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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 ju

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).
sgjohnson 7mo ago
> The Apple on the lid isn’t shiny That’s been the case for 5+ years :)
- evadne 7mo ago
  I thought they changed from glowing Apple to reflective Apple
- joshuat 7mo ago
  I think they mean not reflective like current models, not that it isn't illuminated like the MacBooks of yore
  - crazygringo 7mo ago
    I'm trying to figure out what it is. Is it matte, but just a different matte from the rest of the case? I kind of want to see it in person. It looks very tasteful.
sva_ 7mo ago
> Powered by A18 Pro https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_A18 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_A18 So this is basically running on a phone CPU I got excited for a moment thinking it might have an M4 or M5 chip, that would've made it interesting to tinker around with Asahi Linux. But now it mostly just reminds me of a netbook. Its cool for people on a budget though, good to see Apple not just being this overpriced premium brand that it once was.
- coder543 7mo ago
  The A18 Pro performs about on par with an M4 in terms of single threaded performance, and a little better than M1 in terms of multi threaded performance. The MacBook Neo has one of the fastest processors on the market for single threaded tasks, which is what has the most impact on how "fast" a processor feels for day to day usage. Netbooks had processors that were glacially slow.
  - sva_ 7mo ago
    I actually used a netbook when I was in school, it wasn't all that bad. People thinking I mentioned my (somewhat) disappointment about the CPU because it is also used in Phones, but actually what I meant is that I would be interested in doing some reverse engineering work to contribute to the Asahi Linux project for the M-chips if this was a cheap option to attain one. But I don't really see doing that for the A18, personally; even though I don't doubt its a good chip!
    - piperswe 7mo ago
      I suspect Asahi Linux would appreciate work to support A18 Macs as well!
    - dijit 7mo ago
      > I actually used a netbook when I was in school, it wasn't all that bad. The reputation problem was kind of baked in. Vista launched the same year netbooks did, and even though Vista was a disaster, "runs the latest Windows" is the smell test normal people use for whether something is a real computer. Netbooks didn't pass. The storage situation made Windows users miserable anyway. The SSD models had 4-8GiB of flash, and XP alone ate well over half before you'd done anything. So people bought the HDD variant instead, more space, sure, but spinning at 4,200rpm, which wasn't even the slow-but-acceptable 5,400 of a normal laptop drive. Then pile the standard bloatware on top of that. Bear in mind, people chose the HDD version because it ran Vista: the thing that made it a "real" computer. The SSD variant, the one that actually worked, got ignored for exactly that reason. Run Linux on the SSD variants though, and the thing was actually great.
nolist_policy 7mo ago
Do you know if the A series processor supports virtualization?
- xmodem 7mo ago
  The A-series has supported virtualization since long before the M-series existed. iOS disables it in early boot, though. On the other hand, how much virtualization are you really going to be doing with 8GB of RAM?
  - nolist_policy 7mo ago
    A lot: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47249309 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47249309
- dmitrygr 7mo ago
  The hardware support was there for a while. Given that this runs macOS, i would guess (no insider knowledge) that it would work just fine and not be disabled like it is in iOS (by policy, not by technical reasons)
MYEUHD 7mo ago
You forgot an important difference: the macbook neo has the A18 Pro chip (2 performance cores + 4 efficiency cores) whereas the macbook air has the M5 chip (4 performance cores + 6 efficiency cores) Also the A18 Pro chip has a 5-core GPU whereas the M5 chip has 8 or 10. Personally, the only dealbreaker in the list you posted is the amount of RAM. macOS 15 uses ~5GB on startup without any app open. I'd be swapping all the time on 8GB of RAM.
- post-it 7mo ago
  > macOS 15 uses ~5GB on startup without any app open Sort of? Mac very aggressively caches things into RAM. It should be using all of your RAM on startup. That's why they've changed the Activity Monitor to say "memory pressure" instead of something like "memory usage." I'm typing this on an 8 GB MacBook Air and it works just fine. I've got ChatGPT, VSCode, XCode, Blender, and PrusaSlicer minimized and I'm not feeling any lag. If I open any of them it'll take half a second or so as they're loaded from swap, but when they're not in the foreground they're not using up any memory.
  - MYEUHD 7mo ago
    In macOS 15 there are two metrics: "Memory used" and "Cached Files" I'm specifically talking about "Memory used" here. In fact, on my 16GB mac, if I open apps that use ~8GB of RAM (on top of the 5GB I mentioned earlier), it starts swapping.
    - KerrAvon 7mo ago
      How do you define "swapping?" Even on Intel Macs, the memory statistics don't map the way one might expect. Be careful when making assumptions about what those metrics actually mean.
      - MYEUHD 7mo ago
        I mean at that point (13 GB memory used), the "Swap used" is at several hundred megabytes. And if I more apps (or browser tabs), the "Swap used" keeps increasing, and the "memory pressure" graph switches color from green to yellow. The color of that graph is the indicator I'm using to know that I should close my browser tabs :p
theopsimist 7mo ago
And of course the screen: 13.0-inch vs 13.6 Weight is the same incidentally. I think the tradeoff would be worth it for a lot of people but many would be better off buying the apple refurbished 16GB M4 Air ($759 from apple right now)
- theopsimist 7mo ago
  I'll keep adding to the list: * Only one external display * No haptic trackpad
  - turtlebits 7mo ago
    No force touch doesn't necessarily mean no haptics. I would assume Apple didn't go backwards to a physically clicking touchpad.
    - nguyenkien 7mo ago
      Bad news. It's physical trackpad. https://youtu.be/mBkYho_4CSg?t=226 https://youtu.be/mBkYho_4CSg?t=226
      - macintux 7mo ago
        I can't go back, now that I've discovered the joys of "tap to click". But I doubt most new Mac users would notice.
        bzzzt 7mo ago
        A physical trackpad can also do 'tap to click'.
        macintux 7mo ago
        Really? Terrific.
        drdo 7mo ago
internet2000 7mo ago
The only one of those choices I disagree with is no Touch ID in the base spec. Otherwise, good corners to cut to get to the cheap price point.
- ezfe 7mo ago
  Since it's just $100 to get 250 -> 500 GB and Touch ID, I think it's okay. It means people who need the cheapest computer can get it, and people who want to upgrade pay a small amount and get all the upgrades in a package without jumping up to the MacBook Air, etc. for much more.
- theopsimist 7mo ago
