The Neo won't be for everyone, but Apple has managed to preserve a premium feel.
See full article...
See full article...
MacBook Neo hands-on: Apple build quality at a substantially lower price
- Thread starter JournalBot
- Start date
Was looking at this to replace my 2017 MacBook, but I think I'll grab a refurbished M4 MacBook Air instead. When iPad Airs are shipping with 12GB of ram, the writing is on the wall for 8GB...
Upvote
82
(92
/
-10)
I just wish there was an option to increase the amount of memory the Neo has. A quick look at Apple's pre-order page only lists storage as a configurable option. I know given the current DRAM pricing fiasco, going to 16 GB would add another digit to the price tag, it would be a nice option to have.
Upvote
27
(41
/
-14)
Considering all the compromises they had to make to reach that price point, it's great that they still stuck with an alumninum chassis. Plastic MacBooks were so shit, and hopefully those will never happen again!
Upvote
115
(123
/
-8)
I see this as another means to collect all that sweet sweet institutional EDU money...
For individuals, I expect refurbed M3-M4s will be a better buy...
For individuals, I expect refurbed M3-M4s will be a better buy...
Upvote
89
(92
/
-3)
I'm already slightly in the MacOS ecosystem thanks to an M4 Mini, but it's still good to see that Apple isn't completely abandoning the reasonably-priced PC sector.
Upvote
47
(48
/
-1)
“Either of the laptop’s two USB-C ports can charge the laptop. But only the left one supports 10 Gbps USB 3 transfer speeds, and it’s also the only one that can drive a display (one 4K screen at up to 60 Hz, down from two higher-resolution external displays for the Air). The right port only supports 480 Mbps USB 2.0 transfer speeds, enough for a keyboard and many other external accessories, but not ideal for external storage.”
That seems like odd wording. Both ports are on the left side of the Neo when you’re using it. It would be clearer to refer to them as front or rear most ports.
That seems like odd wording. Both ports are on the left side of the Neo when you’re using it. It would be clearer to refer to them as front or rear most ports.
Upvote
96
(102
/
-6)
Not just institutional buyers.
I expect a lot of the lower-income college freshmen will select one of these devices.
Upvote
142
(142
/
0)
Upvote
18
(36
/
-18)
Yeah, I was thinking the 8 GB RAM might be fine if you’re just using Safari, but god help you if you’re trying to use Chrome or Firefox with a bunch of extensions.
Edit: I was curious was my normal browser RAM usage looked like, so here's one data point. On my 14" M3 Pro w/ 18 GB RAM, I have 3 Firefox windows open, 12 total tabs, 2 separate profiles, a handful of extensions between the profiles. The about:memory page for each profile adds up to about 4200 MB of resident memory total.
With a handful of other apps open, Activity Monitor says 15.5 GB of the 18 GB memory is used. (This surprised me!) And those aren't exactly compute-intensive apps either - we're talking things like iMessage, Photos, Discord. (A couple hundred MB of usage does come from a 2nd user which is logged into this laptop but doesn't have any apps open.)
Edit 2: lol, why did this comment start amassing downvotes after I added real world data? I wouldn’t expect that to be unpopular around these parts.
Last edited:
Upvote
2
(48
/
-46)
uh huh. oh yeah. definitely. users should consider the flexibility and power of a chromebook or an acer ultrabook instead. and apple isn't even putting centrino in this? just goes to show where tim's head is screwed in.
Upvote
31
(57
/
-26)
MilanKraft
Ars Tribunus Angusticlavius
All-in-all pretty impressed for what this is, at this price point. That said, a little surprised both ports don't support 10Gbps. Not like doing so would remove a key differentiator between it and the MBA for example. I get that keyboards, printers, etc don't need more than 480 Mbps but damn... it's 2026. Why not just make them both 10Gbps, just in case the user needs / can benefit from it at random times?
Upvote
19
(27
/
-8)
This is a great school/college PC for things like taking notes and web-based coursework. It's almost cheap enough that in can be considered a "disposable" PC that won't break the bank if it gets damaged or stolen. The major "IF" is the battery life - can it be used to take notes/browse for at least 8 hours on battery? The low RAM spec and CPU choice can actually help here a little bit as long as the display is also power-efficient.
