52 ms·

MacBook Neo

• dfalbel 7mo ago
  Is A18 fully compatible with M series chips apps?
  • calebm 7mo ago
    Came here to ask this - seems like the most important question.
  • deleted 7mo ago
    [deleted]
  • NetMageSCW 7mo ago
    As others have pointed out, the original Apple Silicon development kit used the A12Z chip.
• julieturner99 7mo ago
  if this weighed 1.7 lbs, i’d buy it today. still waiting for a successor to the 12” macbook.
• ppeetteerr 7mo ago
  This laptop competes against M2/M3 MacBook Airs. Going to be hard to justify a Neo when the others are so much more powerful.
  • NetMageSCW 7mo ago
    Where can I get a new M2/M3 MacBook Air for $599?
    • termwatch 7mo ago
      It's probably a hoax, unless it's used
      • ppeetteerr 7mo ago
        Used, yeah
• Traubenfuchs 7mo ago
  They just crushed the budget laptop market. Everyone but weirdo contrarians and maybe gamers will have a macbook. Apple stock is slightly down. What‘s going on?
• jsheard 7mo ago
  I wonder if this means a Mac Nano with an A-series chip is on the table now. Essentially a beefed up Apple TV that runs macOS.
  • deleted 7mo ago
    [deleted]
  • ghoulishly 7mo ago
    I’m curious what the use case for that would be. Where would someone opt for that over a Mac mini? They’re already pretty cheap ($500 on sale)
• joshstrange 7mo ago
  I'm kind of shocked that they don't have much higher battery life. I'll be really interested to see one of these in person, those colors look great. Why is it that the Pro devices always get the boring colors? If/when my M1 MBP dies (a long time I'd guess) I might consider one of these as a remote/couch laptop to connect back to my main machine.
  • rtkwe 7mo ago
    Pro = Business/serious = Boring colors.
    • joshstrange 7mo ago
      I know, but that doesn't mean there aren't people (like me) that buy the top-end Pro devices (iPhone/Mac) and would like some more choices. I _love_ the orange color of the new iPhone and I would buy a green or orange MBP Pro if it was offered. I used to only want black/silver "base" colors for resale reasons but that has fallen far on my needs for a laptop since I keep/repurpose them or cycle them through friends/family instead of reselling in most cases now.
      • NetMageSCW 7mo ago
        Wrap?
        • rtkwe 7mo ago
          IMO rarely looks as good as the base metal. I still use them for a few things, still but they rarely look as good as the tinted metal.
• joe_mamba 7mo ago
  1. Gawd damn, scrolling through that page full of all those bright colors with their saturation cranked up to 11, feels like I'm being flash-banged by a Cocomelon episode. No other page from Apple is like that. wtf 2. Would a used older hand-me-down Macbook Air/Pro not be better performance/value than this iPhone board in a cheap laptop shell? There was a guy here saying he bought a used Macbook Air M1 16GB for 250 Euros.
  • cfiggers 7mo ago
    > 2. To an individual consumer perhaps, but schools need to buy hundreds at a time and the second-hand market isn't really great for that. This is basically Apple taking a bite at the Chromebook market. Interested to see what reviewers have to say.
    • whizzter 7mo ago
      Definetly, my kids at different schools had iPad's and Chromebooks. The kid with the iPad was using an external keyboard most of the time iirc.
  • mantas 7mo ago
    A used one probably has not-so-healthy battery and a bit worn keyboard. Maybe some scratches on the screen as well. At this price, a new device seems very tempting over dealing with a used hardware which is always a bit of a lottery. Performance-wise A18 would be plenty for casual stuff. IIRC it's faster than M1.
  • spacecadet 7mo ago
    2. Apple would know best no? lol, this screams Cook. Too many iphone boards? Existing laptop tooling. Bam, revenue.
    • microtonal 7mo ago
      That doesn't make much sense. They do lean/JIT manufacturing, so it's unlikely that they have too many iPhone boards. Also, the tooling for a completely new alu unibody size for just selling a few iPhone boards does not make much sense. This is very clearly targeted at Chromebooks in education, where the iPad is not doing too great: https://www.businessinsider.com/how-apple-lost-the-k-12-education-market-to-google-2023-8 https://www.businessinsider.com/how-apple-lost-the-k-12-educ...
• r0fl 7mo ago
  "Education customers can purchase it for $499." That is insane pricing for a brand new apple product. They will sell so many of these!
  • pcurve 7mo ago
    That's the magic threshold. Can't complain about the non-upgradable 8GB RAM at that price.
    • amelius 7mo ago
      The 8GB RAM makes this barely usable, but it is understandable since Apple doesn't want to cannibalize their own Pro line.
      • akmarinov 7mo ago
        No Apple Intelligence, but my Macbook Air M1 with 8 GB of RAM is plenty usable still
        • jasongill 7mo ago
          It supports Apple Intelligence, all 8gb iPhones and iPads support Apple Intelligence and the promo materials for this Macbook Neo say it supports Apple Intelligence as well.
          • nateb2022 7mo ago
            They were referring to their M1 not being able to support Apple Intelligence.
            • dchest 7mo ago
              8 GB M1 MacBook Air does support Apple Intelligence.
              • 7mo ago
• moolcool 7mo ago
  You can now officially get a device with mutli-user support for only $100 more than the base model iPad. They've really got to throw us a bone with what the iPad is capable of.
• opjjf 7mo ago
  $599, 8 GB RAM, 256 GB, *No* Touch ID $699, 8 GB RAM, 512 GB, Touch ID Honestly pretty fantastic product and price. This is clearly targeted towards education but I think I will happily replace by MacBook Air M1 with this :)
  • baal80spam 7mo ago
    My thoughts as well. 8GB is STILL perfectly fine for a starter notebook, casual browsing and light work. Noone is going to develop on this after all. Fantastic value for money. Honestly what I am (pleasantly) surprised by is the minijack.
    • epolanski 7mo ago
      > Noone is going to develop on this after all. Because it doesn't have twice the ram. Otherwise it was a no brainer complementary machine, especially for users like me that work primarily on desktop and don't want to bring the much heavier macbook pro around. I've got both the m1 max and m3 max (16") and I absolutely hate carrying them around yet I have to, because even on vacations I may have to log and fix a bug in prod blocking the company so to me, weight is absolutely a primary factor for a notebook, and this would've been perfect at just twice the ram.
      • gyomu 7mo ago
        Users like you have money and Apple wants them buying a MacBook Air for that use case :)
        • epolanski 7mo ago
          Users like me have employers which every 3 years will send a new machine I can't decide.
      • stetrain 7mo ago
        The MacBook Air is the same weight and thinner, so for a mobile machine I think that still wins out. The last gen MacBook Air (M4, 16GB, 256GB) was down to $749 with retailer discounts last year. Currently $759 on Apple's certified refurbished site.
• Retr0id 7mo ago
  I wonder if the bootloader will be locked down, I hope not.
  • alexb_ 7mo ago
    Are you serious? This is Apple, the same company that purposefully made their messaging service less compatible so that children would get bullied into buying their products. You really think they would allow anything that isn't MacOS to be run on their hardware?
    • nerdjon 7mo ago
      Uhh... you know when the Mac's were Intel they specifically made a tool for installing Windows on your Mac and shipped drivers for Windows.
      • userbinator 7mo ago
        Because they were basically OEM'd PCs with an Apple logo at one point, and used it as a selling point, but I don't think it was a particularly popular feature among the general userbase. I've personally seen more Hackintosh laptops than Macs running Windows.
    • jsheard 7mo ago
      They do allow you to run third party operating systems on Macs. For now.
    • Retr0id 7mo ago
      Apple has never locked down the bootloader on a Mac-series product before. (But they have never not locked down a product with an A-series CPU - hence my concern)
    • wpm 7mo ago
      Yes? This is a demonstrable fact? Lay off the hater-ade for a second.
• crims0n 7mo ago
  8GB RAM, no apparent upgrade option. Regardless, these will be insanely popular. Apple has finally made a play for the budget laptop market.
  • NoLinkToMe 7mo ago
    Tbh the M1 sold at Walmart for $699 and BestBuy at $650 before. M1 is about equivalent in benchmarks to the A18. Both 8GB of RAM and similar storage. Only the M1 had a bit better battery life, magsafe and such. The budget market consists of a lot of scrappy users that are willing to go out of their way and able to find good deals. And I think Apple has in some ways catered to that market by providing excellent mid-priced laptops like the M1 at $999 price points, which end up in new-in-box deals at places like Walmart/BestBuy at $650 price points, as well as similar refurbished and even lower second hand price points. I bought a new MBA M2 a few months ago at a similarly low price point as this Neo. Apple has been providing fantastic value at budget for a while now through indirect sales channels on older models, though I agree this is another step-up with affordable new direct models.
    • SirMaster 7mo ago
      >M1 is about equivalent in benchmarks to the A18. MacBook Neo is A18 Pro and if you look at benchmarks, the A18 Pro single core performance is 50% faster than the M1... https://browser.geekbench.com/v6/cpu/8650702 https://browser.geekbench.com/v6/cpu/8650702 https://browser.geekbench.com/macs/macbook-air-late-2020 https://browser.geekbench.com/macs/macbook-air-late-2020
      • billyhoffman 7mo ago
        There's a nice graph in this Six Colors article: https://sixcolors.com/post/2026/03/apple-introduces-colorful-macbook-neo-at-599/ https://sixcolors.com/post/2026/03/apple-introduces-colorful... Single Core performance: the A18 Pro is faster than an M3! Multi Core performance: The A18 Pro is essentially the same as an M1. This balance seems right for the target market of a $599 laptop.
  • 7mo ago
• ValentineC 7mo ago
  Why do all the low-end Apple laptops not have USB-C ports on the right? That's one of the main reasons I had to get a MacBook Pro.
  • mohsen1 7mo ago
    Because the motherboard is tiny and on the left?
    • busterarm 7mo ago
      plenty of laptops run cables internally to device ports.
    • wpm 7mo ago
      So presumably the small headphone jack is on a daughter board which could just as easily carry a USB 2 signal.
  • enragedcacti 7mo ago
    I think the charitable read is that Apple wants to minimize confusion by ensuring all usb ports on the device have the same capabilities. A simple USB 2.0 port would be cheap but supporting charging and thunderbolt would add meaningful cost. edit: NVM lol, the Neo only has one fully featured USB port
  • functionmouse 7mo ago
    they do it so that you'll buy a MacBook Pro
• alexwrboulter 7mo ago
  Because of course there's no magsafe.
  • NetMageSCW 7mo ago
    Because it is a $599 ($499 for many) MacBook.
• ValentineC 7mo ago
  Why do all the low-end Apple laptops not have USB-C ports on the right? That's one of the main reasons I had to get a MacBook Pro.
  • jsheard 7mo ago
    It's probably cheaper to squish everything into one small PCB on one side of the machine.
  • esmIII 7mo ago
    Most people use a mouse on the right so having a wire where a mouse will be can be annoying.
    • microtonal 7mo ago
      Yeah, but most people will also be using Bluetooth pointing devices.
      • jtbayly 7mo ago
        That's the point. You don't want to be running your bluetooth mouse into whatever you plugged in on the right side. That might be the reason, but the number of people that actually use a mouse these days is tiny.
      • esmIII 7mo ago
        Maybe, but having wires coming out of the same side as the pointing device is annoying. For cost reasons you have to pick one side. So put it where it causes less issues.
      • deleted 7mo ago
        [deleted]
    • NetMageSCW 7mo ago
      Most people won’t be using a mouse with their MacBook.
  • 7mo ago
• trillic 7mo ago
  Mom is getting a new laptop
• dgxyz 7mo ago
  8Gb. Fuck off no chance. Not in a world of everyone shipping fat browsers with everything. Edit: everything my kids use in their educational side is browser based or thick web apps. This is going to suck. We shouldn't be here and 8Gb should be absolutely fine, but that is not the case.
  • vessenes 7mo ago
    Not sure I understand your complaint - 8GB is a goodish amount of RAM for a Chromebook, the de facto lead for educational stuff. I would take this over any Chromebook, ever, in a heartbeat.
    • dgxyz 7mo ago
      Well ChromeOS is basically a monolithic browser based OS. These will likely have apps deployed which contain one copy of Chrome each. By the time you get three vendors' worth of stuff on it then you're running three isolated browser stacks and eating up RAM. I'm sitting here on a Mac with Teams, Outlook and Slack open and there's 18 gig of RAM gone for example. As for Chromebooks, they are fucking awful for education. The abject disaster that is Google Classroom needs to just go away. NOTHING works properly, has any inkling of any reasonable design or engineering or is intuitive. I've seen so many students struggling with them.
      • nicoburns 7mo ago
        You cna use of all Teams, Outlook and Slack from an actual browser if you want to.
      • engcoach 7mo ago
        The RAM usage you are describing is likely not actual resident memory use. Check RPRVT via top on macOS for a more generally useful metric of actual impact per process.
        • dgxyz 7mo ago
          I look at memory pressure. I am running close to the yellow line on a 24Gb machine. If I close the apps, it craters. If I put more workload on it (I have a couple of things that will eat 4-5gb of RAM) it'll start crawling. They should all be native apps.
• WarmWash 7mo ago
  An iPhone in a laptop body to be an Apple "Chromebook", I can only imagine this will be pretty popular.
  • TazeTSchnitzel 7mo ago
    The 2015~2017 MacBook (I own one and love it) was a similar thing, but with a passively-cooled Intel chip. With Apple Silicon this will be amazing.
• Mizza 7mo ago
  Reminds me of when every college kid had those plastic Macbooks. Quite a smart product.
• ndiddy 7mo ago
  I think the lack of RAM kind of kills this product for general use. 8 GB of RAM with no option to get more is ridiculous in 2026. I bet they'll be very popular with whatever school districts have stuck with Apple rather than switching to Chromebooks though.
  • stevenhubertron 7mo ago
    No. 8gb is fine for normal use.
  • WarcrimeActual 7mo ago
    I think that you're drastically understating how great this is for actual general use. The problem is we have an extremely inflated idea of what general use is. People that frequent places like HN think it's light to moderate coding and a few different dev environments. That's not general use. That's power user stuff to the majority of users. Browsers, very light photo editing, and email/school/office work is general use and this will do that for the next 10 years.
    • ndiddy 7mo ago
      > Browsers, very light photo editing, and email/school/office work is general use and this will do that for the next 10 years. I'm currently running pretty much that exact use case on my M1 MBA (Firefox with 10 tabs open, Pixelmator Pro, Apple Mail, Apple Music playing a local playlist) and I'm at 12.5 GB of RAM used. This is also on Sequoia, from what I hear Tahoe uses more resources. I'm sure that Mac OS can do fancy things with memory compression, swapping, etc when memory pressure is higher, but if you're an individual you might as well buy a refurb M2 or M3 MBA with 16 GB of RAM for the same price as this and not have to worry about it. That's why I said this seems more targeted towards schools. They want a fleet of brand new cheap laptops with a support contract, they don't want to bother with buying individual used laptops off of ebay.
      • NetMageSCW 7mo ago
        If you aren’t using an 8GB Mac than you can’t tell how it would do. My 8GB Intel Mac Mini is just fine.
• lvl155 7mo ago
  Why don’t they just allow MacOS on iPad Pro. It’s what people want.
  • Octoth0rpe 7mo ago
    The ipad pro with keyboard is $1300, more than 2x the price of the Neo. Definitely not the same product category.
  • pjmlp 7mo ago
    Because this way they sell two for the price of two.
  • kolinko 7mo ago
    Who wants it? On my iPad I want an iPad OS, MacOS is not good for touch operation. MS tried merging two OS-es (surface) and see how it went.
  • deleted 7mo ago
    [deleted]
• lvl155 7mo ago
  Why don’t they just allow MacOS on iPad Pro. It’s what people want.
  • vessenes 7mo ago
    I thought I wanted this. And in fact, I turned on the 'window' option for my iPad Pro when it came out. I did not, in fact, want this. The iPad just has totally different ergonomics, even with keyboard / trackpad / etc. Anyway, for years I've been convinced that would be the perfect combo - but in my own tests, - meh - At the very least, new hardware needs to be built that gives laptop-grade typing and trackpad. With that, then it would be upside - but I'm not sure that it would be that much cheaper than just having two devices.
  • jsheard 7mo ago
    Stating the obvious - because keeping them separate means Apple gets to double-dip on people buying more or less the same hardware twice.
• syntaxing 7mo ago
  Interesting how it runs on the A18. I wonder if this means they will try to unify macOS and iOS within this decade.
  • lanthissa 7mo ago
    in a competitive market they would have been unified a long time ago. google has been making slow steps at doing this apple wont until google does
    • 243341286 7mo ago
      [dead]
    • jitl 7mo ago
      all of apple’s devices with displays down to the watch run OS X with a form factor appropriate UI layer on top. iphone and mac are more unified than google’s android/chromeos Tahoe made all the touch targets on macOS bigger, we may get a touch macbook pro this year.
  • deleted 7mo ago
    [deleted]
  • ramgine 7mo ago
    Hasn’t that been the discussion since the laptops/desktops went arm?
    • syntaxing 7mo ago
      Yeah but macOS has never been ran on a “A” series chip before which makes it all more so interesting.
      • jonpalmisc 7mo ago
        The Developer Transition Kit (DTK) ran on the A12Z chip. I don't think this should be interpreted as a signal of iOS/macOS unification.
• cj 7mo ago
  Is this the end of chromebooks?
  • pipeline_peak 7mo ago
    Chromebook’s are like $200
    • mschuster91 7mo ago
      ... with build quality to match. Apple outclasses everyone else when it comes to the build quality of their laptops.
      • pjmlp 7mo ago
        I am quite happy with my Thinkpads, and their replaceable components.
      • wolvesechoes 7mo ago
        Main customers for Chromebooks do not care avout build quality. People, I get it, you love Apple, but get in touch with reality.
    • Aaargh20318 7mo ago
      The problem with a $200 laptop is that you get a laptop that's worth $200.
      • afavour 7mo ago
        But a lot of Chromebooks are bought by school districts so the end user doesn't have a choice
      • pipeline_peak 7mo ago
        To some people that isn’t a problem.
  • pjmlp 7mo ago
    Not only can you buy two and a half Chromebooks with this, they never had much uptake outside a few countries school system.
• saejox 7mo ago
  8gb ram is criminal. For $100 more Air is the one to buy.
  • kilroy123 7mo ago
    I agree. Especially now, with the insane RAM prices.
  • proxysna 7mo ago
    That's called "Apple price ladder". Basically pushing consumer in small increments up the range of products with " but with just $$amount you can get X product with 2*Y of Z!" until consumer hits their limit instead of buying the cheapest working option.
    • mrbombastic 7mo ago
      how much money I have lost to this damn ladder
  • NoLinkToMe 7mo ago
    The newest entry-level Air is $1100, this is $600, or $500 difference. It's significant. Apple released the M1 MBA for $999 and it was considered insane value, and it had 8GB of RAM as well. I don't think it's criminal, sufficient for plenty of casual users. Of course not for everyone.
  • NetMageSCW 7mo ago
    Where is a $699 Air available?
• esher 7mo ago
  I see a lot of young people on that page.
• readitalready 7mo ago
  What's that slot on the side? Antenna?
  • TazeTSchnitzel 7mo ago
    Speaker grilles, one on each side. Shame it's not an SD card slot.
    • functionmouse 7mo ago
      But it shows USB ports on the other side?
      • pimanrules 7mo ago
        The left side has two USB-C, a headphone jack, and a speaker. The right side just has a speaker.
• literoldolphin 7mo ago
  Wait did I read that correctly? There's no backlit keyboard? I don't recall any Mac laptop not having a backlight keyboard since the 2011. And they're marketing it to students -- they are always going to be working in the dark on their beds during the exams... Forget memory - this is like the more major loss in terms feature set.
  • afavour 7mo ago
    IMO it’s not that big of a feature. People touch type.
    • deleted 7mo ago
      [deleted]
  • urbandw311er 7mo ago
    I mean, they could turn on a lamp no?
  • dasKrokodil 7mo ago
    Funny; for me, a backlit keyboard is one of the most unnecessary features I can think of. Even for those who can't touch type, the keyboard is just inches away from the bright screen which sort of illuminates them.
• madsohm 7mo ago
  Ugh. Why is is so much more expensive in Denmark? Here it's DKK5499 for the 256 GB version. That's USD857.
  • buckle8017 7mo ago
    The US price doesn't include tax, Denmark price I assume does.
  • pcurve 7mo ago
    It's the 25% VAT. Pre VAT, it's ~$685. With state sales tax of 8% where I live, the base would cost me $648. So not a huge difference.
  • hnra 7mo ago
    With or without VAT? The USD price is without VAT.