  I think different people will have one feature they feel should have been kept (other than the ram which is universal). For me not so much the Touch ID but the backlit keyboard.
- bluedino 7mo ago
  Agree on the Touch ID. Love that feature for passwords etc. Not terribly happy about the USB 2.0 port as well
- pbreit 7mo ago
  I would say "No keyboard backlighting" is a true show-stopper for a huge portion of the target audience (students).
  - justinator 7mo ago
    Learned touch typing just fine on a non-backlit keyboard. What would you feel would be the issue?
    - pbreit 7mo ago
      Can't see the keys in a dark classroom or bedroom.
      - 7mo ago
spaceisballer 7mo ago
I want to see the person buying the Neo and pairing it with a new Studio Display.
- freetime2 7mo ago
  A potential example that comes to mind would be you have a Studio Display in your house that you use for remote work with a beefy MacBook Pro, and then maybe a family member has a MacBook Neo that they’d like to plug into a monitor occasionally.
  - SchemaLoad 7mo ago
    Tbh if you have a studio display you are probably used to most things not working with it. I get that it's apple, but the lack of a HDMI or Displayport input on the monitor is insane.
    - testing22321 7mo ago
      Just like no floppy on the iMac was insane. When there is a better way, why would you spend money and effort supporting the old outdated way?
      - SchemaLoad 7mo ago
        It's easier to justify removing stuff when it's very bulky and expensive. But a single HDMI port on the back of a desktop monitor would take up relatively no expense and space. HDMI has a fairly long life left yet, so much that even Apple backtracked on removing it from the macbooks. Which is far less of a problem since you can get a usb c to hdmi adapter but the other way is significantly harder.
        freetime2 7mo ago
        Additional ports would complicate the user experience. The Studio Display has no buttons on it, but if you added additional inputs, you would also need to add a button for input switching at least. And potentially other buttons for brightness and volume settings. It may not sound like a big deal, but I have an LG monitor that uses a remote for input switching and volume controls, and a BenQ monitor that uses buttons, and both provide a noticeably jankier experience. The Studio Display provides a very clean user experience when paired with a Mac. You plug it in, it turns on, and all other functions (volume, brightness, colors, camera, etc) are controlled via MacOS. Personally I'm happy for Apple to optimize for that experience, at the cost of not working with non-Apple devices.
spinningarrow 7mo ago
> No keyboard backlighting When was the last time Apple had a laptop without keyboard lighting?
- CharlesW 7mo ago
  2010. https://www.macrumors.com/2011/07/12/backlit-keyboard-to-return-in-new-macbook-air/ https://www.macrumors.com/2011/07/12/backlit-keyboard-to-ret...
Zenst 7mo ago
like Neo from the Martix, it has only one interface port of real use.
- simondotau 7mo ago
  Like Neo from the matrix, the other port is still useful for mice, printers, DACs, arduino projects, and little USB powered fans.
  - muterad_murilax 7mo ago
    Man, that's just gross!
  - gizajob 7mo ago
    Can’t believe anyone this is targeted at is going to plug in a mouse in 2026.
    - simondotau 7mo ago
      I’d wager that the great majority of Neos won’t ever be connected to anything on the regular (aside from a charger).
gopalv 7mo ago
> * No MagSafe For my kid who uses a Chromebook right now, Magsafe would've been improvement in how often the power cable pulls the it off the desk. But otherwise, this checks all the boxes, including applecare.
- whiterook6 7mo ago
  In case you didn't already know or haven't considered it, you can find right-angle usb-c MagSafe adaptors that basically allow the charging cable to disconnect from the device like MagSafe.
  - genxy 7mo ago
    Most of these devices are a fire hazard. And in an environment where kids are needing magsafe, is probably the most dangerous for fire safety. *edit https://www.reddit.com/r/UsbCHardware/comments/motlhn/magnetic_usbc_cables_are_not_recommended/ https://www.reddit.com/r/UsbCHardware/comments/motlhn/magnet...
    - whiterock 7mo ago
      oh, probably not enough contact pressure. resistance is inversely proportional to contact pressure after all.
      - genxy 7mo ago
        I am now nerd sniped on the surface physics of connectors. Thanks!
    - realityfactchex 7mo ago
      So true. Regarding those magnetic USB connectors: not just a fire hazard but also a tendency to eventually burn out whatever is on the other end of them IME. Maybe ok for giving power if you are careful I think, I never had any fires, knock on wood. But it's a bummer to zap/kill the data-functionality of USB ports on nice stuff just because a non-spec connector was used in between the two things being connected, for convenience. So I don't trust them except for conveniently connecting power to low-cost devices. Whether Neo fits that... I doubt but YMMV.
deleted 7mo ago
[deleted]
pbreit 7mo ago
"No keyboard backlighting" is a show-stopper. Nuts.
- kccqzy 7mo ago
  It just looks slightly nicer. Touch typists don’t look at the keyboard anyways. And if you care enough about looks, you’ll want RGB lighting.
  - asadotzler 7mo ago
    Plenty of people work in dark or dim places, like school classrooms, where backlighting is great and RGB lighting is useless. That you seem to think everyone shares your needs and goals makes you a far less effective participant in these kinds of discussions. Maybe think for a bit before asserting what people who care about backlighting need it for and don't.
    - ta8903 7mo ago
      Aren't classrooms usually well lit?
      - pbreit 7mo ago
        No. And multi-resident dorm rooms much less so.
  - pbreit 7mo ago
    Very small percentage of students (the primary audience) are touch typists.
- esskay 7mo ago
  You're not the audience, obviously.
  - pbreit 7mo ago
    It's a show-stopper for the main audience: students.
locusofself 7mo ago
It's pretty cool to see this machine come out. The Macbook Air is still my sweet spot though, I use a Thunderbolt audio interface, and need more RAM. Great for a student or casual user though for sure.
philip1209 7mo ago
I forgot about force touch as a feature until I read this comment.
tokyobreakfast 7mo ago
> No camera notch I'd consider this an upgrade. Does this mean we get screen real estate back from an abnormally-thick menu bar? The notch is one of the most bizarre 'innovations' to ever come out of Apple. Like designing a car you steer using your genitals to free up extra dash space then gaslighting everyone into thinking this is somehow better.
- vvillena 7mo ago
  The free rectangle area is a 16:10 screen, the space around the notch is a freebie.
tomcam 7mo ago
Fantastic post, thank you. Answered pretty much every question i had. This is why I love hacker news.
gehsty 7mo ago
Feels very negative! It costs 50% less than the air, in a time when everyone else’s prices are going up. The single core performance smokes a lot of high end intel chips.
- cyode 7mo ago
  I don't think that was the intent. If anything, 90%+ of these features here feel nice-to-have, and I bet OP agrees (or is neutrally sharing the comp).