Upvote
56
(57
/
-1)
Yes it would be a great option but keep in mind the A18 Pro has on package RAM (being an iPhone chip). To hit such a low price point they had to use it unaltered
Edit to add: Perhaps in 2-3 years when they refresh it with a A19 Pro (or A20 Pro) chip, then it will come with 12 GB
Upvote
109
(109
/
0)
For anyone wishing they could spec these with 16GB of RAM: you can get refurb M4 Airs from Apple for $759 right now. Probably not far from what a 16GB model of this would cost and you get all the other benefits of an M4 Air with it.
Upvote
116
(116
/
0)
This is actually the thing I was most surprised by, given how prone students are to tripping over cables, causing the machine to go flying. Given that the whole thing draws only 20W, I suppose you could get one of those magnetic charging things from Amazon and be reasonably confident it won't cause a fire, but still odd to cut.
Upvote
45
(46
/
-1)
I imagine it’s a CPU limitation more than a cost one; coming out of an iPhone, one has to imagine the A18 was only designed/intended to support one physical port. Adding additional I/O capability would increase costs/MSRP and blur Apple’s product stratification… so they didn’t.
Upvote
118
(119
/
-1)
jonbob_newcastle
Ars Scholae Palatinae
I retired my MBP for a new one last December. It was a mid-2015 model on its second battery and second charger. Still worked just fine.
If Apple has a problem with build quality it’s that they don’t put adequate strain relief on their cables. Thankfully the charger cable is removable on the new models.
Upvote
149
(149
/
0)
A slam dunk device when talking about MSRPs, but I think Apple's tendency for prices to stay sticky doesn't map as well to this segment. For example, HP was clearancing their Lunar Lake stock a couple weeks back -- both 14in and 16in Lunar Lake laptops were at or below $600.
What this will capture, though, are people that are locked into the macOS ecosystem and need to replace their PC from college. Great secondary device. Great primary device for seniors -- I trust Apple's built-in "try this out" prompts a lot more than Windows and ChromeOS. I will be recommending this to a few people I know regardless of the benchmarks.
What this will capture, though, are people that are locked into the macOS ecosystem and need to replace their PC from college. Great secondary device. Great primary device for seniors -- I trust Apple's built-in "try this out" prompts a lot more than Windows and ChromeOS. I will be recommending this to a few people I know regardless of the benchmarks.
Upvote
29
(32
/
-3)
About 4 years ago I helped my spouse write a submission to their high school's requests for internal faculty/staff comments on whether to standardize on Chromebooks or Apple laptops for students. We argued very thoroughly in favor of Macs and against Chromebooks. Whether or not our comment was heard the district did select Mac laptops as the standard - and that turned out to be a very good decision. Every story my spouse hears from surrounding school districts and fellow faculty members whose children are in Chromebook-standardized districts is what a disaster they are. Meanwhile our kids' Macs just do their thing for 4 years and many graduated students have mentioned to my spouse that laptop got them through the first year of college or the military just fine.
Upvote
78
(79
/
-1)
Sounds like a winner. The chip is fine....single core is better than a M2, multicore is worse, but single core matters more to most people more anyway, especially in this segment. Display sounds very solid.
256GB HDD is adequate. The only two features that are a bit of a letdown are the 8 GB RAM and the lack of a backlit keyboard, but MacOS is still perfectly useable with 8 GB RAM for normal daily tasks.
This should outperform most Windows laptops at the same pricepoint, and the build quality should be much better. I'd consider buying this for a cheap, disposable travel loptop that wouldn't break my heart if it got broken or lost.
Can't wait to see it in the wild and give it a try, Lots of potential here.
256GB HDD is adequate. The only two features that are a bit of a letdown are the 8 GB RAM and the lack of a backlit keyboard, but MacOS is still perfectly useable with 8 GB RAM for normal daily tasks.
This should outperform most Windows laptops at the same pricepoint, and the build quality should be much better. I'd consider buying this for a cheap, disposable travel loptop that wouldn't break my heart if it got broken or lost.
Can't wait to see it in the wild and give it a try, Lots of potential here.
Upvote
46
(48
/
-2)
I find it fascinating at how compute power has really plateaued in the last decade. In the 90's and the early 2000's PC hardware performance was increasing at a tremendous clip and PCs over 3-4 years old were considered obsolete dinosaurs. Now we have manufacturers releasing brand-new devices with perfectly acceptable performance based on CPU designs and RAM specs ripped straight out of a PHONE from 2024 - that's a 2-year-old mobile platform!