    • madsohm 7mo ago
      The DKK5499 is with VAT. If I enter a San Francisco zip code, it still only comes out to about USD654.
      • thatfrenchguy 7mo ago
        Sales tax in the US is nowhere near 25% :)
        • rtkwe 7mo ago
          Yup, Louisianna has the highest combined state and local sales tax rates on average of ~10% which is no where near the VAT standard which seems to be around 20% for most of Europe? https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/state/sales-tax-rates/ https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/state/sales-tax-rates/
  • TazeTSchnitzel 7mo ago
    That's around $85 more expensive once you account for the fact Danish advertised prices include VAT at a rate of 25%, whereas the US advertised price excludes sales tax.
• Waterluvian 7mo ago
  Tiny, silly, no good, minor, tedious complaint: can you visibly tell which port is USB 3 vs. USB 2 or do you have to just remember?
  • jayd16 7mo ago
    Looks like there isn't any indication in the photos.
  • atommclain 7mo ago
    I think the old 4 port usb-c macbook pros were similar, two usb-c ports were better for charging and supported thunderbolt, while the other two were non-thunderbolt and not optimized for charging. No visual markings. It's interesting because the new studio display has 4 usb-c ports and 2 support thunderbolt, but they do indicate which ports are thunderbolt above the port. https://www.apple.com/studio-display/specs/ https://www.apple.com/studio-display/specs/
• functionmouse 7mo ago
  cute netbook, I appreciate the no notch design Too bad their software is total garbage now, I could never resign myself to that.
• afavour 7mo ago
  $599 and available in a range of colors. My bet is this is going to be a hit with high schoolers and college students everywhere. Reminds me of the Technicolor iPod mini of my college days. The 2000s are back, baby
  • notjustanymike 7mo ago
    Getting strong original iMac vibes as well, with a similar market opportunity. The chromebook / education space is awful, and a well built (and stylish) competitor can do serious business.
    • andrewcastmate 7mo ago
      I was wondering if they were somewhat intentionally trying to harken back to those original iMacs and iBooks. The first thing I thought when I opened the page for these was that the colors were really giving me that vibe.
  • wffurr 7mo ago
    I wish they had the green from the iMac lineup. I like that color a lot. Still this is a nice device at an excellent price.
• deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]
• zitterbewegung 7mo ago
  It's interesting that to get to the price point of $499 (edu) or $599 that what Apple did was - No touchID on the base model - 8GB of RAM - USB 3 and the second port is USB 2 - No MagSafe. But, you can still get a 512 gb of SSD and it adds the TouchID sensor back. For education the upgrade may actually make sense.
  • ulfw 7mo ago
    The RAM and USB limitation likely has little to do with price point and all to do with the limitations of the A18pro SoC. It's really not a chip designed to be put into PCs
    • zitterbewegung 7mo ago
      You are totally right. Also, I think it's basically to avoid only one port to charge and use for connectivity.
  • SirMaster 7mo ago
    Feels like a refurb M1 Air is a much better deal. 8/256, TouchID, Magsafe, USB3 all for $300-350 currently.
    • rappatic 7mo ago
      The M1 Air didn’t have MagSafe, but yeah agreed
• nkzd 7mo ago
  Built for Apple Intelligence. 8GB of RAM. It will be a struggle but I have no doubt it will sell really well.
• scrivna 7mo ago
  How is it Apple can make a whole laptop cheaper than the phones they sell? Phones are costing more while laptops are going down in price.
  • jitl 7mo ago
    Besides the phone CPU, they’re using less apple custom silicon: MediaTek wifi/bluetooth, no cellular modem, generic 1080p camera.
  • elicash 7mo ago
    The MacBook Neo starts at the same price as the new iPhone 17e! I think they should have branded the 17e the iPhone Neo.
    • badc0ffee 7mo ago
      Interesting. In Canada the 17e starts at $899, and the Neo starts at $799.
      • elicash 7mo ago
        First, sorry for my U.S.-centric comment! And yes, that's fascinating. Are carrier subsidies in Canada higher or something?
  • nicoburns 7mo ago
    There are bunch of expensive components in a phone that aren't in this. The modem and camera system come to mind.
  • onlyrealcuzzo 7mo ago
    Because this is probably using a bunch of old parts that didn't get sold and are very cheap now (the a18 from last year's iPhones, etc). It also probably doesn't have a ~60% margin.
    • geon 7mo ago
• spockz 7mo ago
  So the biggest difference I see with the new Air is that you get sRGB only in the display, with less brightness. Also it is has 8GiB of RAM, which shouldn’t be an issue for the intended use. Same weight. You lose a bit on the speakers, microphone, and webcam. Not sure how noticeable this will be.
• mmastrac 7mo ago
  This could be useful as a remote-access device for something that has a decent amount of RAM, I suppose, but how can anyone do anything outside of light-duty work with 8GB? At some point a Pi + battery/screen case is legitimately better.
  • pcdoodle 7mo ago
    [dead]
  • NetMageSCW 7mo ago
    Why would anyone by the cheapest MacBook available for anything except light duty work?
• gyomu 7mo ago
  8GB RAM was actually pretty workable for lightweight work… until they shipped Tahoe. Now macOS is just a slog doing even the most basic things unless you’re at 16GB. Sure hope macOS 27 comes with some serious performance optimization. But hey the colors are cute.
  • dubeye 7mo ago
    I'm typing this on an 8gb MacBook and Tahoe. it's mostly fine
    • deleted 7mo ago
      [deleted]
    • gyomu 7mo ago
      You must not be doing much else then. My M1 8GB Air did great before Tahoe; even medium complexity Xcode projects ran fine on it with other apps running. Since I made the mistake of upgrading it to Tahoe, it’s too painful to work in those projects.
      • dubeye 7mo ago
        It chugs if I launch a node server yes but that's an outlying use case for an 8gb air. AI is so good these days I am using the laptop for quick changes more often, as I just push every change. I rarely need to fiddle. The general experience of using my desktop and laptop are converging.
        • jpc0 7mo ago
          Let me ensure I understand you. Running a node.js server on Tahoe makes your macbook sluggish and you feel like Tahoe is fine performance wise? May I reminded you that 10 years ago people also ran chrome and node js webservers and this was not a problem in any way with 8GB of ram.
          • dubeye 7mo ago
• wongogue 7mo ago
  Neo will at least help in ensuring that macOS doesn’t become too heavy for a few years.
  • geerlingguy 7mo ago
    ...hopefully. That assumes Apple dev teams use one in their test suites. One downside to the 11" Air when it was still sold is so much software that would be slightly broken on the vertically-constrained display.
  • havaloc 7mo ago
    Exactly, this is good news, it'll force them to keep 8gb in mind. It essentially restarts the clock on 8GB machines for the next five to seven years.
• steveruizok 7mo ago
  This is an incredible price. Lucky students.
• avarun 7mo ago
  No idea why anybody still thinks of this company as making premium devices or catering to the premium market. Tim Cook's Apple makes cheap shit for the mass market, and has for years. It's not surprising when something like this comes out for cheap, because in general Apple has been price competitive for the past decade. And in that vein of making cheap shit for the mass market, their software quality has suffered incredibly. They no longer serve the consumer tier they used to, but their branding halo from those days is so effective that it helps them sell to this new, lower tier consumer.
  • showerst 7mo ago
    Yesterday they came out with a five thousand dollar laptop with 128GB of ram. You can spend 20 grand on a mac studio. Companies can address different market segments. The software has taken a nose dive, but I don't think it's related. If anything, you'd think that selling lower spec machines would drive software improvements.
  • cesarvarela 7mo ago
    Not sure about the "cheap shit" part, there are no other laptops with the build quality of MacBooks. It is as premium as it gets. Software has gotten shittier tho, but I think it is an overall trend and not just Apple.
  • wvenable 7mo ago
    I have no idea why anyone ever thought that Apple only made premium devices for a premium market. Apple has always been (or wanted to be) a mass market computer and device company and I have an iPod Shuffle to prove it.
    • NetMageSCW 7mo ago
      There goal has always been to provide a quality product for the majority, but many don’t know or forget that.
• firloop 7mo ago
  ~~Haven't yet seen anyone comment on the apparent lack of Apple Intelligence. Makes sense due to the low amount of memory but wonder how many people won't notice that until after they buy this laptop.~~ edit: somehow missed it has Apple Intelligence - whoops
  • Marciplan 7mo ago
    They literally mention in the video that it contains Apple Intelligence.
    • firloop 7mo ago
      Not sure how I missed that - was too fixated on tech specs. My bad.
      • Marciplan 7mo ago
        no worries <3
• Raed667 7mo ago
  8GB of ram places it in competition with cheap chromebooks but nothing more
  • Cthulhu_ 7mo ago
    That's a bit... uninformed, there are and historically have been plenty of non-chromebook laptops with 8 GB of memory in that price bracket (HP, Samsung, Lenovo, ASUS, etc).
    • Raed667 7mo ago
      And now they're digital waste
  • neop1x 7mo ago
    One of the examples of devices which are e-waste from the time they were manufactured. But people won't listen. Soon there will be lots of complains of people that they can't run more than one app on it and that it's garbage. It's like macbook 12". It's funny that some people believe that 8GB of RAM will make software developers rethink their RAM consumption and that they will now optimize their apps because of it.
• tylerrooney 7mo ago
  It's ironic that one of the product shots includes a child using a $599 laptop while wearing $549 headphones.
  • pjmlp 7mo ago
    The ideal kind of Apple customers, https://www.amazon.com/Cult-Mac-Leander-Kahney/dp/1593271220/ref=sr_1_2 https://www.amazon.com/Cult-Mac-Leander-Kahney/dp/1593271220...
  • s0rce 7mo ago
    lots of people now have a $1000 phone and no computer at all.
• rambambram 7mo ago
  Does it run Linux?
  • deleted 7mo ago
    [deleted]
  • iso-logi 7mo ago
    No.
• deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]
• TruffleLabs 7mo ago
  We are back to colors! https://appleclamshell.wordpress.com/color-guide/ https://appleclamshell.wordpress.com/color-guide/
• faust201 7mo ago
  Nail in the coffin for ChromeOS (or aluminiumOS) if they 8GB RAM variants are sold > $500.
  • digikazi 7mo ago
    Maybe. When a decent Chromebook is £697 (https://www.johnlewis.com/lenovo-chromebook-14m9610-laptop-mediatek-processor-16gb-ram-256gb-14-wuxga-seashell/p114715890 https://www.johnlewis.com/lenovo-chromebook-14m9610-laptop-m...) it doesn't make economic sense to get one.
• jgbuddy 7mo ago
  Interested to see how 8gb of ram holds up here.
• pjmlp 7mo ago
  For 800 euros, with 8 GB RAM, and a mobile GPU?!? No thanks.
  • functionmouse 7mo ago
    599usd == 514eur
    • ErneX 7mo ago
      These start at 699€, at least here, VAT included.
    • pjmlp 7mo ago
      I suggest to look into the actual store prices, instead of fly by comments.
• digikazi 7mo ago
  I wonder if Apple is positioning these to counter Google's Chromebooks? The pricing makes sense, especially as lately I've seen some pretty expensive Chrome devices: £500 - £700... which is not that far off from base Macbook Air, but without the quirky limitations. As an aside, I have been a firm ChromeOS user since 2013; since my computing life at work is pretty complicated, so I wanted to keep it really simple at home. For the most part, this setup worked just fine. However, lately... I've found the Pixel line to be very underwhelming and expensive - add to that the ever increasing cost of Chromebooks... What can I say? Moving over to the Great Walled Garden of Apple makes sense. I'll probably buy one of these.
  • raw_anon_1111 7mo ago
    The problem with competing against Chromebooks is that Chromebooks + GSuite and Google’s managed offerings for schools.
    • AdamN 7mo ago
      My kids' school uses iPads with GSuite. It seems like a common config. With Creative Studio Apple could even displace GSuite at some point.
    • testfrequency 7mo ago
      Chromebooks are much more secure for enterprise and education. macOS is awful to manage on an enterprise and education level. This will always be Apple’s achilles heel in truly breaking into this market. Admins will push back. Google has Security down to a science. ChromeOS has little to no malware. Google is constantly reporting malware and exploits to Apple so they can patch active vulns.
      • JSR_FDED 7mo ago
        At my last company the support staff for the Macs was one fifth the size of that supporting the PCs (almost the same quantities of Macs and PCs)
      • 7mo ago
• hollowturtle 7mo ago
  256gb and 8gb of ram, here we go again. Old gen macbook air seems a better deal, isn't it?
• retired 7mo ago
  I was hoping for a sub 1kg laptop for travel. Might go for an iPad Air plus keyboard now.
  • alpaca128 7mo ago
    I would first check the iPad + keyboard is actually lighter than the Macbook Air. As far as I know the keyboard weighs quite a bit, though coincidentally Apple's website doesn't specify the weight.
    • retired 7mo ago
      Wow! Over 600 grams for the 11” Air keyboard. That is almost as much as a mechanical keyboard. I had no idea the total combination would be near a MacBook in weight.
• jghn 7mo ago
  Anyone know how this would compare to an original M1 Air? Both in terms of performance and also capability. My primary use case for my air is web browsing and similar. But I do use other things at times. I know they're both arm processors, but are there things that ne can do an M1 that won't work on this?
  • lm28469 7mo ago
    a18 scores better than m1 in single thread benchmark and about the same in multi thread https://browser.geekbench.com/ios_devices/iphone-16 https://browser.geekbench.com/ios_devices/iphone-16 https://browser.geekbench.com/macs/macbook-air-late-2020 https://browser.geekbench.com/macs/macbook-air-late-2020
    • augusto-moura 7mo ago
      This comparinson might not be fair, since we are talking about an iPhone and a Macbook. We need to wait for Neo's benchmarks. A lot of things can change from the phone factor to the laptop factor, from power supply, to thermals, to dedicated data lanes
      • lm28469 7mo ago
        Sure but it's very unlikely that it would perform worse in a laptop than in a phone, thermals are better, power supplies are beefier, batteries much larger, &c.
  • JBorrow 7mo ago
    They're pretty much equivalent.
    • microtonal 7mo ago
      They are not. The A18 Pro has much better single threaded performance (similar multi-core performance). Unless you are going to build software projects, a difference in single-threaded performance is going to be much more noticeable.
• andy_ppp 7mo ago
  I imagine this will be popular in other countries too. Such an incredible product for the price. Does anyone have benchmarks comparing the A18 to an M1 say?
  • jitl 7mo ago
    A18 is ahead of M1 single core, slightly behind in multi core on Geekbench https://browser.geekbench.com/v6/cpu/compare/16858435?baseline=16858229 https://browser.geekbench.com/v6/cpu/compare/16858435?baseli... you’re essentially getting an m1 macbook air with a worse keyboard a quality used m1 air on ebay is about $400 w 256gb storage https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=m1+macbook+air&_trksid=p4624852.m4084.l1313 https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=m1+macbook+air&_trksid=...
• eastbound 7mo ago
  > MacBook Neo features two USB-C ports for connecting accessories or an external display[5]. Both ports can be used for charging. MacBook Neo also includes a headphone jack for wired audio. > [5] MacBook Neo features two USB-C ports — USB 3 (left) and USB 2 (right). External display connectivity supported on left USB 3 port only. So, 1 display. Note that there’s probably already $100 of dongles on top of a Mac price, but at least this one would be an excellent fit for my father.
• jitl 7mo ago
  I guess it’s to be expected, but i’m sad there’s no 16gb RAM upgrade option. $699 for a brand new Mac is nice and 8gb will work for the netbook/student audience but i’d personally want a teensy bit more.
• robinhood 7mo ago
  I can totally see many, many students and parents use that machine for daily tasks. Yes, base specs are pretty low: 8Gb RAM, 256 Gb drive - but the price tag is also low in the Apple world. I assume the trackpad will be excellent and the promise that the battery lasts all day is probably true (all day = 6-7h max). Good move from Apple, for once.
  • justonceokay 7mo ago
    It looks like a perfect replacement for my 2011 MBP. I always figured I’d get a Chromebook when it croaked but this is a viable contender
    • uf00lme 7mo ago
      A 2011 MBP is likely a better a general purpose PC, those early models had some great engineering. Wait for the reviews and benchmarks but the M1/M2 based MBPs are still great daily drivers.
      • jamesgeck0 7mo ago
        Those old 2011 machines aren't really getting macOS security updates anymore, and compatible apps are dropping; I wouldn't recommend using anything but Linux on them. And even with a non-15-year-old battery, you'll be lucky to get half the battery life of Apple Silicon with a 2nd gen Core i5 CPU.
      • mushufasa 7mo ago
        2011 is 15 years ago -- MacOs will not support that device, so it is a real security risk to use online. This new offering seems comparable to the price of a refurbished M1/M2.
  • romanovcode 7mo ago
    > the trackpad will be excellent Nope. It is mechanical.
    • 7mo ago
• maxwellito 7mo ago
  Hey Folks: no notch! This is beautiful!
  • stetrain 7mo ago
    But it's also a smaller display, smaller than the MacBook Air before it got the notch. So really you're losing screen area not gaining when comparing to the 13.6" MacBook Air with a notch. Edit: Not 16x9 as originally stated.
    • maxwellito 7mo ago
      Yeah it comes with a compromise. Tbh, if it was an option I would sacrifice a tiny bit of my screen to not have the notch while keeping a uniform bezel.
• aosaigh 7mo ago
  Anyone else find the naming odd? What’s the relevance of “Neo”? It feels like one of the only Apple products where the name is completely divorced from its intended usage (or defining feature) - Phone - Watch - Pro - Studio - Mini - Vision - Air - Neo???
  • hyperhello 7mo ago
    Neon, and also “fun for kids”.
  • functionmouse 7mo ago
    Neo as in New, as in "our customers can't afford our products anymore so this represents a potential major pivot for this company if it works"
    • NetMageSCW 7mo ago
      Neo as in New for a new market segment that we can now provide our quality products for.
• eddof13 7mo ago
  that's a wild price point for a mac, impressive
• cestith 7mo ago
  It looks like a good value if you can get by with 8 GB of RAM. This is a market niche that will sell, but it doesn’t replace the Air. The Air has 16GB standard and can be ordered with up to 32. I’m also curious about the benchmarks between the A18 Pro and the M5, although for a lot of people that’s going to be less important than the RAM. Good on them for bringing back bright colors, and for including a 3.55mm audio jack on their new lowest end laptop.
  • dawnerd 7mo ago
    8gb was standard not that long ago and was just fine for most people.
    • regularfry 7mo ago
      I'm still working on an 8GB M1 Pro. It's just about ok. VS Code plus podman plus Teams plus Slack plus Firefox and it hits the limits; usually Slack is the thing to get killed.
      • cestith 7mo ago
        I’m on a 16GB M1 Pro. Slack, Zoom, then browser tabs for Jira, PagerDuty, GMail, Confluence, and a Google doc and it’s swapping like mad. It’s that fast SSD and the integrated memory, so it swaps quickly. Swapping is still swapping though.
    • bubblewand 7mo ago
      It’s great if you run max two “web apps” at a time. More, and it’s heading into “may be a problem” territory. I’ve seen a Gmail tab eat 2.5Gb of memory all on its own… just sitting there. And you need some headroom for content and file caching and such to keep things feeling snappy.
      • ezfe 7mo ago
        cache uses whatever you have
• voidUpdate 7mo ago
  Whats "neo" about this compared to the last macbook they put out?
  • jsheard 7mo ago
    This is the first Mac to use an A-series (i.e. iPhone) processor, so it's a distinct class in their lineup.
• hilti 7mo ago
  This is a very smart move and I love it! Absolutely the best device I can get for my parents.
• maxpert 7mo ago
  Can't seem to find what is the processor on this thing?
  • ErneX 7mo ago
    It has the A18 Pro, same as the iPhone 16 Pro (2024).
• wetpaws 7mo ago
  [dead]
• NoLinkToMe 7mo ago
  Interesting that it's the same weight, less wide and less tall than the Air model, though it is a bit thicker. Seems like an amazing entry-level offer for kids and students. But to be honest for myself I also don't really much added value of an Air or Pro anymore. I think the memory of 8gb is the biggest limit for a device you want to use another 6-8 years, except for the most casual of users. Those who have multiple apps and tens of tabs open will enjoy an experience difference with 16gb Air/Pro. And the battery life is significantly (but not radically) better on the Air/Pro. Really great to see.
  • 999900000999 7mo ago
    This isn't for anyone to use for 6 to 8 years. This is for people who want the cheapest MacBook possible, with the edu discount it's only 499$. You drop it being silly, cool that's only 500$.
    • hypfer 7mo ago
      Uhm but you do realize that $500 is actually a lot of money for people that aren't living in SF and hop between startups every second tuesday, right? There is no "only". It's $500.
