I know you’re probably tired of all the Psystar coverage, but for some reason I’m morbidly interested and amused by the concept of the elegant Mac OS X running on a bulky, generic PC. Whereas a video of the home brewed Mac first arose a few days ago, the folks at Engadget have managed to obtain their very own Psystar Open Computer, and have been playing around with it since earlier today.
Like any self respecting geek site, they’ve posted unboxing photos (if Mac unboxing photos are the equivalent of geek supermodel porn, this would have to be geek vagrant porn), and have put up a video as well as benchmark tests.
One of the first things noticeable is that its fan is really, really loud. It seems that OS X can’t interface with the fan controller, and so it’s always on full blast. Other than that, the machine boots up properly, and we’re soon looking at the typical OS X desktop. The guy shooting the video wisely decides to forego installing updates when he is prompted with the option, noting that he’d like to run benchmarks before seeing if it breaks when attempting to update.
Looking at the system specs, it looks like Pystar has managed to trick OS X into thinking it’s running on a Mac Pro. A few glitches include the system profiler’s inability to detect its memory settings and built in audio. Audio, however, does seem to work fine when speakers are plugged into the output.
Interestingly, in benchmark tests, the Open Computer holds its own pretty well. Of course we must still scratch our heads in wonder at whoever would go so far as to seriously purchase one of these things.
Enough of Pystar already. In a month they'll be gone....
I can't wait for Apple to shut them down. And who in their right mind would spend a couple hundred bucks on a box that will never run as well as a the real thing? Face it, it will never happen. That money would be better spent towards a new Mac.
If people unsuspectingly buys these junk PCs, it will be IT media's fault.
They should click Software update right after booting it and click all updates, "install now" to simulate what unsuspecting non technical but poor user will see if they get tricked by Pystar thinking they bought a cheap Mac.
If I had a Pystar PC right now delivered at me, I would go out to buy a Windows XP SP2 or even Vista and enjoy a generic PC with its full potential rather than keeping it hacked all the time, refusing updates.
Now that Engadget has basically blown the lid off this thing...LOUD fans, constantly having to renew DHCP, not upgradable on the Mac side...can we stop talking about this p.o.s.? I don't mean to be rude, it's that the mystique is gone and the free publicity for this guy/company should cease.