2008
Page 1 of 2 ! The announcement of a 'Mac OS X ready' PC by a US-based company led to its web site being swamped. Psystar's Open Computer costs $US399.99, a significant saving on Apple's cheapest model, the $US599 Mac mini. The Open Computer features a faster CPU (2.2GHz Core 2 Duo vs 1.83GHz), twice the RAM (2G vs 1G), more disk space (250G vs 80G) and a 20x Lightscribe DVD burner instead of the mini's combo drive (CD writer/DVD reader). Being a mini-tower design, these's also the possibility of fitting a graphics card with better performance than the onboard Intel GMA 950 graphics as well as additional storage. When you add the price of Mac OS X ($US129), the price difference isn't so impressive, though the difference in the hardware specifications remains stark. The fly in the ointment is that you can't legally use Mac OS X on a computer that isn't Apple branded. The licence agreement is quite clear about that. According to Psystar, "The highly extensible Open Computer is a configuration of PC hardware capable of running unmodified OS X Leopard kernels." This has been achieved through the use of the EFI V8 emulator and "the addition of a few drivers, and possibly a patch, to ensure that everything boots and runs smoothly." << First page < 1 2 Next page > Last page - Post your comment >>

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