      • qn9n 7mo ago
        When compared to the rest of the line up it is only, the Air is now $999 for the base model, that's 1k, 500 is cheap in comparison and for the quality it beats out a lot of laptops in this price range.
        • hypfer 7mo ago
          That is a correct statement, but "whoopsie, dropped it, but no biggie, it's just $500" is not.
      • ericmay 7mo ago
        It can be a decent sized purchase if you were buying it outright, but $500 is just not a lot of money in America for the vast majority of citizens. Though I agree with you completely regarding the "oops I dropped it".
• surrTurr 7mo ago
  256gb on a macbook should be illegal in 2026
  • ilumanty 7mo ago
    Absolutely ridiculous that they still offer this while macOS + Apple Intelligence already take ~30 GB
    • NetMageSCW 7mo ago
      So only 226GB left??!
  • Mashimo 7mo ago
    Why? If it's aimed for education, where does the need come from? I use ~500 Gb on my laptop, but that is only because I have all my music on that thing. Doubt most students today have that need.
• accrual 7mo ago
  Looks pretty cool. I feel they got some features right for their target demographics: - 2 fun colors + 2 regular - The Magic Keyboard looks like it has a decent amount of travel and should hold up well - Headphone port, recognizing that wired headphones are way more durable in a classroom setting - Decent price and display, though I wonder about performance w/ Tahoe I don't currently have a modern macOS machine, so a basic machine like this could be useful to have around even though I daily drive Linux now. Maybe it'll get Asahi support!
  • yonatan8070 7mo ago
    I wonder, if Asahi get's ported to this, would that potentially open the door for Asahi on an A18 powered iPhone? Or are those secure-booted too hard?
    • TingPing 7mo ago
      iPhones would require an exploit.
      • bpye 7mo ago
        A bootloader exploit at that, and we haven't had one of those in years.
    • WhyNotHugo 7mo ago
      iPhones have a locked bootloader. Unless a really solid exploit is found (unlikely) this won’t happen.
• areoform 7mo ago
  One of the first things Steve Jobs did when he came back to Apple in 1996/97 is that he took a shredder and a flamethrower to Apple's product lines. He'd ask managers, "which one should I tell my friends to buy?" And if they couldn't give an answer, he'd kill the line. Or so the story goes, https://www.entrepreneur.com/growing-a-business/how-steve-jobs-saved-apple/220604 https://www.entrepreneur.com/growing-a-business/how-steve-jo... Big companies drift away from the ground truth of their employees and customers over time. Without someone highly focused coordinating things, it's easier to create a "new" product and call it a day than it is to innovate. And when you're big it takes years, decades even, for the cracks to eventually show, but show they will. Because ask yourself, if you were telling your friend to buy a Macbook, which one would you tell them to buy? ––– edit: just to clarify, currently Apple's lineup includes the "What's a computer?" iPad – $349+, iPad Mini - $500+, iPad Pro – $999+ and iPad Air – $599+. These come with a pencil and a magic keyboard. Also some of them are more powerful than the A18 Macbook Neo. Then there's the Macbook Neo - $600+, 13" Macbook Air - $1,099+, 15" Macbook Air – $1,299+, 14" Macbook Pro – $1,699+, 16" Macbook Pro - $2,699+. Who are all of these things for? Why does the iPad Air exist with the magic keyboard alongside the Macbook Neo? That's the same keyboard attached to a less powerful processor and a touchless display for a spitting-distance price.
  • doctoboggan 7mo ago
    I think this is now the one you should be telling your friend to get (unless they are a developer or professional in which case they probably aren’t asking your opinion)
  • jaredklewis 7mo ago
    > Because ask yourself, if you were telling your friend to buy a Macbook, which one would you tell them to buy! Depending on their budget and needs, a Neo, Air, or Pro.
  • gyomu 7mo ago
    When Steve came back Apple was months from bankruptcy; their product lineup was full of duds. Today Apple is the most profitable company in the world, and every product line is ruthlessly optimized/scrutinized to maximize their revenue/supply chain use/suss out consumer needs for the next cycle. There isn’t a world where Apple has a $4T market cap and where their product offering fits in a neat 2x2.
• throwaway27448 7mo ago
  It's still almost three pounds.... Whatever they did with the 11" macbook air was magical. It doesn't seem like they can pull it off twice.
  • NetMageSCW 7mo ago
    This is a 13” screen. If they made an 11” model, it would probably weigh less than the original.
• Imustaskforhelp 7mo ago
  Let's hope that in the future, When ram prices come down (if that's a concern to apple right now) then we can have 16 gb ram as well. I do think that 8 gb is fine for most cases, even development. I used to use a PC with 8 GB ram and it worked perfectly fine and honestly depending on the workflow if you need more, a VPS can always be your good friend (I really love using zed on a VPS with cloudflare tunnels or perhaps tailscale) Looks pretty good to me. There have been two wins in just these couple of days. This Macbook Neo and The grapheneos+Motorola phone both seem to make decent options available for the market. I might have to go recommend this to a friend of mine who had once asked me what laptop they should pick when they get into college.
  • sgt 7mo ago
    I highly doubt Apple is currently paying market RAM prices. Their orders have been placed years ago.
• snowwrestler 7mo ago
  So I guess they must have fully depreciated the gigantic fleet of CNC routers they use to cut the aluminum cases. Making a cheap laptop seems better than throwing them away.
• deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]
• wpm 7mo ago
  Honestly a pretty interesting little thing but my god what a terrible name
• densh 7mo ago
  Don't get me wrong it's a fantastic product and great price point, but the only thing it makes me think of is the complete failure of iPadOS. Ultra portable MacBook with is A18 with 8G of ram is infinitely more useful to me (for non-pen input) than full M4/M5 chip with more ram that's completely wasted due to needless OS restrictions.
  • vintagedave 7mo ago
    You're right. This is actually an implicit admission of the failure of the iPad for general purpose computing. Which everyone on HN already says, but Apple seems to have its own idea what the iPad is for.
    • andyferris 7mo ago
      Does Apple make a profit of iPad Pro and Air, do you think? Is it a "failure"? Their mere existance screams "our iPads are a gazillion times better and more powerful than Android tablets". Remember, they NEED to have such a reputation to charge luxury product prices (for tablets and otherwise). Think about market segmentation. iPad and Neo are for students and everyday/coffee-table computing. iPad Pro, MacBook Pro with M5 Max, Mac Studio, Studio Display, Watch Ultra etc are chasing a completely different market (niche power users and vanity purchases).
      • vintagedave 7mo ago
        Good point. I will think about this -- it's a very different product perspective than usage intent.
  • wiseowise 7mo ago
    Your “failure” is billions of dollars to them.
• fy20 7mo ago
  Interesting that it only comes with 8GB of RAM. My Macbook Pro on Tahoe uses around that just when booting up, before I start anything. I wonder if they have some memory optimisations planned?
• anentropic 7mo ago
  8GB RAM is fine for these topping out at 512GB storage is lame though
  • zamadatix 7mo ago
    8 GB is plenty for the base of this use case but I'd still wish for a 16 GB upgrade option before I'd wish for a 1 TB upgrade option.
• billyhoffman 7mo ago
  For years Apple has been selling an M1 Apple MacBook Air for $649 via Walmart. It was still using the old wedge case design and is literally unchanged from fall of 2020 when it came out. It was the base model with 256 GB storage and 8 GB of RAM model, no upgrade options, no colors. The price point was designed to get customers who would not pay for a $1000 computer into using a Mac. Sourcing those 2020 era M1 components, screens, etc, let alone M1's, was probably becoming a problem in 2026. The Macbook Neo is a modern way to meet that price point. The video ad is more instructional about what macOS is, and how it would work with an iphone the customer may already have. It does very basic Apple Intelligence (they show the photo editing in the video), but this is not for running models locally (they even show the ChatGPT native app and say "runs all your favorite AI apps") People complaining about the 8 GB limit are missing who the target market is for this machine. Its a Mac, for $599!
  • ciupicri 7mo ago
    So what if it's a Mac, applications suddenly don't need as much memory? Can it open a table with a gazillion rows? Can it open ten tens if not hundreds of web pages? Can it run multiple programs at the same time? Having only 8 GB sucks unless you're using it as a terminal or media player.
    • philistine 7mo ago
      Get a Macbook Air, the start at 16.
    • dchest 7mo ago
      Yes, it can -- to all questions.
    • quesera 7mo ago
      This is wrong. My daily-driver M2 16GB has been up for 54 days, running three web browsers simultaneously (all Firefox, which does help, about 30K tabs across them), plus a medium-sized Rails app and postgres, iTerm2 and tmux (about 38 panes), and the Slack (Electron!) app. Current RAM usage is 6.14GB. Things change when I run local LLMs or VMs or Xcode, of course.
• mattfrommars 7mo ago
  More affordable Mac, there is nothing wrong with it. But the only issue in school is the rick kid's parent will get them Macbook Pro or even Macbook Air, and the poor kids will get Macbook Neo... I'm sure the kid will not feel great about having Neo while her friend have Pro version.
  • chromic04850 7mo ago
    [dead]
  • ForceBru 7mo ago
    Apple: here's an affordable laptop. This comment: but the poor kids are going to feel inferior to the rich kids with this affordable laptop! Of course the poor kids are going to get cheaper & slower computers, cheaper clothes, etc. And they won't feel great about it because being poor isn't great. But now they'll have more options! If they like Apple, they'll have a (likely pretty good) Apple laptop! It's great! I think a more affordable Mac is _good_ (at least better than no affordable Mac) and will make the poor kids happier.
  • 10729287 7mo ago
    It will be a nice step to the "Blue bubble" lifegoal for them.
  • wiseowise 7mo ago
    Poor kid would definitely feel superior rocking shitty, plastic Windows tombstone that won’t survive for 2 hours without power supply.
• ruined 7mo ago
  i didn't even know usbc2 ports were a thing
  • yndoendo 7mo ago
    The USB-C ports are unbalanced. Should have one on the left and right, not side by side. Unbalanced USB-C ports has become a common bad design in the laptop industry.
    • freeone3000 7mo ago
      Commodity hubs, especially USB2, come with lots of ports; it's up to how many connectors you can reasonably fit on the chassis. But running a trace across the board for USB isn't a great sell. Getting a second board on the other side isn't a great sell, especially for budget computers like this one. So we end up with "unbalanced" ports.
      • matthewfcarlson 7mo ago
        Yup- if you put usb ports on both sides of the laptop you need a retimer chip as the traces are too long/suffer EMI. Which adds to BOM cost.
      • yndoendo 7mo ago
        "Unbalanced" USB-C and USB-A ports on a laptop is a bad design. We should be calling out bad designs. HP, Lenovo, Asus, ACER, Dell, ... all contribute to this bad design. Apple even uses unbalanced USB-C ports on the MacBook Air. This is why I choose the Framework laptop over the big names. Their design has balanced USB ports were it can be charged from the left or right. Balanced power USB ports improves user experience with using on a couch or in a bed. Plugging in two USB to NIC adapters allows the weight to be balanced while working on a lap or some other non-desk environment. Balanced USB-C ports sold me and what I first look at when reviewing a laptop.
  • klodolph 7mo ago
    There are also USB-C 2 cables.
• pu_pe 7mo ago
  The specs are similar to what Google Pixelbooks had in 2017, except for the CPU.
• deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]
• oidar 7mo ago
  I'm sure these will sell very well. It will be interesting to see how they compare to the M1. I'm sure Asahi linux folks are really excited about an extra chip set to support.
• geon 7mo ago
  Didn't we agree that calling your product "new" is poor planning? Are they going to silently rename it in 6 months? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPad_(3rd_generation) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPad_(3rd_generation) Or will they keep doing this with "neu", "nouveau", "nuevo" etc?
  • mcphage 7mo ago
    > Are they going to silently rename it in 6 months? Probably when they update it, if they decide to keep the product line going.
  • xiphias2 7mo ago
    It's a product category name at least, not a release name, so the next release can be Neo 2
  • tshaddox 7mo ago
    I honestly don't think "neo" invokes thoughts of "new" to most people (despite the Greek etymology, of which I'm well aware). It's a subtle distinction, but I think the general connotation is more like "hyper-modern" or "reinvention/reinterpretation." People won't see "MacBook Neo" and think "oh there's just a new MacBook."
    • NetMageSCW 7mo ago
      I will be waiting for the MacBook Trinity.
      • deleted 7mo ago
        [deleted]
• sublinear 7mo ago
  I think most are going to pass on this. I'm not sure Apple has ever figured out how to sell anything to the price conscious consumer since the iPod Shuffle. As always, you can get a more performant laptop for the price. Price sensitive consumers have shown time and time again they will put up with all the little annoyances of a cheap laptop if it means more performance. I'm not saying those details Apple puts into their products aren't nice, but yeah this is barking up the wrong tree. For those people, any laptop purchase is going to be their one and only device that isn't their phone. Those who absolutely need MacOS and have this budget will just get a Mac Mini.
  • rjrjrjrj 7mo ago
    They sell hundreds of millions of iPhones every year. The iPhone installed base is in the billions. I think there are many users who will be interested in an inexpensive laptop that neatly integrates with their iPhone. Same as there were many users who were interested in Airpods and a Watch.
  • raw_anon_1111 7mo ago
    The low end iPad is $329 and usually found for $299
  • NetMageSCW 7mo ago
    Desktops don’t sell any more.
• alpn 7mo ago
  In case anyone else is wondering - Neo: Height: 0.50 inch (1.27 cm) Width: 11.71 inches (29.75 cm) Depth: 8.12 inches (20.64 cm) Weight: 2.7 pounds (1.23 kg) Air: Height: 0.44 inch (1.13 cm) Width: 11.97 inches (30.41 cm) Depth: 8.46 inches (21.5 cm) Weight: 2.7 pounds (1.23 kg)
  • shrewdcomputer 7mo ago
    Thank you, from my cursory look of their comparison page, this is the information that was missing. But maybe that was a deliberate choice on Apple's part.
    • NoLinkToMe 7mo ago
      Nah it's on there.
  • noname120 7mo ago
    It feels like they did everything they could so that the cheap MacBook with an iPhone CPU would not be lighter than the 1.5x more expensive MacBook with Apple Silicon
• kokada 7mo ago
  I think this has no virtualisation instructions right? Since AFAIK, those are restricted to the Mx series. Of course the 8GB of RAM is also limiting for running any kind of VM, but this notebooks are almost exactly what I was looking for, except for the 8GB of memory.
  • ericmay 7mo ago
    I think they very intentionally assume folks are not running VMs or doing much more than "every day" tasks. Given the pre-packaged E-Waste sold at most retailers for a similar price (or more) I think this is a really fantastic market move by Apple. This is doubly true as I read weirder and weirder things that Microsoft is doing with respect to Windows 12 and, well, in general.
    • bloomingeek 7mo ago
      <I think this is a really fantastic market move by Apple. ...as I read weirder and weirder things that Microsoft is doing with respect to Windows 12> I think this may well be what Apple is thinking! I've only ever purchased an Apple laptop, that was refurbished, because of the, what I consider, too high pricing for their lineup of really nice laptops. (I'm not bad mouthing Apple, I'm just cheap.) IMO, if Win 12 is as bad as what some are thinking, a lot of people will switch to Apple who may be afraid of Linux. (I'm referring to folks like me who normally use a computer for the normal stuff and some semi-lite gaming.) The Neo pricing is usually my ceiling price for a Windows laptop, so I'll be watching the reviews and HN to see I if want to purchase one. Very exciting!
    • kokada 7mo ago
      I agree with all your points. This was not me complaining, it was just an observation. I am actually really excited for a Apple laptop for once, since it is kind the perfect replacement for my Chromebook Duet 3 that I was looking for.
  • aurareturn 7mo ago
    It’s $599. The target audience for this won’t need more. Anyone who knows what a VM is is not the target audience. I used an M1 Air with 8GB as my main software development machine for a year during Covid. It was fine.
• mattfrommars 7mo ago
  What on earth, at least they could have provided 16gb as base RAM. 8gb RAM in 2026 - what on earth were they thinking.
  • nateb2022 7mo ago
    You would be shocked to learn that HP is able to sell plenty of $500 Chromebooks with 8GB of RAM.
• oybng 7mo ago
  Given how incredibly bloated OSX is now and that everything else is CEF, how can they possibly justify 8gb of ram? Even my ancient w7 box has 64gb
  • moolcool 7mo ago
    I agree that it's gone downhill, but have you been on a Windows 11 machine? It's just a cacophony of ads, jank, and slop. The computing equivalent of sitting on a lawn chair in Times Square
  • post-it 7mo ago
    Mac manages memory significantly better than Windows. My 8 GB Air feels better at multitasking than my 20 GB Windows laptop.
• ultropolis 7mo ago
  I hope that Steve Jobs gets up and slaps whoever thought scaling the "Hello Neo" font to 150% width was ok, fires them, and then gets back in his grave grumbling that he would never have let this happen. I have a degree in design, I paid good money to have bad type piss me off.
  • 10729287 7mo ago
    Hip kids love seeing fonts being abused like this, and they are the clients Apple is looking for with this new product. Sorry but this is good marketing.
    • ultropolis 7mo ago
      Hip kids were doing bad type since Photoshop 3/illustrator* gave them the ability to do so. Apple boldly ignored their fanbase and did type right. I don't want kids who think [incompetent] typography is hip designing my laptop, even if they use said laptop. Good type on Apple marketing says "don't worry, we hire boring people to do make your computer work". This looks like incompetence on the part of some designer IMO. Also: if Apple wants the hip kids to know they are being marketed to, they just show a picture of a hip kid using their computer to do trashy type. * I didn't mention any page layout programs on purpose.
      • 10729287 7mo ago
        Sorry man, I'm all with you but this is the world we live in, and there are too many fights to fight nowadays.
• tshaddox 7mo ago
  That's a pretty slick video where the block of aluminum transforms into the finished MacBook in the presenter's hands.
• giancarlostoro 7mo ago
  On the one hand I feel like 8GB is low these days, but my iPhone 12 Pro only had 6GB of RAM, so maybe for light usage this is fine. I do feel like 16GB is the new "8GB" minimum of the 2010s. Especially on windows, 32GB feels like Windows just chews through it no problem. Overall, I might pick one of these up at some point.
• paxys 7mo ago
  > Built for Apple Intelligence. With 8GB RAM? After Tahoe and Apple Intelligence what's going to be left for actual applications to use?
  • iAMkenough 7mo ago
    Same as the iPhone 16, when they started using that marketing phrase.
• swader999 7mo ago
  Seems like landfill fodder with the memory at 8gb.
  • ohhnoodont 7mo ago
    There are plenty of 8GB M1 Airs that many people will likely still be using 10 years from now. For 90%+ of users a laptop is just a web browser machine.
    • jghn 7mo ago
      I have one from the original rollout. I keep thinking about upgrading, but then I realize I'm just doing that because I want to buy something new, not because I need anything more powerful.
  • quesera 7mo ago
    You are so wrong. macOS manages memory much more successfully than whatever you are used to. I assume it's not Linux, because things are pretty good there too (aside from the poor behaviour when you reach OOM).
    • swader999 7mo ago
      I guess it just depends where it goes. I've got about four windows machines with that much RAM and they are all getting Linux and second lives. Not sure if this will be possible with these.
• netcan 7mo ago
  Interesting. It's been a while since we've had excitement at the "cheap and cheerful" end of the spectrum. Anyone remember the initial Eee PC... and the problems it created for MSFT during the Vista transition?
  • 10729287 7mo ago
    That mini pc trend was really something ! Thanks for the blast from the past.
  • sevenseacat 7mo ago
    oh man, I loved my little 10" netbook back in the day.
• twalichiewicz 7mo ago
  Looks like they're using some new variant of branding font for this. Inspect Element shows it as SF Pro Display, but it's actually just being masked over with an image https://www.apple.com/v/macbook-neo/a/images/overview/welcome/hero_text_mask__cq2qs0i7fzo2_large.png https://www.apple.com/v/macbook-neo/a/images/overview/welcom... Also, why not just MacBook? Wasn't that historically the base-level laptop name?
  • qn9n 7mo ago
    Because it's a new base MacBook? so MacBook Neo.
    • twalichiewicz 7mo ago
      They don't call the base model 'iPad Neo.' They just call it iPad (https://www.apple.com/ipad-11/ https://www.apple.com/ipad-11/). It's the same market segment and even uses the exact same color palette. They also just established that 'e' is the designator for budget model (https://www.apple.com/iphone-17e/ https://www.apple.com/iphone-17e/) so best guess is they thought 'MacBook e' looked strange so instead it's 'nEo'. And don't forget the 2004 eMac.
  • browningstreet 7mo ago
    Cause kids will be happier with a Neo.
• hackerbrother 7mo ago
  Would definitely consider for my next laptop. What’s the best solution for “Mac Subsystem for Linux”?