Upvote
76
(78
/
-2)
This might be a limitation of the A18 chip since it originally only had to service a single USB-C port on an iPhone/iPad. This being cheap is partially because they are using an existing chip off the shelf and not having to modify it in anyway. It does lead to odd limitations and compromises though.
Upvote
46
(47
/
-1)
Looks like a direct attack on the Windows segment.
Good for them, as far as I'm concerned Microsoft blew it some time ago.
The Plan is still to go Mini but should I have cash to spare besides that a laptop would be nice too and this looks like it's a contender.
Good for them, as far as I'm concerned Microsoft blew it some time ago.
The Plan is still to go Mini but should I have cash to spare besides that a laptop would be nice too and this looks like it's a contender.
Upvote
30
(30
/
0)
It is not reasonable to compare CPU and RAM specifications between MacOS-based and Windows-based PCs ("windoze"? Oh, grow up!). They have very different memory requirements and behave very differently when memory-constrained.
Upvote
44
(53
/
-9)
Good note - with "front port" I don't want to imply ports that are actually on the front edge of the laptop, but I see what you're saying. Should be reworded in a more sensical way now.
Upvote
39
(39
/
0)
Yes, I can confirm this is a limitation of the A18 Pro USB controller.
Upvote
64
(64
/
0)
I’m glad this exists, though it’s coming into existence after it has much relevance for me. As my eyesight aligns more and more with my forum handle, I’m imagining that my next laptop purchase will involve me deciding if the nicer and denser screen on the 1TB/24GB M5 Pro 16” MBP justifies the $1000 price difference over the 1TB/24GB M5 15” MBA. 
But if I ever found myself needing an inexpensive laptop that I was going to carry everywhere and beat the crap out of for an extended period of time, this would be on the very short short list.
But if I ever found myself needing an inexpensive laptop that I was going to carry everywhere and beat the crap out of for an extended period of time, this would be on the very short short list.
Upvote
14
(14
/
0)
I do totally get why people like MagSafe but it's been a non-issue for me. I use a mix of Mac and PC laptops, my wife is on a ThinkPad, and my kid has an A16 iPad, so the chargers that live in the Communal Charging Zones all have to be USB-C. I actually think my current Air's MagSafe cable is still in the box.
Upvote
19
(23
/
-4)
The A18 chip itself has one high-speed USB controller and one legacy USB controller on die. It's not a question of "bandwidth limitations for the SoC as a whole" but rather what IP exists on the device.
Upvote
57
(58
/
-1)
I don't know anything about this for real, but if I had to guess - USB 3+ ports seem more expensive than USB 2 ports (or, maybe USB 2 controllers/hardware is basically free?) since there are still a zillion products that include high/low mixes of USB capabilities. I set up a brand new HP Thunderbolt dock yesterday that has a mix of different USB speeds, albeit between 5 and 10 gbps -- but this dock alone costs half of what the Macbook Neo costs.
On the product line differentiation, the decision Apple made is that plugging in two fast things requires a more expensive SKU than the Neo - so if that's your use case, you buy an $1100 Air instead of a $600 Neo.
Upvote
2
(7
/
-5)
jonbob_newcastle
Ars Scholae Palatinae
The current MagSafe cable is USB-C at the other end.
Ed:
See? USB-C. Fifty quid though. Fucking hell.
Last edited:
Upvote
-11
(8
/
-19)
This is not an Apple thing:
Gah I wish we could get away from the "two different USB-C ports with different functionality" crap. My current work Dell and my previous work Surface both had this as well. Absolutely maddening when charging/docking/monitor etc. trying to find the "right" USB-C port, damn the stupid meaningless label icons the different manufacturers use.
Gah I wish we could get away from the "two different USB-C ports with different functionality" crap. My current work Dell and my previous work Surface both had this as well. Absolutely maddening when charging/docking/monitor etc. trying to find the "right" USB-C port, damn the stupid meaningless label icons the different manufacturers use.
Upvote
54
(54
/
0)
Watch for clearance deals when the M5 Air hits stores. I grabbed an M2 Air 16GB/256GB for $699 on a Best Buy daily deal last spring when the new one launched. If you keep an eye out new on sale often beats Apple refurb pricing (and I don’t really trust other sources of refurbs).
It actually wound up being not quite as good a deal when the M4 Airs hit $749 during Black Friday, though. Hard to know what with happen with pricing this year, but I was really surprised how quickly the M4 Airs hit $200 off.
Upvote
17
(17
/
0)