  - killingtime74 7mo ago
    Feels negative because the positive of the cheaper price (it's half the price) is magically not listed
    - KPGv2 7mo ago
      it reads like a 2026 version of CmdrTaco's famous iPod review, honestly
genxy 7mo ago
The Red Delicious of Macs.
- KingMob 7mo ago
  Except nobody wants Red Delicious.
znpy 7mo ago
> * “Just” 16 hours of battery life, compared to the 18 hours quoted for the 13-inch MacBook Air for pretty much half the price, though. i mean, it's still early to judge (there is no review yet) but if it performs decently it's a death sentence for all the trashy 600$ laptop. as somebody that has used both windows (at work), mac os (at work) and linux (at work and at home) the macbook neo could be an absolute steal of a laptop. > * The Apple on the lid isn’t shiny oh yeah, first world problems /s
nine_k 7mo ago
— ...We believe that the customers will like it despite all that. We plan to market it as MacBook Nerfed. — But you can't use "Nerfed", we'll run into a trademark dispute. — Ah, well, you're right! Hey Claude, what generic lofty-sounding words start with "Ne"?
killingtime74 7mo ago
Why didn't you list the number 1 difference, the price.
MoonWalk 7mo ago
"1080p webcam doesn’t support Center Stage" That's a huge PLUS. This asinine "feature" ruins our family Zoom calls EVERY WEEK. There doesn't appear to be a system-wide way to disable this junk on iOS. Because Windows sucks so monumentally, my parents insist on trying to do everything on their phones and tablets. I'm thinking the Neo is perfect for them, and hearing that it'll solve this infuriating problem just makes it more appealing. A USB 2 port is embarrassing for a computer at any price in 2026. But at least you can apparently use that one for powering the computer, leaving the good one free for other uses.
dbg31415 7mo ago
> The Apple on the lid isn’t shiny This made me laugh. Thanks for the breakdown! (=
aimanbenbaha 7mo ago
The biggest drawback is no Thunderbolt. The biggest sell for Macs right now is the ability to daisy chain them with the new RDMA update. A used M1 Mac Mini is more valuable than this.
- LordDragonfang 7mo ago
  That's an extremely niche use case and not even a remotely selling point for probably 99% of buyers, much less the "biggest" one.
- dbbk 7mo ago
  I'm losing my mind. This is a BUDGET, entry-level laptop, and you're complaining about the lack of Thunderbolt daisy chaining?!
  - stavros 7mo ago
    Listen I bought six Retina displays, I don't also have money for a new Mac. Of course I'm going to complain about the lack of Thunderbolt daisy chaining after my frivolous expenses come home to roost.
- esskay 7mo ago
  You get what a budget product is right?
- wildzzz 7mo ago
  The Neo is basically the mac flavor of an iPad meant for schoolchildren. It's a Chromebook competitor, not meant for whatever kooky AI shit you're doing at home.
reddalo 7mo ago
>No camera notch Well, I see this as a very positive thing.
- ta8903 7mo ago
  Yeah, it's funny how it's better than the other MacBooks in a way.
- OrangeMusic 7mo ago
  Instead, the screen has big bezel.
p1necone 7mo ago
Being limited to 8gb of ram is genuinely the only thing on that list I care about (no backlight and no fast charging are teetering on the edge of me caring, but they aren't worth multiple hundreds of dollars) - Apple silicone is so fast now that (at least for my purposes) the performance segmentation between price points is basically meaningless.
- kulahan 7mo ago
  A keyboard backlight is such a cheap and useful addition to a keyboard, it feels insulting not to get it. I cannot believe this is one of the ways they decided to cheap out. I wouldn’t even care about the 8GB of ram if I could just add some myself.
  - dsl 7mo ago
    > A keyboard backlight is such a cheap and useful addition to a keyboard Useless LEDs that burn battery budget. The thing everyone seems to be missing is this isn't a laptop for you or me. It is to compete with Chromebooks in the educational market, and to have a SKU to sell in developing countries.
    - kulahan 7mo ago
      Thank goodness they removed this fantastic thing everyone wants to give you an extra fourteen seconds of use time per battery charge. Come on man. As for the importance of it, if you want to give these to kids, you should have something more rugged, more replaceable, and more built for all kinds of environments (including kids who don’t have a conveniently well-lit place to focus on schoolwork at home). A large school could have thousands upon thousands of broken Chromebooks waiting to be shipped off - literally multiple pallets. I’ve seen it more than once. Absolutely nobody is begging for an unrepairable, unexpandable, more-expensive version of what they all already have. It’s garbage for school, dead out of the gate.
      - KingMob 7mo ago
        14 seconds? Lights are expensive when to comes to batteries.
atlgator 7mo ago
It's an A18 Pro cpu with a 60Hz retina display. So it's basically a iPhone 16 Pro with a larger display and physical keyboard.
- utopcell 7mo ago
  and there's nothing wrong with that.
  - murukesh_s 7mo ago
    wish they enable the actual iphone 16 with a full-fledged OS that we can plug into an external monitor.. I think samsung tried it but didn't get mass appeal. Apple could do that IMO - would have even avoided launching neo as students own a device in the form of phone or tab anyway..
- astrange 7mo ago
  And a different SSD and different charging and different heatsinks…
giobox 7mo ago
My only real issue with this design is as far as I can tell there is no markings on exterior explaining which USB-C port is "the good one" - an important point given one port is dramatically slower than the other. I suspect many users will probably accidentally plug stuff like external SSDs into the slow port without realizing. It's maybe too much to hope for at this price point, but would have been nice for a machine with only two ports to be able to offer the same spec USB on both ports. My instinct would be to use the socket towards the rear of the machine as my charging port - it's closest to the corner - but in doing so you use up the "good" USB-3 port leaving you with only USB2. It's not a huge deal, but charging in the other port to free up the USB3 one feels slightly weird to me. I suspect most users will charge off the USB3 port given its location. Reading the spec sheet, it also looks like DisplayPort is only supported over the USB3 port too - again there appears no way to know just by looking at the ports. This has never been a problem on any of the Apple Silicon 2-port MacBook Airs, as those have always had the same specs on both ports and could drive a display over DisplayPort from either.
- realityfactchex 7mo ago
  > ...instinct would be to use the socket towards the rear of the machine as my charging port...it's closest to the corner...charging in the other port...feels slightly weird...I suspect most users will... Ah, but, as I recall some vintage of 2016-2018 Macbook Pro users will remember that using the "backmost, corner" USB-C port for charging could cause the MBP to overheat and fans to sound like a helicopter. Thus, the (admittedly probably vanishingly tiny minority of) MBP veterans with "back charging USB port PTSD" who learned to use the foremost USB port for charging, will know full well to stay away from using that backmost USB port, if all they need is power!