  • gmuslera 7mo ago
    https://brew.sh/ https://brew.sh/
  • qn9n 7mo ago
    It's UNIX, just open Terminal.app
    • zamadatix 7mo ago
      Sometimes that covers the need. Most will at least want something like https://brew.sh/ https://brew.sh/ to get you current versions of standard Linux utilities rather than the bundled ones and then maybe even set up a separate profile in your terminal of choice (iTerm2 is a great option as well) which defaults to using them so you don't break normal system usage which assumes the built in utilities. Even then, if your use case requires using standard Docker images, assumes certain features of the kernel, or assumes common distro environments rather than just you wanting a posixy feeling terminal you'll still need to run a Linux VM in the background.
  • NexRebular 7mo ago
    https://www.macports.org https://www.macports.org
• theanonymousone 7mo ago
  How will the A chip fare for LLM-based use cases, compared the M series? And will we have software compatibility issues because of A versus M issues?
  • RattlesnakeJake 7mo ago
    I don't think LLM use cases are the target audience's chief concern here
• ExoticPearTree 7mo ago
  I was hoping they'll revamp the 12" MacBook. I liked a lot that design and form-factor.
• atlgator 7mo ago
  Sounds like the Apple equivalent of a ChromeBook.
• badgersnake 7mo ago
  So the new iBook. Great.
• browningstreet 7mo ago
  yesterday I wrote in a group slack that today I would get to decide whether: * i'm not buying any machine at all, or waiting for omarchy to support the new dell xps (32GB & 1TB = $1899) * i'm buying the macbook neo at the top specs * i'm buying the macbook air at the bottom specs * i'm buying the macbook air with 32GB RAM & 1TB SSD (also $1899) EDIT: * adding an M5 Macbook (not Pro) with 24GB RAM & 1TB SSD also $1899 as someone who lives in claude code / opencode these days, the 8gb hurts but.. maybe, i dunno. they made this decision very painful. for me it could basically be a coffee shop opencode terminal that lets me access my apple iphone reminders, notes, etc. but 8gb?
• kaleidawave 7mo ago
  Feeling glad I got a 2nd hand air M1 (16gb+512gb) for ~400 GBP last October, rather than waiting out for this. No idea how the processors compare, but that RAM isn't a good sign
• janitor77swe 7mo ago
  I have an M4 Air and I just pre-ordered 3 Neos. One for myself, one for my niece as a present and one for my parents to replace their Windows laptop. I honestly don't understand people who complain about the lack of M5 Pro specs and features on a £599 Macbook. "Oh no, it's 1/3rd of the price of a Pro but I want the Pro specs on it." People seriously need to do think twice before pressing the submit button. And nobody in the right mind would buy a used Macbook for the same price, just because it's more powerful. I have an 8G M2 at work and it's more than enough and I have two browsers running with 20+ tabs, Teams, Outlook, Figma, VScode... If you are a power user buy a Macbook Pro, you can't reasonable expect Pro performance out of a device that costs a third. This Neo is going to sell like crazy because it's an amazing product for the price. That's how much Chromebooks cost but you actually get a full desktop OS rather than a web browser. And for students to buy a new Macbook for £499 come on, some of these comments are just ridiculous.
  • jitl 7mo ago
    M4 air to Neo is a huge downgrade, what’s the motivation?
    • janitor77swe 7mo ago
      It's not a replacement, it's an addition. My Air is stationary and it doesn't leave my desk due to lots of cables plugged in and I want something that I can take with me around the house if I decide to chill elsewhere for a bit. I was looking at Windows laptops for a long time and it was either a Chromebook or £1k+ which I couldn't justify. Anything for the price of the Neo that I could find was an ugly looking 15" piece of plastic from Asus or Lenovo (no offense, I love my Thinkpads). However I do have to say again that I use an 8G M2 at work without any issues and I've had an M1 as a temp replacement for work recently again without any issues and they say A18 is equivalent to M1 in performance so I really don't see why this new Neo wouldn't be enough for a home/personal laptop. All my consumption is SaaS-based, I really don't need better spec. What I need is a lower price and familiarity that I appreciate and I think Apple nailed it here by offering both in a product.
      • 7mo ago
• eptcyka 7mo ago
  Yeah, just rub in the fact that an A series chip is capable of running a real OS.
  • kstrauser 7mo ago
    I don’t ever wanna hear a word about how my iPad Pro isn’t good enough to run macOS, so that’s why Apple won’t let me have a Terminal.app on it.
    • jeroenhd 7mo ago
      Apple isn't good enough at software design to make macOS work on touch screens. Plus, they don't want to compete with themselves. Why sell an iPad running macOS when they can sell you a Macbook and an iPad instead?
      • kstrauser 7mo ago
        Because now, at this price, there’s not a situation where I’d buy an iPad Pro over this. Although it’s marketed as a “pro”, device, a keyboard plus professional apps minus a touch screen is more pro than the same device minus keyboard minus apps plus touch screen.
        • noname120 7mo ago
          Not same form factor + MacBooks don’t have cellular
          • eptcyka 7mo ago
            Not having a modem is another artificial limitation.
            • noname120 7mo ago
              Yes, but a limitation nonetheless.
• deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]
• dangoodmanUT 7mo ago
  Woah... a mobile processor and enormous bezels... definitely feels like Jobs would have never let this ship
  • jitl 7mo ago
    wat? jobs shipped worse machines at twice the price with horrible thermally throttled intel cpus
• kraig911 7mo ago
  I want one for all my kids. I love it. I just wish it had more ram. Personally though this direction is good. I wish now apple would add some sort of AI to it's icloud offering that these computers could use that wasn't necessarily 'local'
  • ericmay 7mo ago
    > I wish now apple would add some sort of AI to it's icloud offering that these computers could use that wasn't necessarily 'local' I think something like that is in the works, but you could leverage Claude or ChatGPT or a similar service, right?
• mvkel 7mo ago
  It's strange that the low-end machines get positioned as "every day task" devices when the biggest ram hogs by far are browsers and websites.
• mono442 7mo ago
  With only 8 GB of RAM would this be usable even for web browsing?
  • quesera 7mo ago
    It's macOS. Yes, absolutely positively more than enough for web browsing plus a whole lot more, simultaneously. If you do serious development, you might need to think about it. I do serious development with local applications on my 16GB M2, and my current usage about 6GB. It goes higher when I run LLMs or VMs, and of course Xcode. Aside from iOS dev, I do not use an IDE.
• paxys 7mo ago
  With every new device Apple releases the split between iPadOS and macOS gets more awkward. Makes no sense for a $1500 "Pro" iPad to have desktop-class RAM, storage, an M5 chip, and be stuck with a Fisher Price OS, while this one has the equivalent specs of last year's iPhone and gets the full power of macOS. Just unify the two already.
  • rappatic 7mo ago
    > just unify the two already Yeah but some people buy both, and apple wants to keep it that way
• podgietaru 7mo ago
  I just want a colourful fun pro laptop :(
  • jitl 7mo ago
    put a skin or case on ur favorite boring-colored pro laptop
  • GuinansEyebrows 7mo ago
    first thing i thought when i saw the citrus version - give me that in a 16" M5 Pro machine!
• hakube 7mo ago
  I think this is a very niche product or a potential Chromebook competitor. This is good enough for students and kids.
• miav 7mo ago
  This is an excellent addition to the lineup and changes the list of reasons for why the average person would go for a Windows laptop from “cost” to practically nothing, but from a consumer perspective, is there any reason to buy this over M1 MBA which can be purchased new for less than the education discounted version of the MB Neo?
  • NetMageSCW 7mo ago
    The M1 MBA is no longer available new, and was only available new for that price in the US.
• SirMaster 7mo ago
  Feels like a refurb M1 Air is a much better deal. 8/256, TouchID, Magsafe, USB3 all for $300-350 currently. Or step up to a refurb M4 Air with 16/256 and all the bells and whistles for $759. The New M4 Air with 16/256 were $749 for 2 months over Nov/Dec everywhere.
  • FishAngular12 7mo ago
    Where can you buy these reliably?
    • SirMaster 7mo ago
      VIPOUTLET which is Walmart liquidation, they have been going here solid for months, price went up slightly but its 340-350 for reburb or open box with coupon code. https://www.ebay.com/itm/136699644252 https://www.ebay.com/itm/136699644252 https://www.ebay.com/itm/136452780686 https://www.ebay.com/itm/136452780686 The refurb M4 Air are on Apple website.
  • qn9n 7mo ago
    Average user doesn't know to look at refurb, the M1 Air will slowly drift out of manufacturing due to component sourcing etc.
  • hollerith 7mo ago
    The M4 does not have Apple’s groundbreaking memory integrity enforcement (MIE) whereas the CPU in this (the A18 Pro) does -- although it is possible that Apple decided against enabling it (to segment the market).
    • hollerith 7mo ago
      That is mistaken: the A18 Pro does not have MIE. (The A19 does.)
  • markn951 7mo ago
    No Magsafe on the M1. The USB ports are actually Thunderbolt 3 but the target customer does not care about that or even knows what Thunderbolt is. I think the main upgrade is the A18 Pro is about 50% faster in single core and matches the M1 in multicore. Which is going to make everything feel a lot snappier for the kind of tasks they're targeting. Plus I think the $100 upgrade to double the storage space and get Touch ID is actually going to be pretty popular.
• gaigalas 7mo ago
  This thing is going to sell a lot. 8GB memory is pathetic. But that doesn't matter for most users yet. In fact, it may not matter at all. If the hardware limitations push us to have several machines, a well-built entry laptop becomes a terminal (you won't run things in it, you'll connect to things). For that, 8GB might be enough.
• deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]
• tomduncalf 7mo ago
  This is going to be a huge success and to me makes so much sense as a product. I’m always amazed at the range of opinions people have on these topics. Might even pick one up for myself to use on the go, I had been thinking about an Air but I don’t need much by the way of power in all honesty
• reacharavindh 7mo ago
  If this makes people develop stuff under the assumption that the user only has 8 GB of memory, I am happy for where we are going :-)
  • dgxyz 7mo ago
    While I died inside at the 8Gb RAM, this is absolutely right. We should be developing efficient software, not assuming our customers can just pay for more RAM forever.
    • ClarityJones 7mo ago
      Particularly when paying for more RAM means buying a completely new computer.
      • thewebguyd 7mo ago
        Even on an upgradable machine. We're looking at ~$400 for 32GB of DDR5, and the price is only going to keep going up. We're at a point now where Apple actually charges less for RAM upgrades than it costs to upgrade your own machine. Insane.
  • zozbot234 7mo ago
    There is a secret easter egg: every time you say the magic incantation "You have to let it all go, Neo. Free your mind", macOS triggers every app to run a full GC cycle.
    • philistine 7mo ago
      Joke's on you; Swift has no garbage collector.
      • coolius 7mo ago
        if more apps were written in native swift we wouldn't be having any memory issues
• NietTim 7mo ago
  There it is! Very interesting offering. It's nice that it's running full mac os with "root access" (whatever that means on macs in current year) I was afraid they'd introduce some bastardised version of iPadOS for this device. This seems like the type of device I'd want my kids to use instead of an iPad or other touch & app based device and just let them figure things out like I did. > Apple also pointed out that the MacBook Neo is Apple's lowest-carbon Mac. It features 60% recycled materials, more than any other Apple product. This includes 90% recycled aluminum and 100% recycled cobalt in the battery. This is _incredibly_ cool.
• throwaway613746 7mo ago
  [dead]
• vegabook 7mo ago
  There’s now a gaping 500 dollar hole in the lineup between this and the macbook air.
• dlisboa 7mo ago
  I wish more would be done on weight. The 12 inch Macbook was very lightweight, just 2 pounds. Today there's no Apple product that gets close to that: an iPad with the added accessories weighs more and it's still an iPad. The Macbook "Air" is not airy, this Macbook Neo weighs the same as an Air.
  • tedd4u 7mo ago
    That machine's form factor was so great, it was just saddles with that awful hot-running Intel CPU. I was hoping this device would be essentially the MB12, finally with the right chip. I guess they were going for target price, not target weight.
  • NetMageSCW 7mo ago
    How much did the 12” MacBook cost?
    • dlisboa 7mo ago
      It was $999 back then. They could be made cheaper today. Those were Intel chips.
• petercooper 7mo ago
  I think 8GB with Tahoe will lead to a lot of griping in a month or two, but I've bought one for family use. We have some old iMacs with various issues issues and this ticks all the boxes for basic family use. Plus, the sickly color will hopefully mean no-one will hog the machine or take it outdoors.
• sodality2 7mo ago
  Crazy good market segmentation by Apple here - it's pretty easy for college students to justify this plus an iPad, and still have to upgrade to a "real" laptop post-grad. Personally this looks really compelling for students - I did something similar, dinky 4GB ram 2 core laptop with crazy good battery life - because I don't care about specs at all, LMS's and note-taking apps in school are not heavy. I just NEED to be able to work all day long, when lecture halls lack outlets. If I needed development weight I would just use an IDE plugin to remote to a desktop in my dorm. Are there any similar laptops around this price range with comparable battery life? My impression is the market around ARM laptops is pretty small. If so this is a standout for this use case.
  • wiremine 7mo ago
    This. My daughter is a high-school junior, and she's been asking for a laptop going into her senior year/college. This is exactly who Apple is going after.
    • TheJoeMan 7mo ago
      I convinced my parents to get me a 2017 MBP for college, yes it was overkill for the day-to-day classes, but I ended up getting into iOS app development and was so fortunate to have a beefier-system. However, for a liberal-arts student the MBN appears to be a sweet spot.
  • pier25 7mo ago
    > it's pretty easy for college students to justify this plus an iPad Why would you want an iPad? The Neo can run iPad apps and it's small enough that it can be used in most situations where you'd typically use a tablet (bed, couch, etc).
    • wpsimon3 7mo ago
      I used to use both...laptop for quick typing, and then the iPad for hand-written notes or annotation. The OneNote app sync is quick enough that I could type lecture notes on the laptop, and then quickly switch to the same document on my iPad to sketch out a diagram. It was overkill for sure, but very useful
• walthamstow 7mo ago
  If only there was an ~11inch one to replace the old 2012 model, possibly the most perfectly portable laptop created.
  • functionmouse 7mo ago
    it's roughly the same physical size, just smaller bezels so bigger screen.
• NoSalt 7mo ago
  Yeah, I see your $599 price tag, Apple. I also remember the hype behind your Mac Mini that was a sub $500 computer. And, how long did that last? The answer is: not long.
  • pdpi 7mo ago
    The baseline mini costs $499, so it seems to be going strong.
• pavlov 7mo ago
  All I want is a MacBook Pro with a funky color like citrus. I always buy the new color option from Apple when getting a phone, it helps me keep my device generations apart. But Macs have been sadly boring in recent years. "Starlight" is barely different from silver... I loved the rose gold they had for the M1 Air, that was a great computer.
  • sevenseacat 7mo ago
    I've said for years now that if they make a purple one, I will instantly buy it.
• geerlingguy 7mo ago
  Apparently the two USB-C ports are different specs [1] - USB 3.0 10 Gbps with DisplayPort support - USB 2.0 480 Mbps Both support charging but only one supports higher speeds and DisplayPort (A18 Pro limitation, as Apple probably doesn't dedicate much silicon to USB I/O). [1] https://www.macrumors.com/2026/03/04/macbook-neo-features-two-different-usb-ports/ https://www.macrumors.com/2026/03/04/macbook-neo-features-tw...
  • kunai 7mo ago
    Well the costs had to be cut somewhere. At least they put a headphone jack in it, so they're doing better than Microsoft on that front (who inexplicably removed it from the SP line)
    • f311a 7mo ago
      It's a mobile CPU. They did not modify it. Mobile devices run with a single USB port.
    • quentindanjou 7mo ago
      I don't think this is intentional to cut cost. I simply think that the chip was primarily made for devices with one port (iPhone, iPad) and this is a bit of an afterthought. I wouldn't be surprised to see a future product with 2x USB 3.0 10 Gbps with DisplayPort support on the next generation, A19 Pro or A20 Pro maybe, if the product has enough success.
      • bombcar 7mo ago
        This is going to be a primary complaint people have (even if it's not terribly important) - hopefully they have some circuitry that warns you if you're plugging something into the wrong port (e.g. a USB 3 device into USB 2 at slow speeds).
        • happyopossum 7mo ago
          > This is going to be a primary complaint people have No. Most people never plug in anything to their USB ports where they'd notice a speed difference. Definitely not people picking up a $600 MacBook for school or casual web browsing. I'd bet 90% of folks never do anything other than charge through these ports...
• lofaszvanitt 7mo ago
  Well, Apple decimating competitors with this offering.
• risingsubmarine 7mo ago
  Would love to see an 11inch version of this.
• Brajeshwar 7mo ago
  What’s going on with Apple? Are they doing one-hardware-a-day week/month now?
  • jitl 7mo ago
    ya they’ve been teasing a week of releases for a while
• meindnoch 7mo ago
  This is basically the most efficient way to work with agentic tools in my opinion.
• mithr 7mo ago
  Others covered specs etc, but just came here to say the intro video is so much fun! I really enjoyed that.
• commandersaki 7mo ago
  So in Australia this is $749 after education discounts. I looked at OfficeWorks and I found some really cheap Chromebooks at the $300-500 level. I picked two $500 Chromebooks: - HP 14" Chromebook N200 8/128GB with usb-c + usb-a (quad-core). - Lenovo IdeaPad 3i 15.6" Chromebook Laptop 8/128GB Celeron. Looks like both are 1080p displays. First at simple tech spec glance they're below the entry level Neo except they both have larger displays, but obviously as Neo costs $250 more. But the question then is what do you get for that $250 more. I think once you take into consideration the finish, keyboard, webcam/mic, speakers, display, and even Apple's support which can be sometimes pretty decent, you're looking at a pretty strong contender. The problem I expect though is that people tend not to be educated consumers and don't look into the other aspects outside of specs or cost, so Apple is really selling on branding, word of mouth, and probably through their salespeople at the stores. But also, if we start seeing these one the shelves of JB-Hifi, Officeworks, etc. (for US your local Best Buy and Walmart I guess), then it could penetrate the market well. Assuming the Neo embodies Apple's signature quality and reliability, I hope it does well for first time laptop users / early education market.
  • myself248 7mo ago
    I think branding and reputation basically encapsulates all the build quality and support and stuff you mentioned. Non-technical consumers will see this, decide that it's probably better than a Chromebook, and be right. There's a compelling value case here. It might well be my first Apple purchase.
  • jpc0 7mo ago
    Just not having a Celeron level chip is worth the difference... Windows update on a Celeron chip makes it 100% utilisation with full boost. I would actually rather but an Android phone than a laptop with a Celeron chip for the same price.
    • nolist_policy 7mo ago
      Thankfully you don't have that problem with ChromeOS.
  • 7mo ago
• rob 7mo ago
  This seems like a great price to have an actual MacBook with you anywhere for things that don't require a lot of resources, like if you're running some tmux/Tailscale solution at home and just need to SSH into it to do work with [whatever terminal agent you're using].
• internet2000 7mo ago
  Looks super nice, but I don't regret getting the M1 Air for $599 at Walmart. No Touch ID in the base version is a bummer... otherwise it'd be perfect.
• vicnov 7mo ago
  I was really hoping for 11inch version, but I am just that weird.
• comboy 7mo ago
  I can open iphone on my macbook? Wish I had it working on my macbook pro, because I was supposed to be able to do that a long time ago (I'm in EU).
  • big-and-small 7mo ago
    Dont bother. Even when works iPhone mirroring is unreliable and buggy experience, often asks to unlock iPhone again and sync gets broken at random and you have to go over enabling it again even though phone was next to the Mac mini all the time. One of the worst supported features Apple has shipped. Idea was good though.
    • windowsrookie 7mo ago
      Seriously. I mainly want to use iPhone mirroring for when my iPhone isn't sitting right next to me. It then nearly always asks me to unlock my iPhone first before I can use it....
• jurmous 7mo ago
  Geekbench CPU single/multi and GPU Metal scores. - M1: 2,347 / 8,342 / 32,377 - M2: 2,587 / 9,669 / 44,712 - A18Pro: 3,539 / 8,772 / 32,288 So Neo is really comparable with the M1, although it has quite faster single core speed.
  • rayiner 7mo ago
    For daily use the single core speed is the most important. Web browsing, UI render, etc., is still single threaded mostly.
  • vesrah 7mo ago
    Single core is close to M4, even.
  • testing22321 7mo ago
    I’m using a used M1 air as my daily for editing tens of thousands of photos, tons of 4K video editing, web and light dev work. It’s still the fastest computer I’ve ever used. (No Tahoe for me)
• jurmous 7mo ago
  For those wondering: Geekbench CPU single/multi and GPU Metal scores. - M1: 2,347 / 8,342 / 32,377 - M2: 2,587 / 9,669 / 44,712 - A18Pro: 3,539 / 8,772 / 32,288 So Neo is really comparable with the M1, although it has quite faster in single core speed.
  • quesera 7mo ago
    Single thread performance is 50% faster, which is more important for most ordinary tasks.
  • adithyassekhar 7mo ago
    A18 Pro is generations ahead of M1 and M2 on single thread if these scores are true. Are you saying we had this incredibly overpowered silicon shipped on millions of Instagram machines? I'm physically hurting at the amount of processing power we wasted. Atleast Apple did the right thing here.
    • jzymbaluk 7mo ago
      Yea the iphone chips are hilariously overpowered for what most people use them for
      • adithyassekhar 7mo ago
        It's even worse, the os is too restricted for doing anything more.
        • interestpiqued 7mo ago
          But even better, is they actually leverage the performance per watt improvements to shrink the battery and maintain the price.
    • dmitrygr 7mo ago
      Mobile devices, to give you good battery life, operate in a “race to sleep” mode. Good performance is necessary not to compute a lot of things, but to finish your computation quickly and shut down the power hungry processors. So do not worry, the performance is not being left on the table. It is there so that your phone lasts throughout the day.
• Kuyawa 7mo ago
  Reality distortion field at its fullest. I want one! I swear to god they can transmit virtual ecstasy through their website, it's so incredibly impressive you want to buy one even if you don't need it. Everything is so perfectly presented, it has speakers! it has USB-C! WOW! No I am not being sarcastic, I am just expressing how joyful it feels watching marketing to its fullest. Just watch the videos. Apple should be studied for centuries to come not for what they sold but for how they sold it. Pure genius. Beautiful up to every detail.
  • lysace 7mo ago
    I agree. This 3m49s "Hello, MacBook Neo" video is so insanely well done. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3SIKAmPXY4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3SIKAmPXY4 I love how they have gone back to actually showing off the stuff they are proud of. This is the most product-centric Apple ad I've seen in years.
• lateforwork 7mo ago
  This is a major challenge to Microsoft. A 13-inch Surface Laptop costs $899 [1], that's 50% more than an equivalent MacBook! And even at that higher price the Surface Laptop doesn't have a good screen: it uses 150% scaling (as opposed to the ideal 200%) which means you have subtle display artifacts. Other than Microsoft nobody even makes decent laptops in the Windows world. I am typing this on an Lenovo Yoga, it has decent screen and keyboard, but the touchpad is horrible. Samsung makes good laptops but my keyboard gave out after just 2 years. Most other laptop makers have horrible industrial design. Dell XPS 17 was pretty good, but now they have weird keyboard. The best laptop is now significantly cheaper than the horrible ones. Incredible achievement by Apple, and a major challenge to Windows laptop makers. [1] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/configure/surface-laptop-13-inch/8mzbmmcjzqv3 https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/configure/surface-lapt...
  • NietTim 7mo ago
    This is not primarily competing with the surface line of laptops, this is mostly competing with chromebooks which dominate schools. That's a completely different segment of devices.
    • runjake 7mo ago
      I am in education and speak to others at the (US) national level on a near-daily basis. This doesn't compete with Chromebooks in schools at all. - Chromebooks in EDU cost approximately $290 (+- $10) per unit. - The Neo costs $499 per unit for schools. - For the cost of 10 Neos, I can buy 17 Chromebooks. Yes, this is a numbers game. The goal is every student has a device. - Schools using Chromebooks to log in. If you want reliable Google logins on macOS, you have an additional big spend up front, along with per-seat licensing costs. - This doesn't even factor in MDM and app cost comparisons.
      • intrasight 7mo ago
        [flagged]
      • NietTim 7mo ago
• apparent 7mo ago
  Interesting that the headphone jack is on the left! Have there ever been any other MacBooks where this was the case (no pun intended)?
  • pier25 7mo ago
    Hasn't this been the case for most Apple laptops?
    • apparent 7mo ago
      Not my M2 MBA. Which ones are you thinking of?
      • kccqzy 7mo ago
        Most MacBook Pros. Examples: https://support.apple.com/en-us/111955 https://support.apple.com/en-us/111955 https://support.apple.com/en-us/112586 https://support.apple.com/en-us/112586 https://support.apple.com/en-us/111946 https://support.apple.com/en-us/111946
        • apparent 7mo ago
          Ah cool, my memory of laptop headphone jack placement doesn't go back that far. Anything before the butterfly keyboards is just a blur...
          • nateb2022 7mo ago
            My M4 Max MBP has a headphone jack on the left.
  • deleted 7mo ago
    [deleted]
• pier25 7mo ago
  So Apple is finally "admitting" an iPad is not the right device for certain users/situations.
• desireco42 7mo ago
  I think Apple has a winner on it's hand. This is perfect, for large number of people who don't do much on their laptop anyway. Even for me as a developer, I want something small and light that I can carry around and I can connect to my bigger machine from. I wish they went for 12" but I am not complaining. It is affordable and pretty.
• JSR_FDED 7mo ago
  Run a Linux VM (basically no performance impact) and you have a killer quality Linux laptop. Sure it’s not the same as a dedicated Linux system but with these specs you’re going to do lighter work away from your desk anyway. Or perhaps this will be the perfect machine for the Asahi team to focus on…lots of demand at this price point, and a lean Linux install would make this machine fly.
  • kunai 7mo ago
    It's a much better QOL thing I've found to just ssh into a remote Linux box from a Mac. The BSD stuff on macOS isn't bad at all, just an adjustment... and homebrew lets you get your environment however you'd like. I am curious how long Apple is going to continue to support XQuartz though. There seems to be no equivalent wayland project.
    • WhyNotHugo 7mo ago
      A terminal isn’t enough for everything, especially developers. I use lots of windows at the same time and plenty of non-terminal applications. When forced to use macOS, a Linux VM provides a very convenient experience.
      • galleywest200 7mo ago
        As well, if you run an aarch64 VM with virtualization there is essentially no lag. It runs great. I have an Alpine Linux one on my M2 Macbook Pro.
        • Crestwave 7mo ago
          Good to hear. What hypervisor are you using (UTM, VMWare, Parallels)?
          • dajt 7mo ago
            I use UTM, it's simple and seems light. I can share my source directory with the VM so I can edit using macos pycharm, and test the containers in the VM. What really caught me out was I downloaded an x64 image once (there was no arm64 image) and it somehow just ran anyway in the arm64 VM. That may have been some qemu magic? I love the macos/virtualised linux dev workflow, but is isn't better than plain linux. I'm just still not convinced GUI stuff works on linux as well as it does on macos and macbook hardware is so nice (if you're not paying for it).
• MBCook 7mo ago
  So really this appears to be a replacement for the M1 MacBook Air that they were still selling at Walmart. But now more colorful and official. I’m pretty interested in benchmarks. We haven’t had a phone chip and a desktop chip running the same OS so we could compare them better with benchmarks since the original Apple Silicon dev kits. Also it’s $499 to start for students, which is impressive. But the base model has no Touch ID which seems terrible to me. Having that is such a huge improvement over having to type passwords constantly.
  • crazygringo 7mo ago
    > But the base model has no Touch ID which seems terrible to me. But that's the point. If you're super price conscious and a student, it's only $499! Typing a password is not a big deal compared to $100 for some people. But if you want convenience, it's $599. Which helps subsidize the $499 price. Product differentiation like this is what enables the cheaper price to begin with.
  • jawns 7mo ago
    I'd probably go for a $50 Yubikey over a $100 Touch ID upgrade.
    • cromka 7mo ago
      Honestly, I don't see it. Are you gonna stay at home with yubikey plugged in? On your couch, in your bed, etc.? It's a matter of months, if not weeks, before you break it? And also need to remember to remove, because otherwise what's the point? Used to own Yubikey before fingerprint scanners were a thing. I don't see the appeal now, to be honest. I considered it now that I use Asahi on my M1 with no support for TouchID, but still just type in the password because I couldn't be bothered with Yubikey. Or I'm missing something?
      • cweagans 7mo ago
        You're missing that the Yubikey Nano exists. You just leave it in the port. You don't need to remove it - you have to physically touch it to activate it in the same way that you'd have to touch the Touch ID sensor.
• tomburgs 7mo ago
  would it be crazy to use this as a more casual macbook alongside my mbp? it seems light, cheap, and fun.
• throwaway85825 7mo ago
  No magsafe seems like a bad idea given the target demographic.
  • ehutch79 7mo ago
    Right? also, where's the thunderbolt ports? and it needs about another inch? maybe half inch on the screen. And really, 16gb is the new minimum. There's a whole bunch of acceleration and co processing features in the m series missing from the a series, so they really should put an m5 in there instead... Seriously though. Every feature someone says is missing and should have been added would be another $100 on the cost. This is already likely a low margin product meant of someone who's only using a browser and maybe a few apps.
  • whalesalad 7mo ago
    Honestly I am still wondering why tf they brought magsafe back. I thought Apple had turned the corner on proprietary connectors. I charge my M2 air with a usb-c cable.
    • jamesgeck0 7mo ago
      It's less stress on a frequently used port. I've got an early M1 MacBook Air where the USB-C port I always used for charging is starting to get flaky, presumably because it's been used so much and because of the weight of the cord + dongle hanging off the side of the machine.
      • SXX 7mo ago
        Replacement port for M1 Air can be bought for around $10 off Amazon and installation take like 10 minutes for total newbie like me. All you need is right screwdriver. Just look for a2337 usb-c port replacement.
    • cillian64 7mo ago
      Two advantages for me: It's nice that you don't break the connector if you trip over the cable or put the laptop down on a soft surface, and it's nice being able to charge while still using both USB-C ports (although I guess 3x USB-C would also solve that). I don't really see any downside to a proprietary connector if you also have the option to charge over USB-C as well.
• maccard 7mo ago
  This is an absolutely solid buy I think. My wife's macbook is no longer receiving MacOS (and as a result Safari) updates, and all she needs it for is "big laptop tasks" and occasional video calls. This is the absolute perfect purchase for her. A return to 8GB laptops would be a good thing overall, so if this becomes a "target" for electron based apps, it would be a total game changer. The iPhone 17 has 8GB RAM, and honestly for the workloads we're doing it should be enough. I think there was a big jump when we jumped to 1080 screens on laptops about a decade ago (seriously...) but most of the resource usgae growth there has been needless since.
  • arximboldi 7mo ago
    > My wife's macbook is no longer receiving MacOS (and as a result Safari) updates, and all she needs it for is "big laptop tasks" and occasional video calls. This is the absolute perfect purchase for her. So the only reason to discard a working laptop is because Apple decided to stop offering updated, and you buy Apple again? Why not buy anything else that is Linux friendly and you get software updates until the hardware dies? Do yourself and the world a favor and buy this instead: https://frame.work/de/en/laptop12 https://frame.work/de/en/laptop12
    • maccard 7mo ago
      > why not buy anything else that is Linux friendly and you get software updates I don’t want to use Linux at home. > do yourself and the world a favor and buy this instead: It’s 50% more expensive when you add in the memory and the hard drive. It’s a 12 year old laptop being replaced - I care more about the ecosystem it fits into and the devices usability than I do about being able to replace the keyboard in a decade. (And framework haven’t even been around as long as I’ve had this laptop).
• dcchambers 7mo ago
  It's an incredible value but a world of resource-hungry vibe-coded webapps and 8GB of RAM just does not feel compatible. If you primarily use native Apple apps though this thing is awesome. $499 with student discount? This thing is going to do NUMBERS.
• blahgeek 7mo ago
  I completely understand that as a cheap one, it has to be worse than macbook air in some aspect to make the product line work. However I'm genuinely curious why it's thicker and no lighter than the Macbook Air, while at the same time has shorter battery life, less ports, no keyboard light, and a smaller chip? Do they put dead weight inside it or something?
  • tiffanyh 7mo ago
    Product Positioning... Apple is doing everything they can to ensure it doesn't appear as a premium product. A decade ago, they had the 12" MacBook (not Air, just "MacBook") it it felt super premium because it was lighter and smaller than any Air/Pro ... and used by executives (because it targeted that use case). By having this product: - called "Neo" - thicker - as heavy - limiting RAM And marketing this towards kids and lower grades, they are avoiding any mistaking this product as premium.
    • blahgeek 7mo ago
      Yeah that’s totally reasonable. I’m just curious about how do they make a thicker and heavier laptop with less capabilities… do they intentionally make the case thicker or something?
• amar0c 7mo ago
  And yet same specs iPad + Magic keyboard will cost you twice as much. Sure it's touchscreen but at end of the day If I am "keyboarding" it I am not "touching" it much.
  • raydev 7mo ago
    > And yet same specs iPad + Magic keyboard will cost you twice as much It's not about specs, it's about capability. You compare the Neo to the wrong iPad. The base model iPad + keyboard folio match the MacBook Neo price, which seems to be intentional. iPadOS requires less resources to run but is functionally equivalent outside of being able to run arbitrary programs. Which makes me wonder who the Neo is for. If someone wants to build software they should be paying more money. The average person is fine with an iPad, and it will even give them a touchscreen, the Neo won't.
• serf 7mo ago
  the market segmentation is nice, it'll do well with the colors and all -- but the unified memory thing is the literal only reason to want to dip a toe in apple whatsoever; with these numbers id rather just spend ~300 on a Chuwi or equivalent white label 'ultrabook' with double the specs. although it IS hillarious to read a group of enthusiasts in 2026 screaming "8GB IS FINE!" -- meanwhile people want more ram on their RPis..
• zeptonix 7mo ago
  Anyone think you'll actually be able to do anything on a Mac with only 8gb of RAM? I had a Macbook Pro before with 16gb of RAM and it was constantly running out of RAM and showing me the Force Quit Applications dialog. Constantly...
  • mmis1000 7mo ago
    Wondering how it decided to show the force exit program dialog. I used to use 8g macbook for development. But instead warning on serious memory exhaustion, it just decided to lag and suicide with everything freezed (including the restart button).
  • ewzimm 7mo ago
    I am using a M1 Mac Mini 8GB as a home server/desktop, and it works just fine. It can run games and a Minecraft server in the background while serving video and home automation, and I've never had anything force quit because of it. I agree with the people who are saying 8GB should be kept as a target spec for the low end. It's really only bloated software that has made it necessary to get so much RAM, and now that prices have gone up, if Apple forces developers to do more with less for a segment of their market, I'm all for it.
  • windowsrookie 7mo ago
    There are millions of people using 8GB or RAM with MacOS without issue right now. I would bet 80% of all MacBooks in use right now have 16GB or less of RAM.
  • carlosjobim 7mo ago
    People run million dollar businesses out of 8GB MacBooks.
  • mikestew 7mo ago
    I'm typing this on a 2012 MBP with 8Gb of RAM. That seemed like plenty when I bought it, and I did dev work in Xcode on the thing. Granted, it can only run Catalina, but it still gets the job done for what I use it for now. "Now" being web browser and running the Numbers/Pages/Keynote apps, which is about what anyone buying the Neo is going to do with it. After 14 years of service, though, he'll get to retire soon, probably taking it easy running some version of Linux in his old age. Just as soon as that new M5 MBP (with 32Gb this time) shows up tomorrow.
• uyzstvqs 7mo ago
  For the same price, Walmart is selling the HP Omnibook 5. It has a better CPU, 16 GB RAM (double), and 1 TB SSD (double). There's also another HP for $359 with 8 GB RAM & 1 TB SSD. For half the price of this MacBook Neo, it should offer comparable performance with double the storage.
  • DauntingPear7 7mo ago
    I can near guarantee this will perform better than both, especially as the user adds more programs and the OS gains cruft
• rcarr 7mo ago
  Everyone seems so focussed on the price and the RAM that noone is talking about the fact that macOS is now running on the A system chips which makes me wonder how far away from an iPad that can swap between iOS and macOS when you dock it in the keyboard are we...
  • graypegg 7mo ago
    IIRC, iOS was forked from macOS (well... OSX), and they share a lot of internals. I think they could probably start up finder alongside springboard with some tweaking... but they'd much rather sell you an iPad AND a Mac!
    • hbn 7mo ago
      When Jobs announced the iPhone in 2007 he said it was running OSX but what that actually means is anybody's guess. iOS is closer to macOS in functionality today than the iPhone's first OS. I personally liked iOS and macOS being separate things because making a desktop OS also work on a touchscreen has wider implications than it sounds. That's why these days everything in Windows is blown up like Fisher Price software and way bigger than necessary for a mouse cursor. Seems like that's the direction Apple is headed in anyway with Tahoe.
      • NetMageSCW 7mo ago
        What he meant was that it was running the non-user touching parts of OS X. It was possible to SSH to an original iPhone and install gcc and compile applications. It was sort of like OS X in a kiosk mode.
        • zadikian 7mo ago
          Only if jailbroken with openssh installed, right? The old default "alpine" ssh login
    • deleted 7mo ago
      [deleted]
  • 7mo ago
• zemvpferreira 7mo ago
  A perfectly performant, luxury-feeling laptop with a secure OS for under $500? This thing is going to eat Chromebooks and budget HP shitboxes for lunch. Sure a lot of niceties are missing but compared to the experience most people have with their $500 laptops, this is going to be night and day.
  • Geonode 7mo ago
    It's $600, unless you're a school.
    • busymom0 7mo ago
      EDIT: With education discount, in Canada, it's good price: $679 for base, $849 for Touch ID + 512 SSD. -- $799 in Canada for the base model & $999 for the one with touchID & 512 GB ssd. Looks like both models only come with 8gb ram.
    • apparent 7mo ago
      Academic pricing also applies to individual purchases by students, staff, and faculty. In-store, they ask for an ID. But they don't use any mechanism for online purchases, aside from attestation. I think they used to use edu email addresses to confirm, but now that so many people have alumni emails, that would be useless (and not capture k12 students, whose email addresses typically cannot receive outside emails).
      • deleted 7mo ago
        [deleted]
    • happyopossum 7mo ago
      Or a student, or a teacher. Individuals get edu pricing too...
    • ezfe 7mo ago
      In the United States (population of 340 million): * 86 million (27%) are under 21 and most of those are students. * Those people have parents, assume 2 parents per 2 children = 86 million parents (27%) That means 55% of the US population is eligible for the cheaper rate before you even account for people getting secondary degrees, educators, and yes - the schools themselves.
• markstos 7mo ago
  Press release touts "built with the environment mind", but is silent on repairability. Also this week: Lenovo's new ThinkPads score 10/10 for repairability showing that even popular modules of mainstream manufacturers can build with repairability in mind. https://www.ifixit.com/News/115827/new-thinkpads-score-perfect-10-repairability https://www.ifixit.com/News/115827/new-thinkpads-score-perfe... Apple I imagine is still soldering their storage and memory to the motherboard.
  • sodality2 7mo ago
    I expect the customer of this product is not worried about repairability: to them, it's just an iPad with a keyboard. You're also citing 3x higher costs, so they're really not comparable. The lack of upgradability is directly what provides a lot of benefits that I expect the average consumer vastly prefers: better performance with soldered memory and better battery life. It's not just to shaft you on prices (though that's definitely a big factor).
  • tim333 7mo ago
    Apple's idea of that is to shred old stuff and reuse the material.
  • hbn 7mo ago
    > Apple I imagine is still soldering their storage and memory to the motherboard. Memory would be in the SoC no?
    • kube-system 7mo ago
      It’s stacked package-on-package for the a18 pro.
  • kube-system 7mo ago
    Non-Socketed memory and storage is more of an upgrade friendly feature rather than a repairability feature. They don’t often fail. And most people do not attempt to upgrade their devices anyway, especially the type of people who are not power users, and are buying low end devices. For most people, upgrades are no longer a purchasing consideration, and they will buy the laptop that’s five dollars cheaper and has more attractive packaging. And no, Apple is not soldering memory to the main board on most of their computers these days. All of the M series computers have the memory on package with the CPU, because there are latency issues with putting it any further away. The A18 Pro that this laptop uses is package-on-package, the DRAM is directly on top of the SoC. There are no socketed standards for LPDDR anyway.
• butILoveLife 7mo ago
  Its wild watching Apple change. They lost their luxury brand and have pivoted to general population. Today, every unemployed teen and stay at home mom has a $40/mo iphone. It lost its status. These are some final nails in the coffin. As an Apple stock holder, I might exit my position. They have no growth left, they are just another Blue Chip now..
  • nobody_r_knows 7mo ago
    [dead]
  • CryptoBanker 7mo ago
    They tricked you. $40/month over two years is still $960 - definitely still luxury.
    • butILoveLife 7mo ago
      You are living in pre-inflation mindset. The US per capita GDP is 90k now. This means its 5% per year. Not really a luxury when people spend all day on their phones. Heck, you'd call walmart groceries a luxury because they are more expensive. Both are needed in 2026.