- Foivos 7mo ago
  My guess is that if you plug a fast medium on the slow USB port the OS will give you a pop up letting you know. I have seen something similar in windows 11.
  - macintux 7mo ago
    That's true for displays, at least. I don't know about external storage. https://daringfireball.net/2026/03/599_not_a_piece_of_junk_macbook_neo https://daringfireball.net/2026/03/599_not_a_piece_of_junk_m...
kyleee 7mo ago
Center stage is dumb anyway
dhosek 7mo ago
No one has commented on the charger this thing comes with: It’s 20W! The sort of thing you’d plug a phone or iPad into, which seems crazy. I kind of wonder whether you could charge it with the built-in USB ports that are in newer wall sockets.
- avianlyric 7mo ago
  It basically is an iPhone or iPad, but with a keyboard. It’s really only the display that’s gonna consume significantly more power than its iPhone/iPad equivalent.
  - dhosek 7mo ago
    Yeah, I was thinking about that, and it occurred to me that even the display is probably pretty efficient since it’s not that much bigger than, say, a large iPad pro. It’s just wild to me how little power this thing uses.
    - avianlyric 7mo ago
      The large iPad Pros have the advantage of using OLED displays rather than an LCD. Give the iPad screen an automatic power advantage because all of the light generated by the screen is emitted at the user, unlike an LCD where a substantial chunk of the LCD backlight is absorbed by the LCD layer.
- morpheuskafka 7mo ago
  At that point, why even include the charger? That would massively cut shipping weight like it did for the phone, and everyone already has a phone charger. I guess maybe they were worried some people would use a ultra cheap charger that can't even handle 20W reliably, but every OEM Android charger should have been fine with that for years, right?
  - qkc3p3Jbf4 7mo ago
    I think this is part of why they don’t include chargers in the EU version of the Neo. If you have a charger from basically any time in the last ten years you’ll be fine with that.
deleted 7mo ago
[deleted]
ValentineC 7mo ago
> One of the two USB-C ports is limited to USB 2.0 speeds of just 480 Mb/s This is one of the things I never really expected Apple to do, since they've somehow managed to avoid the confusing black/blue colouring of USB-A ports, giving every laptop they've ever produced since 2012 USB 3.0 ports. Seems like they're buying into hardware enshittification too (macOS and iOS 26 being software monstrosities with liquid glAss).
- Panzer04 7mo ago
  Confusing? Seems pretty straightforward, more so than the USB-C system of no indication at all. If you're lucky, you'll get a label.
giobox 7mo ago
> No Thunderbolt support means the Neo cannot drive either of Apple’s new Studio Displays Apple appear to have reached out to 9to5Mac and confirmed it sort of works with the new displays... You can connect the new displays, but it can only drive them at 4k/60, which is not going to look all that nice scaled up on a native 5k monitor. No mention of whether the monitors other features like the webcam and ports work when connected to the Neo though. https://9to5mac.com/2026/03/04/psa-macbook-neo-intel-macs-might-not-work-with-new-studio-displays/ https://9to5mac.com/2026/03/04/psa-macbook-neo-intel-macs-mi...
- odysseus 7mo ago
  What about the old Studio Display?
  - giobox 7mo ago
    Honestly I stopped caring once I saw the max output is 4k/60 regardless of what you connect - the output is going to look bad with scaling on anything with 5k or 6k resolution, which is all of the recent standalone displays from Apple. It's certainly not going to be an experience worth the price tag of the displays.
nsonha 7mo ago
"One of the two USB-C ports is limited to USB 2.0 speeds of just 480 Mb/s" Why? Did they stock-piled USB 2.0 controllers and now need to get it off their inventory or something?
- esskay 7mo ago
  Costs. gotta remember this thing is based on iPhone hardware...which doesnt have more than 1 usb port normally.
- deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]
- rzhikharevich 7mo ago
  More like stockpiled a phone SoC with limited I/O
dana321 7mo ago
You can use 16Gb of ram on an 8Gb machine, anything more than that it will start creaking and have out of memory errors on applications.
- numpad0 7mo ago
  fyi: "Gb" implies gigabit, used in network and RAM where 8 bits = 1 byte is not guaranteed. "GB" implies gigabyte.
waynesonfire 7mo ago
Looks like a bunch of great trade-offs to give value to customers in this economy.
SomeHacker44 7mo ago
I would not buy an Apple laptop regardless, but they at least addressed one of my major complaints: No camera notch Praise the...market?!
ryeguy_24 7mo ago
Has anyone tried to use a laptop at night? It’s pretty hard without lit keys. Maybe this one has some super reflective letters so that the screen lights them up.
- cmovq 7mo ago
  Just turn on a light?
- lifis 7mo ago
  Skilled computer usage includes learning to type without looking at the keyboard
- estomagordo 7mo ago
  I have light fixtures at home.
coldtea 7mo ago
So no real issue at all for the target group
franciscop 7mo ago
* Max storage is 512GB instead of 4TB. I currently have 1TB and I'm pretty happy with it, but I've had 256GB and 512GB in the past and I was not happy with those. This might be the only reason I would not consider this laptop.
ibic 7mo ago
The last point made me chuckle, good catch :D
hartator 7mo ago
> No camera notch This is a positive though. > The Apple on the lid isn’t shiny The light has stopped shining at Apple for a bit now
- vulcan01 7mo ago
  I think parent means reflective. In the videos it looks like just a slightly different color. On the other MacBooks it is polished metal.
risfriend 7mo ago
No keyboard backlighting is itself a dealbreaker for me.
raffraffraff 7mo ago
Is Force Touch the thing that makes Macbook trackpad better than basically every other laptop trackpad? Because if so, that is actually "the" deal breaker.
- bzzzt 7mo ago
  They were great long before Force touch.
michelb 7mo ago
I'm interested in seeing how these changes affect the supply chain of components. I would figure it would be cheaper to just use the existing components with all features, instead of making a different one with 1 or 2 parts less. Maybe this is just how good manufacturers are now?
KronisLV 7mo ago
My current note taking machine is an M1 MacBook Air. If something happened to it, honestly, this seems like a really meaningful alternative - like for real work I'd still prefer a ThinkPad, but for being on the move and for having something to throw in my bad, the Neo would be great! I used to have a Techbite Zin notebook that tbh had a really, really nice keyboard, but it was anemic when it came to literally anything else - and the 4 GB of RAM made even lightweight Linux distros struggle.
davidkwast 7mo ago
Still better than my Lenovo
ilovechaz 7mo ago
Can’t expand it at all. Not for me.
KPGv2 7mo ago
also, less space than a Nomad. Lame.