  • NoLinkToMe 7mo ago
    Seems like a strange take. It wasn't per se a luxury brand, it catered to providing cutting edge consumer technology. That's still the case. Which company makes better phones, laptops, tablets, headphones, smart watches and consumer software? The fact it stood for quality doesn't mean you can't keep offering quality at lower budget and lower spec levels, while still pushing high-budget and high-spec levels. In fact it seems very succesful in doing so and keeps capturing more of the market. You could say there is limited growth in the hardware (total pie), and that there is are increasingly smaller shares of the market share pie left to conquer. And that's mostly true. But Apple has built out its Services business, from $12b in 2012 to $110b last year. That $110b revenue is more than Tesla's revenue, and that has a market cap of $1.2 trillion. And unlike hardware, services (i.e. software) are extremely high-margin. It's estimated that $110b revenue constitutes something like $80b in gross margin, whereas Tesla's $100b revenue lead to <$17b in gross margin, and just 3.8b in net profit. A push into budget offerings increases users and scales service revenue, a high-margin and fast growing business. Apple has been a tremendous success. I won't make predictions of the future but its push for affordable devices was a strategic win, to the contrary of your point.
• csiegert 7mo ago
  Now give us a 17-inch laptop, please!
• vintagedave 7mo ago
  I can't help feeling this is the size/weight that the Air should be targeting. I have an Air (M2) and I use it where I once owned a Pro. No fans sold it to me -- that's a quality feature, tired of them getting dirty over time. But I have the 15" model and essentially use it as a pro laptop. This? This is an Air. But the Air has become the Pro, the Pro has become the one you get for ports and super power and I don't know if many people even need it, and now 'Air' has lost its meaning (light, entry-level, portable) so they need a new name. So they name it, literally, neo: New. Steve Jobs would weep. What happens in five years when it's not new any more?
  • markn951 7mo ago
    The body, size, weight, shape of the Neo is almost exactly the same as the current Macbook Air. What are you talking about?
    • vintagedave 7mo ago
      'What are you talking about' aside: exactly. What is the Neo, if not an Air? What is the Air, then? What is the product segmentation? Once upon a time, there was the white MacBook. Maybe this is trying to be the new plain MacBook?
      • nateb2022 7mo ago
        > What is the product segmentation? RAM, CPU cores, GPU cores, for the most part.
        • vintagedave 7mo ago
          Segmentation is about product fit. I think it’s amazing and an amazing price and I expect and hope it will be very successful. Yet I feel like this is where the Air used to be, but the Air has crept more towards Pro. I don’t dislike it! Just, confused how three models all fit together.
          • 7mo ago
• tim-tday 7mo ago
  I don’t even have to look at the specs to tell you : “insufficient ram”
• hsnewman 7mo ago
  Will it run linux?
• space_greg 7mo ago
  Well, why can’t my 17 Pro run macOS apps when connecting it to an external screen etc?
  • sockaddr 7mo ago
    Because it's a different operating system?
• emehrkay 7mo ago
  This proves macOS should/could just be an iOS app that you can run when docked. It has great suspend and resume, the phones/tables would just need more ram and storage. Maybe we'll see it in the future
• legierski 7mo ago
  This is perfect for folks looking to buy a brand new laptop. For the rest of us, happy with gently used 2nd hand devices, the original M1 MacBook Air and the M1 Pro/Max MacBook Pro are a *much* better deal for the same price, pretty much across the board, especially the Pro: bigger, brighter, 120Hz screen, beefy specs, ports. That citrus colour, tho...
• noname120 7mo ago
  Will it be true macOS or will they use this excuse of using an “iPhone chip” to lock down everything like they do on iPads/iPhones?
  • ajaimk 7mo ago
    A18 Pro offers 44% better single thread performance and similar multi-thread performance as the M1 processor. The Neo should offer similar if not better performace as the first round of entry level Macbook Pro/Mini/Airs that Apple launched in 2020 with the M1 chip.
    • dmoy 7mo ago
      Was this meant to respond to a different comment?
      • apparent 7mo ago
        Seems responsive to me.
  • danaris 7mo ago
    They don't have a "macOS Lite", and if these were running anything less than full macOS, you can be sure Apple would be positioning them as a new product (or part of the iPad line) rather than as a Mac. And maybe, just maybe, that fact, once it becomes clear, will make at least a few of the people who assume that Apple desperately wants to lock down macOS realise that that's bullshit and always has been...
• sgt 7mo ago
  It's like the Netbook is back, but done well. This is really exciting, I have to admit. Superb execution of hardware of course, but the secret sauce is the OS. Can't wait to try one.
• jcmontx 7mo ago
  This A18 processor, how does it compare to the M series?
• kamil55555 7mo ago
  Ideal computer for our mom.
• deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]
• joewhale 7mo ago
  compatable with polishing cloth https://x.com/aaronp613/status/2029206219802722595?s=46 https://x.com/aaronp613/status/2029206219802722595?s=46 Apple is second to none in supporting legacy products.
• ajaimk 7mo ago
  Really want Apple to launch the Mac Mini version of this (yes, I really want an updated Apple TV)
  • paxys 7mo ago
    Mac Mini is already the Mac Mini version of this. How much lower in price can it realistically get?
• Sir_Twist 7mo ago
  It wouldn’t surprise me if this ends up being really popular with families. Parents with iPhones are (I’d imagine) far more likely to get their kids iPhones, and with Messages and FindMy I bet it’ll be the same here. Apple also has screen time and parental controls, so for parents wanting to get their kid a computer but worried about unrestricted Internet access, the MacBook Neo may be the most seamless option.
• deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]
• jeroenhd 7mo ago
  8GiB of RAM, combined with "Built for Apple Intelligence.", makes me question the user experience on this thing. macOS with a browser open pretty quickly hits 13 GiB of RAM usage for me. That poor SSD is going to be swapping its whole usable life. I suppose it's enough if all you're doing is light office work, but you can get a laptop half the price to do that. The USB 2.0 USB-C port seems like something that's going to confuse a lot of people. One of Apple's perks in terms of connectivity has been that you can basically assume all USB-C ports do everything. It also seems like they didn't include an SD card reader, like they used to. That's going to make the 256GiB rather cramped, I feel.
  • sodality2 7mo ago
    Yeah, the optimization is going to make or break it. I've heard people say that 8GB on their Air's with M chips are sufficient, but I do wonder if it will still be true now with MacOS - maybe we'll get a cleanup/performance release cycle?... With regards to AI I hope it's not a Gemini/Pixel situation where there's a lot of ram but 3.5GB are permanently reserved for the on-device model to be always-available.
  • nateb2022 7mo ago
    > macOS with a browser open pretty quickly hits 13 GiB of RAM usage for me. Without context on total memory available, this is a meaningless metric. Free RAM is wasted RAM.
    • jeroenhd 7mo ago
      That's used RAM, it doesn't include things like caches. Even with macOS deep into swap space during development (about 6-8GB of swap), macOS internals will happily keep 2GiB of memory reserved for window management and spotlight. Apple's fast SSD is the only reason this laptop doesn't get bogged down under load, and with it being irreplaceable I wonder how long the disk last being used like this. Obviously you're not going to use Apple's new netbook to do heavy development, but I don't expect the base model to remain usable for long with only 8GB. I don't exactly get the impression macOS has gotten lighter to run over the years.
    • 7mo ago
• dzonga 7mo ago
  I know this is a heavily tech circle. however for the common person out there, unless they're buying for status -- this will meet most of their needs office workers, hospital workers, stay-at-home parents - who just wanna fill forms occasionally, write emails, browse the web - design a few posters on canva for a funeral, special event etc so yeah to those people they don't give a shit about M-series, as long it has enough memory and can do what they want without freezing. well done to apple
  • bubblewand 7mo ago
    I’m still on an M1 Air for my personal laptop and probably will be for another couple years. It doesn’t feel “slow” and I feel no urge to start browsing newer models. My understanding is this laptop matches or exceeds the M1 Air’s performance, so it should be pretty damn nice for most people.
    • s0rce 7mo ago
      My M1 was the biggest upgrade of many years, I got one from an old job and returned it when I left, it was possibly the most "fast" feeling computer since going from Win98 to 2000. I ended up buying one for my personal computer, I only replaced it when I cracked the screen as it wasn't a huge amount more to simply get a new one. Now typing on my M4 air.
  • bigyabai 7mo ago
    Counterpoint; Apple was already selling ~$600-700 Macs with the M1 MBA. If you weren't already in the market for one of those laptops, there is pretty much a 0% chance that these pared-back models will appeal to you.
    • ezfe 7mo ago
      Many people WERE in those markets, but this is a better fit because it is a modern chip. It's hard to recommend a 6 year old computer because the concern about support length is higher.
• jmyeet 7mo ago
  I just looked over the specs [1] and it's pretty good for the price. My only quibble is that there's only one USB3 port and that's also the charging port. So if you want to use an external display, you need some form of dock to also charge it. The other USB port is only USB2 so you can't use that as an external display connector. I'll be interested to see a true comparison with the M5 Macbook Air. I don't think we have any direct comparisons between an M chip and the A18 Pro. The A18 Pro is used in the iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max, not even the 17. I found this spec comparison [2]. Not sure if it's accurate. It seems like this is an iPHone 16 Pro in laptop form because the iPhone also has 8GB of RAM. [1]: https://www.apple.com/macbook-neo/specs/ https://www.apple.com/macbook-neo/specs/ [2]: https://erickimphotography.com/apple-m5-vs-a18-pro-comprehensive-chip-comparison/ https://erickimphotography.com/apple-m5-vs-a18-pro-comprehen...
• reenorap 7mo ago
  How is this different from Macbook Air?
  • pdpi 7mo ago
    For a bit over half the price of the Air, you get the iPhone 16 Pro SoC (minus one GPU core, so somewhere between the 16 and 16 Pro, actually) in a laptop chassis that's all around a bit less premium than the Air.
• deafpolygon 7mo ago
  now the next macOS update being performance/bug fixed focused makes sense to me
• nonamenoslogan 7mo ago
  How come my iPhone can't just run MacOS at this point?
  • etchalon 7mo ago
    Cause Apple doesn't let it.
• nkotov 7mo ago
  Outside of college students, I think this also unlocks the Mac to rest of the world. Now $599 allows most of the world to buy/lock into the Apple ecosystem. 8 GB is the only issue I have but everything else is such a good compromise for the price.
  • carlosjobim 7mo ago
    In some countries you can buy a 16GB laptop for around $200. Until you notice 16GB referred to the hard drive storage...
• sevenseacat 7mo ago
  How is this laptop cheaper than a basic iPhone???
  • NetMageSCW 7mo ago
    It’s bigger.
• deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]
• zhyder 7mo ago
  Looks like the best display you can get in laptops at this price: 2408x1506 resolution, 500 nits, antireflective coating (!). And bonus points for no silly notch.
• racl101 7mo ago
  I wonder if this is a way for them to take a situation like the RAM shortage and spin it into a way to sell more products with little memory to mask the expensive price of memory by bundling it with the outer shell of the laptop rather than try to sell a few PRO laptops whose price is now very jacked up because of the expensive memory.
  • happyopossum 7mo ago
    This device has been in the pipeline for a lot longer than our current RAM shortage, and it's A18 Pro SOC (with it's integrated 8GB or RAM) was probably taped out before ChatGPT was a thing...
• aaronbrethorst 7mo ago
  I find it really fascinating that this is priced identically to an iPhone 17e. Speaks to it essentially being a big iPad with a keyboard attached running macOS.
  • badc0ffee 7mo ago
    In Canada they don't seem to be priced the same - Neo starts at $899, and 17e at $799.
• flenserboy 7mo ago
  This sounds great, but it pains me that I can't dual-boot my iPhone 15 Pro as a lightweight Mac. Would be great with an HDMI connector & BT keyboard/mouse.
  • ryukafalz 7mo ago
    I can't see Apple doing anything that'd make the iPhone not a usable phone while it's being used as a Mac. But I bet they could have macOS components running alongside iOS, in a VM/container of some sort. Would be very cool. (Honestly I can't see Apple doing that either though since it'd cannibalize their other product lines. But c'mon, Apple!)
• ElijahLynn 7mo ago
  First thing I did was search the page for "touch" as in touch screen. Still no touch screen. I've gotten so used to a touch screen with my X1 yoga that every time I use my Mac for work I get pissed off at it because I can't touch it. Just simple things like scrolling or multiple check boxes etc
  • asdff 7mo ago
    The finger prints would drive me crazy.
• ivanjermakov 7mo ago
  Another nail in the coffin of iPad as a portable workstation. A18-powered $600 MacBook, but no MacOS-powered tablet.
• monegator 7mo ago
  I'd be glad to try one (either blue or piss colored). If it really comes at 600€. Though it would already be 100€ too much unless it gets liberated to run linux at some point. My fear is that it's going to be made useless in no time with software updates, or that it has some important limitation (like i can't use XCode command line tools)... But i wanted to replace my old mid 2012 for a couple of years and i decided the next laptop would be either ARM or RiscV (browsing, writing text, scripting, light programming)
  • jazzyjackson 7mo ago
    The M2 air supports asahi Linux and used ones can be had for 600ish The Neo runs on the same chip as iPad so fat chance unlocking the bootloader
    • deleted 7mo ago
      [deleted]
    • monegator 7mo ago
      > asahi i'm holding my breath for armbian > fat chance unlocking the bootloader yeah, i know
    • NetMageSCW 7mo ago
      Well that will be an interesting question. Apple deliberately helped Asahi (and similar) along on the Apple Silicon Macs, perhaps this is running a MacBook bootloader as well.
  • guax 7mo ago
    For NL €699 and €799 (512Gb) at apple store. Will likely only be closer to 600 at big stores that do discounts.
• insane_dreamer 7mo ago
  Excellent! Was going to get a MacMini for my kids but I might just get this instead.
• cchance 7mo ago
  Holy shit thats a good deal
• cchance 7mo ago
  Wow thats a really good deal
• forrestthewoods 7mo ago
  The hoops Apple will jump through to not let me install/dual-boot macOS on my iPad Pro. It’s all the same damn hardware. Just let me install an OS that isn’t purposefully gimped!!
• rmast 7mo ago
  This could be amazing for running Asahi Linux one day. Probably will be quite a while before Asahi works on it though.
• riddlemethat 7mo ago
  This, coupled with the nightmare fuel that Windows has become as of 2026, means no one sane should buy a Windows computer. It's more expensive, more intrusive, and Microsoft management clearly has zero respect for its customers.
  • bigyabai 7mo ago
    > Microsoft management clearly has zero respect for its customers. Apple customers forgot about the golden trophy real quick, huh? https://www.theverge.com/news/737757/apple-president-donald-trump-ceo-tim-cook-glass-corning https://www.theverge.com/news/737757/apple-president-donald-...
    • cyberpunk 7mo ago
      You’ve lost me. How does a tech ceo giving a trinket to the current president indicate any kind of respect or lack thereof towards its users?
• wao0uuno 7mo ago
  Cool hardware but wake me up when I can install Linux on it.
• kylehotchkiss 7mo ago
  Woah. A burner laptop for travel? I might need to rethink what personal computing is for me soon. Mac Studio + Studio Display, plus a Neo/iPad might be the right combination instead of having to buy an expensive laptop which has hinges and can get stolen.
• zimpenfish 7mo ago
  Is the screen supposed to read MAC? The C is misshapen if it's supposed to be 3 bars per letter. (Looks like a decent option, technology and price-wise, for parental and sibling light-browsing and email usage patterns but they normally get my seconds when I upgrade.)
• brtkwr 7mo ago
  Bit of a strange choice of name if I may say so!
• chajath 7mo ago
  just let me run macos on ipad?
• whh 7mo ago
  Honestly, if you have a tonne of staff that only use Excel and Chrome... this is the laptop to buy. I'd hate to jinx it, but I reckon this thing will dominate the market. Good job Apple.
• ncfausti 7mo ago
  This is exactly what's needed to get general users off of Windows. Anecdotal, but whenever my friends/family are looking for a basic laptop I almost always suggest a Lenovo for the price/performance/quality they're looking for in the $400-600 range, even though I myself would never get anything besides a MBP. I would recommend this to them instead every single time. The build quality of macs are unmatched and now in everyone's price range.
  • bigyabai 7mo ago
    The way Tahoe is headed, this is also exactly what's needed to get general users off macOS too.
• stego-tech 7mo ago
  Finally, some good hardware announcements. It nails almost every common use case, with few flaws or exceptions. * If we're talking "child's first laptop", this gives them a full-fat desktop OS with ample power to get into various mischief (experimenting with audio in Garageband, making videos in iMovie, writing stories in whatever text editor they fancy, presentations and spreadsheets for school, and the ability to install whatever they like with a quick reformat/refresh if things get borked). $599 isn't quite "disposable", but it is "accessible". * For "parental computer", this also fits the bill. The extra $100 doubles storage and adds TouchID, enabling Apple Pay on-device. It's affordable, resilient, and manageable by remote support (i.e., us kids). 8GB of RAM is more than enough for common tasks for most folks, provided they work intentionally and not just stack tabs infinitely. * As a Chromebook alternative, the results are a bit more mixed. Sure, durability seems higher at first blush, and the user experience is better, but as @runjake points out Chromebooks play a "numbers game" Apple won't compete on: rock-bottom pricing, disposability, replaceability, and integration with Google's (mostly free or heavily discounted) educational tooling. For schools that have the CapEx to move back to Apple's ecosystem (or are in it, but want to expand it), the Neo is compelling; for public school systems lacking disposable funds, it's a harder sell - though maybe moot, given the studies linking negative outcomes to early and forced technology adoption in schools. * For businesses, meet your new "loaner laptop". Keeping a few of these on-hand with corporate profiles preloaded and MDM/DEP managing provisioning makes these the ideal daily replacement while a laptop is being serviced or forgotten at home. Keeping a half-dozen of these ready to go is half the cost of Macbook Airs or Pros waiting in the wings, and perfect for 90% of SaaS-reliant business use cases. * Speaking of business, say hello to your new "contractor special". Cheap enough to not fret if they're lost or destroyed, but still managed by the same impeccable MDM/DEP tooling, and with enough headroom for most contractor work. For every niche where you don't mind paying the premium for a better UX in hardware (software is a bit...questionable, at the moment) and don't need a monster of power, this thing fits the bill almost perfectly. That said, I do have some annoyances with the Gen1 that I'd like to see addressed in the next revision: * Don't make MagSafe a premium feature. It saves cables, it saves ports, and it saves computers. It should be standard. * I get that the USB ports are limited by the A18 Pro's onboard controllers, but stop silently making different USB ports. Either label them, make them identical, or drop the lower-spec ones entirely. USB-C at USB2 speeds and missing DP video is dumb, and it makes the user experience worse since the ports aren't labelled somehow. * I know I'll never get it, but either hardware mute toggles to keep speakers from going off during class/meetings, or profiles that let IT mute/disable speakers entirely to force headphones.
• LarsDu88 7mo ago
  Wow $499 for students It's like the crack dealer giving free samples to the young ones
  • vikramkr 7mo ago
    That's only like a 100 dollar student discount right? Seems pretty standard
    • zamadatix 7mo ago
      The edu discount is often $50 or $0 on the lower cost products. E.g. that new M4 iPad Air from earlier this week is also $599 but has a $50 discount on the us-edu store. It's pretty sweet they kept the neo at $100 discount even though edu is one of the primary markets for this.
• dmix 7mo ago
  I got my mom an Asus Chromebook and she loves it. This would have been a nice contender at the time.
• samcheng 7mo ago
  Just yesterday, we were discussing starting to retire our fleet of 8GB Macbook Airs, because 8GB just isn't enough to run Tahoe and a few apps. Luckily, most of our Macbook Airs are 16GB to avoid this kind of obsolescence. It looks like this MacBook Neo doesn't even have an option for 16GB, unfortunately.
  • NetMageSCW 7mo ago
    Why is that unfortunate? They make MacBook Airs with 16GB for those that need more than 8GB.
• busymom0 7mo ago
  Did anyone else notice how the wallpaper spells MAC?
• Tiktaalik 7mo ago
  This thing loaded up with Parsec could maybe be a great small, cheap coding machine, for accessing a more powerful computer beyond. iPads with neither an ability to run VSCode nor Parsec have been frustratingly useless for this category.
  • nateb2022 7mo ago
    I doubt anyone learning to program would need to subscribe to a remote dev machine just to run hello world type programs. From 2020-2023 I used an 8GB Macbook Air M1 to develop a lot of relatively heavy software, containers in the background too, and it wasn't a bad experience.