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).

sgjohnson 7mo ago

> The Apple on the lid isn’t shiny That’s been the case for 5+ years :)

evadne 7mo ago
I thought they changed from glowing Apple to reflective Apple
joshuat 7mo ago
I think they mean not reflective like current models, not that it isn't illuminated like the MacBooks of yore
- crazygringo 7mo ago
  I'm trying to figure out what it is. Is it matte, but just a different matte from the rest of the case? I kind of want to see it in person. It looks very tasteful.

sva_ 7mo ago

> Powered by A18 Pro https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_A18 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_A18 So this is basically running on a phone CPU I got excited for a moment thinking it might have an M4 or M5 chip, that would've made it interesting to tinker around with Asahi Linux. But now it mostly just reminds me of a netbook. Its cool for people on a budget though, good to see Apple not just being this overpriced premium brand that it once was.

coder543 7mo ago
The A18 Pro performs about on par with an M4 in terms of single threaded performance, and a little better than M1 in terms of multi threaded performance. The MacBook Neo has one of the fastest processors on the market for single threaded tasks, which is what has the most impact on how "fast" a processor feels for day to day usage. Netbooks had processors that were glacially slow.
- sva_ 7mo ago
  I actually used a netbook when I was in school, it wasn't all that bad. People thinking I mentioned my (somewhat) disappointment about the CPU because it is also used in Phones, but actually what I meant is that I would be interested in doing some reverse engineering work to contribute to the Asahi Linux project for the M-chips if this was a cheap option to attain one. But I don't really see doing that for the A18, personally; even though I don't doubt its a good chip!
  - piperswe 7mo ago
    I suspect Asahi Linux would appreciate work to support A18 Macs as well!
  - dijit 7mo ago
    > I actually used a netbook when I was in school, it wasn't all that bad. The reputation problem was kind of baked in. Vista launched the same year netbooks did, and even though Vista was a disaster, "runs the latest Windows" is the smell test normal people use for whether something is a real computer. Netbooks didn't pass. The storage situation made Windows users miserable anyway. The SSD models had 4-8GiB of flash, and XP alone ate well over half before you'd done anything. So people bought the HDD variant instead, more space, sure, but spinning at 4,200rpm, which wasn't even the slow-but-acceptable 5,400 of a normal laptop drive. Then pile the standard bloatware on top of that. Bear in mind, people chose the HDD version because it ran Vista: the thing that made it a "real" computer. The SSD variant, the one that actually worked, got ignored for exactly that reason. Run Linux on the SSD variants though, and the thing was actually great.

nolist_policy 7mo ago

Do you know if the A series processor supports virtualization?

xmodem 7mo ago
The A-series has supported virtualization since long before the M-series existed. iOS disables it in early boot, though. On the other hand, how much virtualization are you really going to be doing with 8GB of RAM?
- nolist_policy 7mo ago
  A lot: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47249309 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47249309
dmitrygr 7mo ago
The hardware support was there for a while. Given that this runs macOS, i would guess (no insider knowledge) that it would work just fine and not be disabled like it is in iOS (by policy, not by technical reasons)

MYEUHD 7mo ago

You forgot an important difference: the macbook neo has the A18 Pro chip (2 performance cores + 4 efficiency cores) whereas the macbook air has the M5 chip (4 performance cores + 6 efficiency cores) Also the A18 Pro chip has a 5-core GPU whereas the M5 chip has 8 or 10. Personally, the only dealbreaker in the list you posted is the amount of RAM. macOS 15 uses ~5GB on startup without any app open. I'd be swapping all the time on 8GB of RAM.

post-it 7mo ago
> macOS 15 uses ~5GB on startup without any app open Sort of? Mac very aggressively caches things into RAM. It should be using all of your RAM on startup. That's why they've changed the Activity Monitor to say "memory pressure" instead of something like "memory usage." I'm typing this on an 8 GB MacBook Air and it works just fine. I've got ChatGPT, VSCode, XCode, Blender, and PrusaSlicer minimized and I'm not feeling any lag. If I open any of them it'll take half a second or so as they're loaded from swap, but when they're not in the foreground they're not using up any memory.
- MYEUHD 7mo ago
  In macOS 15 there are two metrics: "Memory used" and "Cached Files" I'm specifically talking about "Memory used" here. In fact, on my 16GB mac, if I open apps that use ~8GB of RAM (on top of the 5GB I mentioned earlier), it starts swapping.
  - KerrAvon 7mo ago
    How do you define "swapping?" Even on Intel Macs, the memory statistics don't map the way one might expect. Be careful when making assumptions about what those metrics actually mean.
    - MYEUHD 7mo ago
      I mean at that point (13 GB memory used), the "Swap used" is at several hundred megabytes. And if I more apps (or browser tabs), the "Swap used" keeps increasing, and the "memory pressure" graph switches color from green to yellow. The color of that graph is the indicator I'm using to know that I should close my browser tabs :p

theopsimist 7mo ago

And of course the screen: 13.0-inch vs 13.6 Weight is the same incidentally. I think the tradeoff would be worth it for a lot of people but many would be better off buying the apple refurbished 16GB M4 Air ($759 from apple right now)

theopsimist 7mo ago
I'll keep adding to the list: * Only one external display * No haptic trackpad
- turtlebits 7mo ago
  No force touch doesn't necessarily mean no haptics. I would assume Apple didn't go backwards to a physically clicking touchpad.
  - nguyenkien 7mo ago
    Bad news. It's physical trackpad. https://youtu.be/mBkYho_4CSg?t=226 https://youtu.be/mBkYho_4CSg?t=226
    - macintux 7mo ago
      I can't go back, now that I've discovered the joys of "tap to click". But I doubt most new Mac users would notice.
      - bzzzt 7mo ago
        A physical trackpad can also do 'tap to click'.
        macintux 7mo ago
        Really? Terrific.
      - drdo 7mo ago

internet2000 7mo ago

The only one of those choices I disagree with is no Touch ID in the base spec. Otherwise, good corners to cut to get to the cheap price point.