    • Tiktaalik 7mo ago
      I agree. My point though is that this extends the market of this device beyond the educational sector. I have friends that have gone on extended vacation work trips and have lugged along a laptop purely to connect to a beefy workhorse PC at home. Maybe this is a tweener category though in that that sort of person would simply bring along a Macbook Air they already own? I dunno.
  • NetMageSCW 7mo ago
    I do remote support with my iPad using Horizon, Citrix and Jump to RDP with a VPN.
• madduci 7mo ago
  If anyone makes Linux running on this thing, it's a major gaming changer!
• modeless 7mo ago
  What does "Liquid Retina" mean? Is it 120 Hz or not? Hate these meaningless marketing names.
  • imwally 7mo ago
    It’s 60Hz. “Pro Motion” is Apple speak for 120Hz, which as of right now, is only reserved for the MacBook Pro machines.
• mrbonner 7mo ago
  I’m confused. The iOS device line gradually shifts towards the M chips. Why does Apple make a laptop with the A chips? Isn’t the M line is more performant and energy efficient comparing to the A chip?
  • fckgw 7mo ago
    Why is that confusing? The A chip is cheaper, hence is goes into their cheaper laptop. The more expensive laptops get the more expensive M chips.
  • zamadatix 7mo ago
    I don't think the M line is more energy efficient (at equivalent performance), just more performant overall and with more advanced features (more maximum display outputs, more maximum USB interfaces, more maximum memory channels, etc).
  • happyopossum 7mo ago
    > The iOS device line gradually shifts towards the M chips No it doesn't - no iOS device has ever shipped with an M series chip... > Isn’t the M line is more performant and energy efficient comparing to the A chip? Yes to A, no to B. Also, you're completely leaving out scale and cost. Apple has already made (ok, had TSMC make) hundreds of millions of A18 chips, so throwing an A18 pro in their least expensive laptop ever makes a lot of sense.
    • mrbonner 7mo ago
      Yes, the iPad Air and Pro all come with M chips.
      • HelloUsername 7mo ago
        You said iOS, which means iPhones. iPads are ipadOS.
• s3rv3rsi7e 7mo ago
  Every Apple post for the past 2 decades has brought out of the woodwork experts with armchair analysis of price points, market segments, product positioning, and target demographics. It's so funny. X'D Carry on.
• Decabytes 7mo ago
  This would be a great Asahi Linux target, but I know that group has a lot on their plate with the MacBooks pros already
• SilentM68 7mo ago
  With 256GB SSD storage & 8GB RAM, the Macbook Neo's Price @ $599.00 is still a bit high, for my needs. I would be sold if it came with 512GB SSD & 16GB. Still, the higher storage class version @ $699 with Touch ID should at least make people think a bit longer when deciding to jump in and purchase or not. It's a step in the right direction, slowly moving it away from "Eye Candy," status in my view.
• lasgawe 7mo ago
  When I saw this I thought it was just similar to an iPad with a built-in keyboard. Anyway this is better. finally a mac that can compete with other lower-cost laptops while still offering high performance.
• zahirbmirza 7mo ago
  The Macbook 12 inch was a relatively better laptop than this. An "re"-launch of equivalent for today, really would have been something. This is half-baked compared to the innovation that was there.
  • aobdev 7mo ago
    I really don’t see how you came to that conclusion—that Mac was overpriced and underpowered, and only had the single usb-c port. Neo has better battery life, a better display, a more capable processor, and a much lower price (9 years later no less).
    • zahirbmirza 7mo ago
      https://web.archive.org/web/20170612054339/https://www.apple.com/macbook/specs/ https://web.archive.org/web/20170612054339/https://www.apple... I meant to convey if it was made to today's specifications... The Macbook 12 inch was super thin, super light weight, was excellently designed (apart from the keyboard fault that I got a replacement for free for). That was a laptop that made the iPad redundant. Which is why it will never comeback. I only had to buy a new mac because it allowing getting updates. It lasted me 7 years, I coded apps on it with xcode, and it ran the earlier versions of logic pro and final cut fine for small projects. If they had put that engineering effort into the Neo, then that would have been something. The Neo is not a serious laptop, nor is it an iPad replacement; because most really cant and dont do serious work on a iPad. The iPad will still be an excellent internet browser and streaming screen.
      • NetMageSCW 7mo ago
        The 12” MacBook was $1299. This is $599 for anyone and $499 for many.
  • happyopossum 7mo ago
    > The Macbook 12 inch was a relatively better laptop Which virtually nobody bought... Everyone loves an ultra-light ultra-compact laptop, then decide that one of the sacrifices required to make one is a deal-breaker and the company was dumb to not "just include X".
• bjustin 7mo ago
  Whoever added the pause button on the image carousel on that page, I applaud you.
• dwa3592 7mo ago
  This is an iphone 16pro chip. That's the phone I have and don't love it. I am not sure if this is a useful config.
• artursapek 7mo ago
  This is an amazing move by Apple. Most excited I've been about an Apple product launch in a long time. Low cost, high quality, colorful laptops are back.
• soared 7mo ago
  Does anyone know if Linux is viable on this? I want Apple hardware (or surface hardware) but despise osx. Saving a few hundred over a surface would be sweet.
• cromka 7mo ago
  I'd like to bring to your attention the 2026 irony of how much things now cost: this thing has nearly the same chip, way bigger display,a keyboard, extra USB port, a touchpad, lots of copper inside and aluminum outside, way bigger battery and yet it is same price as entry level iPhone with same RAM and storage. Go figure! PS. Wonder why they didn't use A19 in this? Imagine they thought "yeah, that A18 will do for an entry-level laptop", but the entry-level iPhone 17e with A19 needed more kick? What for, our social media apps and mobile websites? This is soooo absurd!
  • mikestew 7mo ago
    That's one way of looking at it. How much do you think it costs to take a laptop system and shrink it down to iPhone-sized?
    • cromka 7mo ago
      I don't know. How do you know the cost of shrinking it is higher than the cost of extra material I mentioned? Also higher cost of shipping? There's so many variables that I think it's safe to assume Apple has similar markup on both of these devices.
  • einr 7mo ago
    PS. Wonder why they didn't use A19 in this? Imagine they thought "yeah, that A18 will do for an entry-level laptop", but the entry-level iPhone 17e with A19 needed more kick? What for, our social media apps and mobile websites? This is soooo absurd! You have to be able to get enough of the things made, too. A19 and A18 Pro are made on different TSMC processes, and most likely it's easier to get production capacity on the older N3E process.
    • cromka 7mo ago
      Yeah, that's fair point.
  • piperswe 7mo ago
    The A19 doesn't have USB 3, does it? I suspect Apple didn't want to release a laptop where its only I/O ports are 480Mbps USB 2.
• petterroea 7mo ago
  8GB of unified memory, the fine print says. Hardly enough to multitask with today's bloated software. Maybe products like this, and the ram price hike, may finally push developers to care more about their memory budget.
  • NetMageSCW 7mo ago
    I’m guessing you don’t have a Mac? My 8GB Intel Mac has always been just fine.
    • petterroea 7mo ago
      What do you use it for?
• tigerlily 7mo ago
  Headphone jack!
• ashdksnndck 7mo ago
  I wonder if this can develop iOS apps. For me an iPad with the Magic Keyboard case is already my personal laptop, and this device would be a downgrade in almost every way (ergonomics and specs). The one thing I can’t do with my iPad that interests me, that’s got me thinking of buying a personal Mac, is develop software for iOS.
  • GraemeMeyer 7mo ago
    It’s going to be a real struggle with 8 GB of RAM. I have the M1 mini with 8 GB of RAM and even the simplest smallest app in X code is an absolute slog. I ended up having to manually disable some of the Apple Intelligence services to get the ram back just to get the canvas renderer working in Xcode. Literally some of the xcode services just failed in tutorial apps due to RAM shortages. Really bafflingly inefficient compared to Windows IDEs
• deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]
• sleepytimetea 7mo ago
  8 GB is not enough...even the $699 model has only 8 GB.
  • NetMageSCW 7mo ago
    8GB is all the target market needs.
• davnicwil 7mo ago
  Is there any world where them running MacOS on an A chip ultimately translates to just connecting an iPhone to a monitor, keyboard and mouse (all apple-branded, naturally :-) and running it in 'MacOS mode'? Obviously just so many reasons why this won't happen. Or would happen on iPad first. But dare we dream?
  • arndt 7mo ago
    I hope too, maybe with iPad Pros first: A new hybrid binary for apps that allows you to seamlessly switch between MacOS mode when connected to peripherals and iOS when not, apps just render in a different place, but maintain state.
    • davnicwil 7mo ago
      I'd be totally happy with both modes being completely independent. Cloud-synced files could take care of shared state for a lot of usecases. I mainly just want this for the portability aspect with the phone. There are some practical issues with having to make sure you have the screen and keyboard access (in practice the all-in-one of a laptop is pretty handy - though I guess you could still have this form factor in a much lighter shell minus the compute) but for a lot of cases like home <-> office this would be the dream, just carry your computer in your pocket.
      • ryukafalz 7mo ago
        Something worth thinking about, even if you're also carrying a laptop-style shell with you too... this means only buying RAM for one device rather than two. Laptop shell doesn't need RAM of its own. The RAM shortage is only starting to hit but I think this could potentially start to be more appealing if it lasts too long and gets too bad.
  • ebbi 7mo ago
    Imagine putting on some glasses for virtual display and iPhone going into desktop mode... That'd be the dream
  • 7mo ago
• abustamam 7mo ago
  Yikes, if I had known Apple was going to release a new budget laptop I would have gotten my mom this instead of a $1000 Air.
  • bottlepalm 7mo ago
    Isn’t the screen kinda small for parents to use?
    • iso-logi 7mo ago
      What?
      • bottlepalm 7mo ago
        Their eye sight gets worse as they get older, that's why they like making fonts bigger on their phones and computers. The new mac is so small. I feel like it'd be uncomfortable for older people to use.
        • abustamam 7mo ago
          Oh. Good point. I put her Air and iPhone SE in big font. So far she's been OK. By the time her eyesight deteriorates that much she will probably be retired anyway and not really need a computer anymore.
• arbirk 7mo ago
  Many governments and large companies issue burner laptops when traveling to the US or China. This is a perfect candidate for that
• dismalaf 7mo ago
  In Canada this is the same price as something like this: https://www.bestbuy.ca/en-ca/product/acer-aspire-14-ai-copilot-pc-laptop-grey-intel-core-ultra-5-226v-16gb-ram-512gb-ssd-windows-11/19274600 https://www.bestbuy.ca/en-ca/product/acer-aspire-14-ai-copil... So not bad, maybe a tad underwhelming but for those in the Apple ecosystem it's a decent student computer. Curious how the cell phone chip holds up to desktop-esque workloads.
• jdlyga 7mo ago
  Even if apple is losing money on these devices, they shouldn't care. Low cost laptops are the main reason why people buy Windows laptops instead of Macs. They need to get people into the Mac ecosystem.
  • bottlepalm 7mo ago
    If they wanted people in the Mac ecosystem, they could dominate the market tomorrow by enabling a DeX like experience for iPhone. This new laptop running on an out-of-date A series chip proves that it can be done. iPhone’s are more expensive than this laptop anyways and Apple could upsell all the docks and accessories with sky high margins. It’s a mystery why they haven’t done this already.
    • NetMageSCW 7mo ago
      Because no one would do it in the real world.
      • bottlepalm 7mo ago
        No one would use their phone for general purpose computing if given the chance? You're saying they would rather spend hundreds, thousands even on separate laptops/desktops even if it was possible to use their phone with a display to do the same thing? I disagree.
• kittikitti 7mo ago
  I'm a little skeptical about the Apple Intelligence capabilities, as others have mentioned. I can assume that it doesn't run on-device and sends it to Apple's servers for processing. I just noticed that according to https://support.apple.com/121115 https://support.apple.com/121115, devices purchased in China don't support Apple Intelligence but it's odd that they explicitly mention a workaround where devices purchased outside of China support Apple Intelligence if the region isn't set to China. Personally, I might not get this device because of the hard limit of 8GB unified memory. This is unacceptable in 2026 because there were iPhones with 8GB of RAM in 2023. The current generation of iPhones have 12GB of RAM available.
• fragmede 7mo ago
  This is an ad.
• medhir 7mo ago
  Now that MacOS has been demonstrated to run on an A-Series chip, can we please finally get unlocked bootloaders to run MacOS on other iDevices?
• fragmede 7mo ago
  Come on! Put a cell modem in this thing!
  • sgt 7mo ago
    Why? If you're outside of WiFi you're two clicks away from using your iPhone as a hotspot.
    • fragmede 7mo ago
      That's two more clicks than zero and one extra device that you need to bring. I get it, you'd never leave the house without your phone, but sometimes I don't want to have my phone and all of its notifications following me around. If I don't have my phone and I don't log into Instagram on my laptop, I don't get distracted by it. Being able to go further without having to be tethered to wifi is freeing, albeit for a rather specific digital slice of freeing.
• Shalomboy 7mo ago
  This is such a better deal than I had growing up, Apple has to be taking a bath on these. My high school required students to bring their own laptops to school when I started in 2010. Their shopping list suggested a MacBook Pro 13" with a case - I looked up "MacBook Pro price" for the first time in my life and just about walked into traffic. I didn't have a laptop to bring, I didn't want to bring the wrong kind of laptop and get double-screwed, so I bit the bullet and brought my car savings to the Apple store at the mall. A tremendously thoughtful sales rep told me "that's crazy, what school requires a MacBook Pro for 9th graders?", led me to the white unibody MacBooks on the side, and showed me that if I was buying it for school, I would get a discount on the laptop, a free inkjet printer (with ink!), and a free iPod Touch. This blew my mind. I thought it was a scam. If I recall, that model of MacBook compared admirably against the same year's base model MacBook Pro 13 on a stat sheet but felt worse in hand. The MacBook Neo might actually bring up the rear on fit and finish at the expense of I/O and like, the questionable idea of running an A-series chip in a laptop running Tahoe and Chrome. I'm thrilled with this release.
  • gandreani 7mo ago
    Wow props to that sales rep. Not many would pass on the opportunity to sell something more expensive. I'm assuming they make some sort of (paltry) commission
    • articulatepang 7mo ago
      I've had a similar experience with Apple Store employees many, many times: I walk in and vaguely describe what I want, and they steer me to the cheapest item they sell that could possibly meet my stated requirements. I've also returned Apple products multiple times, once (recently) without the packaging, and once several days past the return window. They refunded me every time, no questions asked. This makes me wonder if it's part of their training?
      • angulardragon03 7mo ago
        It is - you’re not trained to upsell, only to give the customer what they need to do what they want. Can be a little annoying (an employee actively tried to downsell my partner, even though they knew what they wanted), but overall it’s a nice practice.
• theopsimist 7mo ago
  List of differences from the MacBook Air: * Only supports 8 GB of unified memory * No MagSafe * One of the two USB-C ports is limited to USB 2.0 speeds of just 480 Mb/s * No Thunderbolt support means the Neo cannot drive either of Apple’s new Studio Displays. However, it can push a 4K display with 60Hz refresh rate over USB-C. * “Just” 16 hours of battery life, compared to the 18 hours quoted for the 13-inch MacBook Air * Display supports sRGB, but not P3 Wide Color * No True Tone * 1080p webcam doesn’t support Center Stage * No camera notch * Dual side-firing speakers, down from four speakers on the Air * Does not support Spatial Audio with dynamic head tracking on AirPods * Dual-mic system, down from a three-mic system on the Air * The 3.5 mm headphone jack does not have support for high-impedance headphones * No keyboard backlighting * Touch ID not included on base model * Trackpad does not support Force Touch * Supports Wi-Fi 6E, not 7 * No fast charging * The Apple on the lid isn’t shiny https://512pixels.net/2026/03/the-differences-between-the-macbook-neo-and-macbook-air/ https://512pixels.net/2026/03/the-differences-between-the-ma...
  • wackget 7mo ago
    Price difference?
    • ezfe 7mo ago
      * $500 = base model (250 GB SSD) (education) * $600 = 500 GB + Touch ID (education) * $1,000 = MacBook Air (500 GB SSD) (education)
      • B1FF_PSUVM 7mo ago
        While they are at it, they could bring back the $250 iPad Mini. I can't quite figure out why the Mini became a luxury item ten years ago, leaving the kid's cheap tablet to Android.
        • ezfe 7mo ago
          * The smaller devices don't have enough demand to have multiple versions. * Just because it's smaller doesn't magically reduce the price by 30% (currently iPad is $350).
• drnick1 7mo ago
  I wouldn't want a MacBook that can't run a free operating system, but if Asahi gets there, I may buy one to replace an aging XPS.
• koinedad 7mo ago
  I have to say I wasn’t expecting this
• svidgen 7mo ago
  Oh neat! 8 gig cap though? That seems strange... But, for a $600 Mac for the kids' homeschooling though, maybe I can forgive them.
• wackget 7mo ago
  * US price: $599 * UK price: £599 I don't like swearing on here, but fuck that. The "real" USD-GBP exchange rate price should be £448. Apple are basically taking £150 extra on top for UK consumers.
  • NetMageSCW 7mo ago
    Does the UK price include VAT? How much is VAT in the UK?
• dgan 7mo ago
  Would i get this over my (now half broken) H[inge]P[roblems] that I got for 600€ in 2016, and now run linux on, with 16GB of RAM? Hell no
  • thatwasunusual 7mo ago
    Good for you. Not sure how your comment contribute to ... well, anything, but... Good for you!
    • dgan 7mo ago
      Of course, I am sorry I have posted my opinion under opinion-gathering topic. I apologize sir. Won't happen again o7.
• mtrovo 7mo ago
  The hardware looks fine, but Apple's software vision is so confusing. MacBook Neo is cheaper and weaker than a MacBook Air, yet shares the same price and single-app mindset as an iPad. It uses a phone chip similar to an iPad Pro, but gets multi-user support and a keyboard. I struggle to run Tahoe on my 16GB M2 Air and somewhat I have to believe running it on a 8GB phone chip is gonna be alright, which if true have me thinking what exactly is the role of iPadOS anyway. Ultimately, it feels like iPadOS and Tahoe are on a crash course for a middle ground that nobody asked for.
  • dajt 7mo ago
    I'm (unfortunately) running Tahoe on my M1 macbook pro and don't notice it to be slower than Sequoia. Where is your slowdown? I'm dislike Tahoe as much as anyone else but performance isn't the problem for me.
  • foldr 7mo ago
    >It uses a phone chip similar to an iPad Pro You're mixed up here. The iPad Pro has used the same M series processors as MacBooks since April 2021.
• softfalcon 7mo ago
  So... have we now confirmed that the only thing preventing us from running macOS off our iPhones is a software limitation? (I'm being facetious, if the hardware was open, someone would have already written a custom boot loader for this :P)
• w10-1 7mo ago
  This is pitched as entry-level, but it works as N+1, as in: people have beaucoup computers, but they avoid carrying them around (risk loss/destroy). The computer absolutely needs to be a mac for keychain-linked services, etc. For those users, not having TouchID on the base model is a bummer.
• Venkymatam 7mo ago
  what a move by apple! these are going to sell like hotcakes. i can imagine this putting apple even further ahead if local llms really do take off sooner rather than later. a cheap mac like this brings a lot more people into the mac ecosystem, and once you’re in it’s pretty hard to leave given how seamless everything is. over time that likely pushes people to upgrade to more powerful macs when they want to run ai locally. yet another reminder of why hardware ends up being the real moat ;)
• ChoGGi 7mo ago
  Only 8gb RAM?
• forgetcolor 7mo ago
  Apple, please make a new 12" Macbook for those of us who travel and want the lightest weight possible. Less than 2 lbs, thinner than the Air, but without the compromises of the Neo. I'd pay more than the Air price for this. Or, make the Air lighter and thinner (to match the iPhone Air in approach?).
  • tedmiston 7mo ago
    - 2.03 lb on the old 12" books - 2.7 lb on the 13" neo and 13.6" air does that 2/3 lb difference really matter in a ~10–15 lb backpack?
• elAhmo 7mo ago
  This is great, to me this is a far better deal than buying an iPad with an extra keyboard.
• joeevans1000 7mo ago
  Apple's Chromebook.
• slowjin 7mo ago
  Would this be an upgrade from an X270?
• sealthedeal 7mo ago
  Haters will say this is them competing with Chromebooks, real OGs know they just expanded TAM
• thallavajhula 7mo ago
  As a Master's student, I didn't have money to afford a MacBook. So, I begrudgingly bought a Dell Vostro 13" at the time. Pretty much all of my friends just got the Dell/Sony/HP laptops and it's not like those laptops were powerful either. They were just pretty much entry level for a price tag of $600-$750. I got mine for $750. This was back in 2009. I had to remove the selection of a Webcam. These companies would pull shit like this, making basic things like a webcam, an add-on. I hated it. IDK what the price tag of a non-Apple laptop is now-a-days and IDK if they still do what they did then, including everything as an add-on, but, I'm so glad Apple released this. This'll be a blessing for students and generally folks who want a high quality laptop without bargaining over which basic add-on to pick, which seemed ridiculous then and feels the same even now. 2009 Me would've LOVED this! I'm so glad Apple released this. Back in 2013/14 Guillermo Rauch (CEO Vercel) shared a brilliant insight -- develop software on a weak machine and optimize it to work well on it so that when it's used on a powerful machine, it's going to fly. This'll force macOS developers to consider these resource constraints.