ezfe 7mo ago
Since it's just $100 to get 250 -> 500 GB and Touch ID, I think it's okay. It means people who need the cheapest computer can get it, and people who want to upgrade pay a small amount and get all the upgrades in a package without jumping up to the MacBook Air, etc. for much more.
theopsimist 7mo ago
I think different people will have one feature they feel should have been kept (other than the ram which is universal). For me not so much the Touch ID but the backlit keyboard.
bluedino 7mo ago
Agree on the Touch ID. Love that feature for passwords etc. Not terribly happy about the USB 2.0 port as well
pbreit 7mo ago
I would say "No keyboard backlighting" is a true show-stopper for a huge portion of the target audience (students).
- justinator 7mo ago
  Learned touch typing just fine on a non-backlit keyboard. What would you feel would be the issue?
  - pbreit 7mo ago
    Can't see the keys in a dark classroom or bedroom.
    - 7mo ago

spaceisballer 7mo ago

I want to see the person buying the Neo and pairing it with a new Studio Display.

freetime2 7mo ago
A potential example that comes to mind would be you have a Studio Display in your house that you use for remote work with a beefy MacBook Pro, and then maybe a family member has a MacBook Neo that they’d like to plug into a monitor occasionally.
- SchemaLoad 7mo ago
  Tbh if you have a studio display you are probably used to most things not working with it. I get that it's apple, but the lack of a HDMI or Displayport input on the monitor is insane.
  - testing22321 7mo ago
    Just like no floppy on the iMac was insane. When there is a better way, why would you spend money and effort supporting the old outdated way?
    - SchemaLoad 7mo ago
      It's easier to justify removing stuff when it's very bulky and expensive. But a single HDMI port on the back of a desktop monitor would take up relatively no expense and space. HDMI has a fairly long life left yet, so much that even Apple backtracked on removing it from the macbooks. Which is far less of a problem since you can get a usb c to hdmi adapter but the other way is significantly harder.
      - freetime2 7mo ago
        Additional ports would complicate the user experience. The Studio Display has no buttons on it, but if you added additional inputs, you would also need to add a button for input switching at least. And potentially other buttons for brightness and volume settings. It may not sound like a big deal, but I have an LG monitor that uses a remote for input switching and volume controls, and a BenQ monitor that uses buttons, and both provide a noticeably jankier experience. The Studio Display provides a very clean user experience when paired with a Mac. You plug it in, it turns on, and all other functions (volume, brightness, colors, camera, etc) are controlled via MacOS. Personally I'm happy for Apple to optimize for that experience, at the cost of not working with non-Apple devices.

spinningarrow 7mo ago

> No keyboard backlighting When was the last time Apple had a laptop without keyboard lighting?

CharlesW 7mo ago
2010. https://www.macrumors.com/2011/07/12/backlit-keyboard-to-return-in-new-macbook-air/ https://www.macrumors.com/2011/07/12/backlit-keyboard-to-ret...

Zenst 7mo ago

like Neo from the Martix, it has only one interface port of real use.

simondotau 7mo ago
Like Neo from the matrix, the other port is still useful for mice, printers, DACs, arduino projects, and little USB powered fans.
- muterad_murilax 7mo ago
  Man, that's just gross!
- gizajob 7mo ago
  Can’t believe anyone this is targeted at is going to plug in a mouse in 2026.
  - simondotau 7mo ago
    I’d wager that the great majority of Neos won’t ever be connected to anything on the regular (aside from a charger).

gopalv 7mo ago

> * No MagSafe For my kid who uses a Chromebook right now, Magsafe would've been improvement in how often the power cable pulls the it off the desk. But otherwise, this checks all the boxes, including applecare.

whiterook6 7mo ago
In case you didn't already know or haven't considered it, you can find right-angle usb-c MagSafe adaptors that basically allow the charging cable to disconnect from the device like MagSafe.
- genxy 7mo ago
  Most of these devices are a fire hazard. And in an environment where kids are needing magsafe, is probably the most dangerous for fire safety. *edit https://www.reddit.com/r/UsbCHardware/comments/motlhn/magnetic_usbc_cables_are_not_recommended/ https://www.reddit.com/r/UsbCHardware/comments/motlhn/magnet...
  - whiterock 7mo ago
    oh, probably not enough contact pressure. resistance is inversely proportional to contact pressure after all.
    - genxy 7mo ago
      I am now nerd sniped on the surface physics of connectors. Thanks!
  - realityfactchex 7mo ago
    So true. Regarding those magnetic USB connectors: not just a fire hazard but also a tendency to eventually burn out whatever is on the other end of them IME. Maybe ok for giving power if you are careful I think, I never had any fires, knock on wood. But it's a bummer to zap/kill the data-functionality of USB ports on nice stuff just because a non-spec connector was used in between the two things being connected, for convenience. So I don't trust them except for conveniently connecting power to low-cost devices. Whether Neo fits that... I doubt but YMMV.

deleted 7mo ago

[deleted]

pbreit 7mo ago

"No keyboard backlighting" is a show-stopper. Nuts.

kccqzy 7mo ago
It just looks slightly nicer. Touch typists don’t look at the keyboard anyways. And if you care enough about looks, you’ll want RGB lighting.
- asadotzler 7mo ago
  Plenty of people work in dark or dim places, like school classrooms, where backlighting is great and RGB lighting is useless. That you seem to think everyone shares your needs and goals makes you a far less effective participant in these kinds of discussions. Maybe think for a bit before asserting what people who care about backlighting need it for and don't.
  - ta8903 7mo ago
    Aren't classrooms usually well lit?
    - pbreit 7mo ago
      No. And multi-resident dorm rooms much less so.
- pbreit 7mo ago
  Very small percentage of students (the primary audience) are touch typists.
esskay 7mo ago
You're not the audience, obviously.
- pbreit 7mo ago
  It's a show-stopper for the main audience: students.

locusofself 7mo ago

It's pretty cool to see this machine come out. The Macbook Air is still my sweet spot though, I use a Thunderbolt audio interface, and need more RAM. Great for a student or casual user though for sure.

philip1209 7mo ago

I forgot about force touch as a feature until I read this comment.

tokyobreakfast 7mo ago

> No camera notch I'd consider this an upgrade. Does this mean we get screen real estate back from an abnormally-thick menu bar? The notch is one of the most bizarre 'innovations' to ever come out of Apple. Like designing a car you steer using your genitals to free up extra dash space then gaslighting everyone into thinking this is somehow better.

vvillena 7mo ago
The free rectangle area is a 16:10 screen, the space around the notch is a freebie.

tomcam 7mo ago

Fantastic post, thank you. Answered pretty much every question i had. This is why I love hacker news.

gehsty 7mo ago

Feels very negative! It costs 50% less than the air, in a time when everyone else’s prices are going up. The single core performance smokes a lot of high end intel chips.

cyode 7mo ago
I don't think that was the intent. If anything, 90%+ of these features here feel nice-to-have, and I bet OP agrees (or is neutrally sharing the comp).
- killingtime74 7mo ago
  Feels negative because the positive of the cheaper price (it's half the price) is magically not listed
  - KPGv2 7mo ago
    it reads like a 2026 version of CmdrTaco's famous iPod review, honestly

genxy 7mo ago

The Red Delicious of Macs.