  • steve_adams_86 7mo ago
    According to the USA CPI inflation calculator, that $750 would have been $1,137.05 today. That's striking, but also incredible how much computers have progressed at the same time. https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm
  • ryukoposting 7mo ago
    The cheapest new laptop you can buy from HP right now has 4 GB of RAM, a 64GB eMMC drive, and an N100. It's $200-300 depending where you look. And somehow this pitiful thing is running Windows 11. I know it's half the price of the Neo, but it feels like way less than half the computer. I don't like Apple, I won't be buying this, and I won't be recommending it to anyone. But damn, Apple.
• tedmiston 7mo ago
  anybody else thinking of getting one just to have a mac in a fun color? as someone who likes bold colors, the citrus is nice.
• zakki 7mo ago
  Can I virtualize Windows 7 and PostgreSQL in it?
• tempaccountabgd 7mo ago
  [dead]
• JellyPlan 7mo ago
  Oh dang. No 16GB option at all, I thought 8GB was just the base.
• normie3000 7mo ago
  How much extra is it to add DVI out and an ethernet port?
• kristianp 7mo ago
  Apple's share price is down about 0.45% today. The market knew this was coming, so that doesn't say much. It will be interesting to see if this product helps their market share and also has good enough profit margin to affect Apple's profitability much. I expect it will sell a lot more units more than the previous cheapest Walmart M1 Air https://www.cnbc.com/2026/03/04/apple-macbook-neo-budget-laptop.html https://www.cnbc.com/2026/03/04/apple-macbook-neo-budget-lap...
• medi8r 7mo ago
  RIP, IBM compatiable PC.
• maxglute 7mo ago
  Has MacBook chassis been locked for a while? When was the last exciting design change?
• GeorgeOldfield 7mo ago
  that's it boys. apple will take over the ENTIRE market with this. they will be at schools everywhere. only reason to not get a macbook before was the price.
• tomalbrc 7mo ago
  They finally installed a real Operating System on iPad hardware and attached a keyboard. Innovative!
• gdubs 7mo ago
  As I see my kids bring home Chromebooks from school, it has made me recently nostalgic for the Apple of the 90s in terms of their presence in education. Using my Science teacher's Performa to play Sim Ant after we finished our assignments, (or Oregon Trail before that on the lab of Apple IIs) – not to mention HyperCard, etc. Anyway, updating my priors a bit with this Neo laptop. This feels like it could maybe spark some renewed excitement over Apple as a student / classroom device. If nothing else, the price makes it more of an option.
• druvisc 7mo ago
  Is that plastic
• blissofbeing 7mo ago
  Anyone else thinking of using this as a homelab server?
• rot13maxi 7mo ago
  8GB in 2026 sounds... tight. that with an A18, makes me wonder how its going to hold up in a year.
• polyrand 7mo ago
  I find this a very exciting release. I was actually hoping we would somehow get macOS on mobile 'A' chips some day. And I think this is better than putting 'M' chips on an iPad. My iPad with an 'M1' chip actually consumes more battery than much older iPads when both are locked and with the screen off. I ended up figuring it was probably because, in the 'M' chip, the lowest possible energy usage is way higher than the 'A' chip. So even small background wake-ups used more energy. I'm still hoping one day we have an iPad with macOS.
• kevinqi 7mo ago
  seems nice. I imagine the strategy here is going for expanding user base so Apple can sell more software services?
• ddtaylor 7mo ago
  This seems like a competitor to the Chromebook more because of the 8GB hard limit.
• gigatexal 7mo ago
  would be a very compelling little device for cash strapped schools but ... 16GB of ram heck even 12 would have been better. Otherwise the limitations are fine. In fact this really has the chance to canabilize the iPad a bit though the iPad has a better screen and a faster chip...
• andybak 7mo ago
  8gb is (not) enough for anyone
• asow92 7mo ago
  Eager to see the Xcode benchmark on this. Would expect it to be similar to the M1, but we shall see! I still use my M1 MBP for light mobile development work. Sure it's slow, but it certainly works. It's wild to think you can buy a new laptop that costs less than an iPhone and write apps for an iPhone. What's fun about this machine is its constraints, and it sort of reminds me of one of my processors orchestrating our school's server cluster via nothing but an 11" MacBook Air back in the day.
• LoganDark 7mo ago
  No Force Touch?! That's absolutely awful... That's probably the biggest UX difference in daily use...
• deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]
• asow92 7mo ago
  This machine has me asking why much older hardware can't run newer versions of macOS. The answer of course is Apple needs to sell new machines, but the Neo may be proof that decade old Macs could run Tahoe as well as or better than the Neo.
  • julienb_sea 7mo ago
    I'm not sure this really makes sense. The single core performance for the iphone chip is leagues ahead of anything even a couple years old. They can likely increase clock speed of the iphone chip in a larger chassis so the performance isn't exactly 1:1 with the 16 pro, which was hardly a slacker. 8gb on apple silicon goes much further than 8gb would have on an intel chip, due to faster and on chip RAM and much faster storage to enable smoother use of swap. I'd agree that an m1 chip can probably continue to run modern macOS for a very long time, and they will likely drop support for it much earlier than they would need to.
    • asow92 7mo ago
      I totally agree on the M1 bit. I just think there are so many capable machines that are unnecessarily scraped when they could be working with up to date software. Sure, they can run modern Linux or windows, but doesn’t that mean they could probably run modern Mac OS in theory as well? I understand that running for power users and running for my uncle aren’t the same.
  • sockaddr 7mo ago
    > but the Neo may be proof that decades old macs could run Tahoe, and maybe as well or better than the Neo The A18 Pro is going to out perform many "decades old" processors, which would you be referring to? I wouldn't conflate "affordable" with "low-end" in terms of processing speed. Apple is able to get the price to this point because of decisions that the rest of the market did not make.
    • asow92 7mo ago
      I think an old Mac Pro quad Xeon with 32gb of ram and an ssd of that era could do it. I agree that most cpus from 20 years ago could not. I understand that doing it and doing it well aren’t the same.
• zer0zzz 7mo ago
  I guess PCs and chromebooks are over? Literally what normie would pay more for a worse experience now?
• julienb_sea 7mo ago
  This is a real return to form for Apple. It's fun, pricing feels spot on for this market segment, the continued success of early M1 machines I think proves the spec limitations will not be a real world issue. This is excellent market segmentation on their part and I think many people will love this device.
• erelong 7mo ago
  a bit disturbed to see this upvoted as much on HN as I thought techy people shunned Apple products (like Stallman calling their ecosystem a "jail") but... I can see there are a lot of Apple users here apparently. I have some old hardware I still make use of but couldn't see a case for anyone buying new stuff (overpriced, locked down, etc.)
• ggm 7mo ago
  Does the BoM change account for all of the price drop? I suspect the price/cost thing is bogus here, and in fact, the functionality drop is deliberately designed to NOT predate their existing markets in laptops: They priced it just low enough to be considered "cheap" and they removed enough parts to make people who use a MBP or MBA not to want to do this.
• partiallypro 7mo ago
  Just from a pure investment standpoint, while people seem to think this will take on Microsoft PCs and Google's Chromebook, to me the bigger risk is that it is going to cannibalize Air sales. Just read the comments here and elsewhere online. Sure, some people say they need more RAM, etc...but the average consumer just uses their device as a browser. Anyhow, I do hope this wakes Microsoft up. They seem to have abandoned their consumer base, which is quite annoying. I do enjoy Windows 11, despite the hate here, but Windows PCs have a lot of catching up to do.
• ddawson 7mo ago
  They're finally laying the silly "Macs cost too much" complaint to bed.
• jaco6 7mo ago
  [dead]
• yeison 7mo ago
  I would love to see the upselling this product triggers.
• harel 7mo ago
  I am going to need a mac to perform some app build for ios sometimes. I was thinking to get a used mac mini for that. Would the neo be a cheaper, but still viable option?
• nmaleki 7mo ago
  I can't believe how fast the chip is. It is comparable to my top of the line gaming laptop from 6 years ago.
• karim79 7mo ago
  Possibly dumb question: why not just get a previous generation MacBook Air for a similar price? Even a refurb one. I really don't understand who this is for, apart from children perhaps (but still just get a bloody MacBook Air)
  • fckgw 7mo ago
    For people, new to the Mac (which make up half of all Mac sales), who don't go hunting for refurbs or want to buy used gear, and where a $1099 price point is cost prohibitive. Basically every regular computer user who shops at Amazon or Costco.
    • asadotzler 7mo ago
      You can buy a brand new M1 Air at Walmart for $650.
• dewarrn1 7mo ago
  $499 through Apple Edu: https://www.apple.com/us-edu/shop/buy-mac/macbook-neo https://www.apple.com/us-edu/shop/buy-mac/macbook-neo.
• temptemptemp111 7mo ago
  [dead]
• npalli 7mo ago
  So, and iPad with an attached keyboard.
• QuiEgo 7mo ago
  Fantastic value proposition. For most of the non-tech people in my life, I'd now recommend a base MacBook Neo + base iPhone 17 + AirPods Pro 3. Students may want to throw in a base iPad and an Apple Pencil. Splurge on the higher end versions if you like nice things, but that combo will pretty much cover the tech needs of most non-tech people. Apple is crushing it with their entry products.
• jacquesm 7mo ago
  8 GB of RAM and an ARM chip, it is almost as if they took the specs from the Raspberry PI and built a laptop around it. Joking aside, this is too anemic for today for serious work, but I guess at today's RAM prices this is going to be setting a trend. My decade+ old Lenovo W540 has four times that and I sometimes wished it had more. But for a school laptop it is acceptable I guess.
• everyone 7mo ago
  [flagged]
• osigurdson 7mo ago
  Macs were already much better value than other laptops in my opinion. I just wish it were easier to run Linux on them.
• InfiniteLoopGuy 7mo ago
  For someone who wants a secondary (travel) laptop I don't like how needlessly thick and heavy this is.
• remywang 7mo ago
  Basic question: will this be able to run any app built for M chip? I suppose so because both a18 and the M chips are ARM?
  • sipjca 7mo ago
    Yes
• sbinnee 7mo ago
  I don't this product has many audiences on HN. But I would definitely recommend it to anyone not doing much computing.
• cc-d 7mo ago
  very good product app man
• winrid 7mo ago
  The A18 Pro single thread passmark score is 4k, that's up there with pretty premium desktop CPUs, very impressive if it can do it for any meaningful time.
• anoncow 7mo ago
  Instead of launching neo, Apple could have enabled something like Dex on their phones. This is still a welcome device if Apple has excess inventory of A18 lying around as this helps people get a laptop for cheaper.
• mrsnuffy 7mo ago
  No magsafe, no deal
• stevefan1999 7mo ago
  This laptop is almost perfect for me, nix the 8GB to be a little cheapskate in 2026, but given the RAMageddon and SSDageddon artifically caused by the solid state cartels lately from Micron, Samsung, SK Hynix, WD, all of you pieces of shit who is part of this cartel...we have had to accept 8GB for the moment, but for future? At least 12G, because a lot of slop software are using electron to run. I just want a small laptop or handheld device where I can use ssh and kubectl, maybe sometimes running VSCode to have remote access. The 13 inch form factor is a godsent. I missed my 11-inch MBA 10 years ago so much.
• journal 7mo ago
  Still can't compete with a used ThinkPad from ebay.
• tremarley 7mo ago
  This is an iPad, with touch screen taken away and keyboard built in Same chip (A series), same RAM (8gb), same screen size, probably the exact same camera. iPad starts at $349 + $199 for Magic Keyboard folio. $549 for essentially the same thing + a touchscreen.
• christopher8827 7mo ago
  8GB of RAM? In 2026?!!! Xcode and some browser tabs are going make this slow AF.
• rngfnby 7mo ago
  This is interesting. Our current family [1] Mac Pro is from 2015 and its time to replace it, but I'm loath to spend 1000 on a laptop [1] computer to do personal things i don't want my employer to spy on
• melvinodsa 7mo ago
  A laptop to watch movies and surf web
  • carefree-bob 7mo ago
    If you want your mind blown, think back that in 2015, 8GB RAM was considered a lot of RAM and people would regularly compile linux and freebsd kernels on such systems.
    • InfiniteLoopGuy 7mo ago
      8GB RAM was not a lot in 2015. It was similar to 16gb today in terms of usability. When I bought a MBA in 2014, 4GB was considered borderline insufficient, even for a casual user.
• bitwize 7mo ago
  My wife was just telling me she wanted an updated iBook...
• EagnaIonat 7mo ago
  To me it feels like Netbooks are back on the menu.
• Paddyz 7mo ago
  [dead]
• looopTools 7mo ago
  Besides the the lack of a magsafe which I find essential for a kids laptop, I think it is perfect from a kid in the age 10-15... Unless they want to game of course.
• brailsafe 7mo ago
  Now give me a damn tellow MacBook Pro please
  • brailsafe 7mo ago
    yellow* :(
• mastermage 7mo ago
  This would be pretty cool for my Grandparents. They don't need too much and I assume that in typical MacBook fashion this works rather smoothly. (Their current Laptop is old) I still think 512 GB on Storage is realy too little for a PC device. There is phones with more Storage.
  • frappe06 7mo ago
    Usually, I’d agree that 512GB doesn’t feel like a lot. But honestly, for most people who’d be interested in this device, what are they really storing on it? Photos? Probably not—those already live on their phones and are usually backed up to Google Photos or iCloud. And these days, so much of what we do happens right in the browser anyway. Writing, editing, collaborating, it’s all handled through web apps. Of course, there will always be exceptions, but those folks probably wouldn’t be looking at the Neo in the first place. However, having the option to go for higher of course is always appreciated. But maybe that's just apple trying to steer users that need more storage to look at their other products.
• drumhead 7mo ago
  So its fundamentally an iPad with a keyboard running macOS.
• brutuscat 7mo ago
  Like the YouTuber said, if you are watching this then it might not be for you. https://youtu.be/kBX5WH9b4M4 https://youtu.be/kBX5WH9b4M4
• Yanko_11 7mo ago
  [dead]
• Yanko_11 7mo ago
  [dead]
• jasonvorhe 7mo ago
  The amount of compromises leave little to no wiggle room to ever recommend this device to anyone.
• faizan199 7mo ago
  Just an upgraded version of iPad air with the magic keyword attached.
• grougnax 7mo ago
  Apple is giving incredibly powerful and lightweight laptops for ALMOST FREE! What a time to be alive!
• rot13maxi 7mo ago
  4 colors, 2 configurations. This is kind of awesome. I know it's targeted at the low(er) cost laptop market, but this could be a great travel machine instead of lugging a macbook pro around.
• mindaslab 7mo ago
  Compared to other repairable and upgradable laptops, this one is utter waster of investment.
• smm11 7mo ago
  Okay, then, this isn't for you.
• dominicrose 7mo ago
  Anyone else has this Apple shopping experience? - look at the new "cheap" product/gadget - look at better products - choose a better product, configure it, add options - don't buy anything, not even a PC or a tablet, maybe upgrade your old android phone
• deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]
• Halan 7mo ago
  RIP any hope for an Apple alternative to Samsung Dex. An iPhone 16 pro running the same specs will never be able to run macOS. We already knew it but this made official
  • jmkni 7mo ago
    A phone you could just plug into a USB dockand it becomes your mac would be so cool
• genedai 7mo ago
  Look, I know everyone's freaking out about the MacBook Neo at $599. I get it. It's cheap, it's Apple, take my money. But honestly? If you spend like five minutes actually reading the specs, the MacBook Air is the obvious buy here. The Neo sounds sick until you look at what they actually shipped. It's running an A18 Pro. That's a phone chip. Not even an M-series. 8 gigs of RAM. One of the USB-C ports is USB 2.0, which, like... it's 2026, what are we doing. No MagSafe. No Thunderbolt, so forget plugging in a Studio Display. No backlit keyboard. No Force Touch. The base model doesn't even have Touch ID. Someone on 512pixels put together a list of everything they cut and it's honestly kind of depressing. Just cut after cut after cut. The Air at $1099 gets you the M5, 16 gigs of RAM, Thunderbolt 4, MagSafe, Wi-Fi 7, P3 display, backlit keyboard. The whole deal, no weird gotchas. Yeah it's 500 bucks more. But you're getting double the RAM, a way better chip, and you don't have to keep a mental list of stuff your laptop randomly can't do. The RAM thing is what really kills the Neo for me though. macOS eats like 5 gigs just sitting there doing nothing. Someone on HN said they're running VSCode, Xcode, Blender, and ChatGPT all at once on 8 gigs and sure, macOS is clever with swap and compression, but come on. You're redlining it from the jump with zero room to grow. And you can never upgrade it. 16 gigs on the Air means you're actually comfortable for years. This matters way more now because of the local AI stuff that's blowing up. OpenClaw just dropped, open-source AI agent that runs right on your Mac, handles your email, calendar, does actual useful stuff on its own. The LocalLLaMA crowd is going absolutely feral setting it up with Ollama, running local models for free. People are hitting 49 tokens per second, running 30B parameter models on their Macs. That kind of thing eats RAM for breakfast and really wants those M-series GPU cores and the Neural Engine. On 16 gigs with an M5? You're golden. On 8 gigs with a phone chip and a 5-core GPU? Yeah no. The move in 2026 isn't buying the cheapest Mac. It's buying the one that doesn't feel slow in two years. Grab a refurb M4 Air for like $900, or just pay full price for the M5. Either way you've got a machine that handles everything for the next five or six years easy. Browsing, dev work, local AI stuff, whatever. The Neo is gonna start choking the second you try anything beyond Safari and Netflix, and at that point just buy a Chromebook for 300 bucks. Apple built the Neo to hit a price tag. The Air is where the math actually works out. Spend the extra 500 now, forget about it for five years. Done.
• swaminarayan 7mo ago
  which AI features will I get in neo ?
• xp84 7mo ago
  The base model at 256GB is either to advertise an artificially low price, or a deliberate move to ensure that most of these end up in e-waste within 18 months. Go ahead and explain to the target market of teens, college kids, and 'regular people' how to resolve the problem when their Photos library (or like 1-2 video projects if they are into content creation) fills the disk and the whole computer stops working correctly due to 'disk full'. "Sure, just buy a paid iCloud plan" Great. Of course, now you have to wait for it to download any photo you want to use. And you're stuck paying a monthly subscription (Yay, services revenue!). And the cloud is not any solution for the video people, at all. I've seen someone try to edit a video that's being stored in iCloud Drive and only cached locally with Apple magic... it wasn't pretty. Apple's quest to kill off any understanding of the filesystem by doing everything inside hidden, conceptually-monolithic "libraries" means the only way to be happy on a Mac or iOS device is to buy way more internal storage than you think you'll ever need... at Apple's hilarious prices. Oh well, at least for a moment now their prices look similar to everyone else's that just tripled.
  • KPGv2 7mo ago
    > Of course, now you have to wait for it to download any photo you want to use. I don't think the use case for this laptop is content creation. Most people have no problem with Google Photos, which stores almost every photo in the cloud. Why would this be any different? This is an iPad with a laptop-style human interface, isn't it?
    • xp84 7mo ago
      Absolutely it is. And honestly, yes, the only person who will be able to use this device successfully and be happy is the person who would also consider, and (from a software perspective) be completely satisfied with the capabilities of, a Chromebook. Everything stored exclusively in cloud services, and preferably not the Apple ones, since iCloud Drive will just end up wasting more of their disk space. I guess I'll agree that as a direct Chromebook replacement (And I mean literally, just download Chrome after first boot and ignore everything else on there besides maybe the Messages app), this can be a decent device.
  • 7mo ago
• avipars 7mo ago
  https://web.archive.org/web/20260302132101/https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/03/09/alexander-friedmann-profile-prison-reform https://web.archive.org/web/20260302132101/https://www.newyo...
• atkrad 7mo ago
  Yet another trash!
• moralestapia 7mo ago
  >3.5 mm headphone jack YES!
• mbonnet 7mo ago
  I have an old 2020 M1 Macbook Air that is on its last legs because 8GB RAM isn't enough for regular use cases. If this had a 16GB RAM option I'd go for it, but alas.
• filozopdasha 7mo ago
  Sounds like not bad option
• irenetusuq 7mo ago
  [dead]