KingMob 7mo ago
Except nobody wants Red Delicious.

znpy 7mo ago

> * “Just” 16 hours of battery life, compared to the 18 hours quoted for the 13-inch MacBook Air for pretty much half the price, though. i mean, it's still early to judge (there is no review yet) but if it performs decently it's a death sentence for all the trashy 600$ laptop. as somebody that has used both windows (at work), mac os (at work) and linux (at work and at home) the macbook neo could be an absolute steal of a laptop. > * The Apple on the lid isn’t shiny oh yeah, first world problems /s

nine_k 7mo ago

— ...We believe that the customers will like it despite all that. We plan to market it as MacBook Nerfed. — But you can't use "Nerfed", we'll run into a trademark dispute. — Ah, well, you're right! Hey Claude, what generic lofty-sounding words start with "Ne"?

killingtime74 7mo ago

Why didn't you list the number 1 difference, the price.

MoonWalk 7mo ago

"1080p webcam doesn’t support Center Stage" That's a huge PLUS. This asinine "feature" ruins our family Zoom calls EVERY WEEK. There doesn't appear to be a system-wide way to disable this junk on iOS. Because Windows sucks so monumentally, my parents insist on trying to do everything on their phones and tablets. I'm thinking the Neo is perfect for them, and hearing that it'll solve this infuriating problem just makes it more appealing. A USB 2 port is embarrassing for a computer at any price in 2026. But at least you can apparently use that one for powering the computer, leaving the good one free for other uses.

dbg31415 7mo ago

> The Apple on the lid isn’t shiny This made me laugh. Thanks for the breakdown! (=

aimanbenbaha 7mo ago

The biggest drawback is no Thunderbolt. The biggest sell for Macs right now is the ability to daisy chain them with the new RDMA update. A used M1 Mac Mini is more valuable than this.

LordDragonfang 7mo ago
That's an extremely niche use case and not even a remotely selling point for probably 99% of buyers, much less the "biggest" one.
dbbk 7mo ago
I'm losing my mind. This is a BUDGET, entry-level laptop, and you're complaining about the lack of Thunderbolt daisy chaining?!
- stavros 7mo ago
  Listen I bought six Retina displays, I don't also have money for a new Mac. Of course I'm going to complain about the lack of Thunderbolt daisy chaining after my frivolous expenses come home to roost.
esskay 7mo ago
You get what a budget product is right?
wildzzz 7mo ago
The Neo is basically the mac flavor of an iPad meant for schoolchildren. It's a Chromebook competitor, not meant for whatever kooky AI shit you're doing at home.

reddalo 7mo ago

>No camera notch Well, I see this as a very positive thing.

ta8903 7mo ago
Yeah, it's funny how it's better than the other MacBooks in a way.
OrangeMusic 7mo ago
Instead, the screen has big bezel.

p1necone 7mo ago

Being limited to 8gb of ram is genuinely the only thing on that list I care about (no backlight and no fast charging are teetering on the edge of me caring, but they aren't worth multiple hundreds of dollars) - Apple silicone is so fast now that (at least for my purposes) the performance segmentation between price points is basically meaningless.

kulahan 7mo ago
A keyboard backlight is such a cheap and useful addition to a keyboard, it feels insulting not to get it. I cannot believe this is one of the ways they decided to cheap out. I wouldn’t even care about the 8GB of ram if I could just add some myself.
- dsl 7mo ago
  > A keyboard backlight is such a cheap and useful addition to a keyboard Useless LEDs that burn battery budget. The thing everyone seems to be missing is this isn't a laptop for you or me. It is to compete with Chromebooks in the educational market, and to have a SKU to sell in developing countries.
  - kulahan 7mo ago
    Thank goodness they removed this fantastic thing everyone wants to give you an extra fourteen seconds of use time per battery charge. Come on man. As for the importance of it, if you want to give these to kids, you should have something more rugged, more replaceable, and more built for all kinds of environments (including kids who don’t have a conveniently well-lit place to focus on schoolwork at home). A large school could have thousands upon thousands of broken Chromebooks waiting to be shipped off - literally multiple pallets. I’ve seen it more than once. Absolutely nobody is begging for an unrepairable, unexpandable, more-expensive version of what they all already have. It’s garbage for school, dead out of the gate.
    - KingMob 7mo ago
      14 seconds? Lights are expensive when to comes to batteries.

atlgator 7mo ago

It's an A18 Pro cpu with a 60Hz retina display. So it's basically a iPhone 16 Pro with a larger display and physical keyboard.

utopcell 7mo ago
and there's nothing wrong with that.
- murukesh_s 7mo ago
  wish they enable the actual iphone 16 with a full-fledged OS that we can plug into an external monitor.. I think samsung tried it but didn't get mass appeal. Apple could do that IMO - would have even avoided launching neo as students own a device in the form of phone or tab anyway..
astrange 7mo ago
And a different SSD and different charging and different heatsinks…

giobox 7mo ago

My only real issue with this design is as far as I can tell there is no markings on exterior explaining which USB-C port is "the good one" - an important point given one port is dramatically slower than the other. I suspect many users will probably accidentally plug stuff like external SSDs into the slow port without realizing. It's maybe too much to hope for at this price point, but would have been nice for a machine with only two ports to be able to offer the same spec USB on both ports. My instinct would be to use the socket towards the rear of the machine as my charging port - it's closest to the corner - but in doing so you use up the "good" USB-3 port leaving you with only USB2. It's not a huge deal, but charging in the other port to free up the USB3 one feels slightly weird to me. I suspect most users will charge off the USB3 port given its location. Reading the spec sheet, it also looks like DisplayPort is only supported over the USB3 port too - again there appears no way to know just by looking at the ports. This has never been a problem on any of the Apple Silicon 2-port MacBook Airs, as those have always had the same specs on both ports and could drive a display over DisplayPort from either.

realityfactchex 7mo ago
> ...instinct would be to use the socket towards the rear of the machine as my charging port...it's closest to the corner...charging in the other port...feels slightly weird...I suspect most users will... Ah, but, as I recall some vintage of 2016-2018 Macbook Pro users will remember that using the "backmost, corner" USB-C port for charging could cause the MBP to overheat and fans to sound like a helicopter. Thus, the (admittedly probably vanishingly tiny minority of) MBP veterans with "back charging USB port PTSD" who learned to use the foremost USB port for charging, will know full well to stay away from using that backmost USB port, if all they need is power!
Foivos 7mo ago
My guess is that if you plug a fast medium on the slow USB port the OS will give you a pop up letting you know. I have seen something similar in windows 11.
- macintux 7mo ago
  That's true for displays, at least. I don't know about external storage. https://daringfireball.net/2026/03/599_not_a_piece_of_junk_macbook_neo https://daringfireball.net/2026/03/599_not_a_piece_of_junk_m...

kyleee 7mo ago

Center stage is dumb anyway

dhosek 7mo ago

No one has commented on the charger this thing comes with: It’s 20W! The sort of thing you’d plug a phone or iPad into, which seems crazy. I kind of wonder whether you could charge it with the built-in USB ports that are in newer wall sockets.

avianlyric 7mo ago
It basically is an iPhone or iPad, but with a keyboard. It’s really only the display that’s gonna consume significantly more power than its iPhone/iPad equivalent.
- dhosek 7mo ago
  Yeah, I was thinking about that, and it occurred to me that even the display is probably pretty efficient since it’s not that much bigger than, say, a large iPad pro. It’s just wild to me how little power this thing uses.
  - avianlyric 7mo ago
    The large iPad Pros have the advantage of using OLED displays rather than an LCD. Give the iPad screen an automatic power advantage because all of the light generated by the screen is emitted at the user, unlike an LCD where a substantial chunk of the LCD backlight is absorbed by the LCD layer.
morpheuskafka 7mo ago
At that point, why even include the charger? That would massively cut shipping weight like it did for the phone, and everyone already has a phone charger. I guess maybe they were worried some people would use a ultra cheap charger that can't even handle 20W reliably, but every OEM Android charger should have been fine with that for years, right?
- qkc3p3Jbf4 7mo ago
  I think this is part of why they don’t include chargers in the EU version of the Neo. If you have a charger from basically any time in the last ten years you’ll be fine with that.

deleted 7mo ago

[deleted]

ValentineC 7mo ago

> One of the two USB-C ports is limited to USB 2.0 speeds of just 480 Mb/s This is one of the things I never really expected Apple to do, since they've somehow managed to avoid the confusing black/blue colouring of USB-A ports, giving every laptop they've ever produced since 2012 USB 3.0 ports. Seems like they're buying into hardware enshittification too (macOS and iOS 26 being software monstrosities with liquid glAss).

Panzer04 7mo ago
Confusing? Seems pretty straightforward, more so than the USB-C system of no indication at all. If you're lucky, you'll get a label.

giobox 7mo ago

> No Thunderbolt support means the Neo cannot drive either of Apple’s new Studio Displays Apple appear to have reached out to 9to5Mac and confirmed it sort of works with the new displays... You can connect the new displays, but it can only drive them at 4k/60, which is not going to look all that nice scaled up on a native 5k monitor. No mention of whether the monitors other features like the webcam and ports work when connected to the Neo though. https://9to5mac.com/2026/03/04/psa-macbook-neo-intel-macs-might-not-work-with-new-studio-displays/ https://9to5mac.com/2026/03/04/psa-macbook-neo-intel-macs-mi...

odysseus 7mo ago
What about the old Studio Display?
- giobox 7mo ago
  Honestly I stopped caring once I saw the max output is 4k/60 regardless of what you connect - the output is going to look bad with scaling on anything with 5k or 6k resolution, which is all of the recent standalone displays from Apple. It's certainly not going to be an experience worth the price tag of the displays.

nsonha 7mo ago

"One of the two USB-C ports is limited to USB 2.0 speeds of just 480 Mb/s" Why? Did they stock-piled USB 2.0 controllers and now need to get it off their inventory or something?

esskay 7mo ago
Costs. gotta remember this thing is based on iPhone hardware...which doesnt have more than 1 usb port normally.
deleted 7mo ago
[deleted]
rzhikharevich 7mo ago
More like stockpiled a phone SoC with limited I/O

dana321 7mo ago

You can use 16Gb of ram on an 8Gb machine, anything more than that it will start creaking and have out of memory errors on applications.

numpad0 7mo ago
fyi: "Gb" implies gigabit, used in network and RAM where 8 bits = 1 byte is not guaranteed. "GB" implies gigabyte.

waynesonfire 7mo ago

Looks like a bunch of great trade-offs to give value to customers in this economy.

SomeHacker44 7mo ago

I would not buy an Apple laptop regardless, but they at least addressed one of my major complaints: No camera notch Praise the...market?!

ryeguy_24 7mo ago

Has anyone tried to use a laptop at night? It’s pretty hard without lit keys. Maybe this one has some super reflective letters so that the screen lights them up.

cmovq 7mo ago
Just turn on a light?
lifis 7mo ago
Skilled computer usage includes learning to type without looking at the keyboard
estomagordo 7mo ago
I have light fixtures at home.

coldtea 7mo ago

So no real issue at all for the target group

franciscop 7mo ago

* Max storage is 512GB instead of 4TB. I currently have 1TB and I'm pretty happy with it, but I've had 256GB and 512GB in the past and I was not happy with those. This might be the only reason I would not consider this laptop.

ibic 7mo ago

The last point made me chuckle, good catch :D

hartator 7mo ago

> No camera notch This is a positive though. > The Apple on the lid isn’t shiny The light has stopped shining at Apple for a bit now

vulcan01 7mo ago
I think parent means reflective. In the videos it looks like just a slightly different color. On the other MacBooks it is polished metal.

risfriend 7mo ago

No keyboard backlighting is itself a dealbreaker for me.

raffraffraff 7mo ago

Is Force Touch the thing that makes Macbook trackpad better than basically every other laptop trackpad? Because if so, that is actually "the" deal breaker.

bzzzt 7mo ago
They were great long before Force touch.

michelb 7mo ago

I'm interested in seeing how these changes affect the supply chain of components. I would figure it would be cheaper to just use the existing components with all features, instead of making a different one with 1 or 2 parts less. Maybe this is just how good manufacturers are now?

KronisLV 7mo ago

My current note taking machine is an M1 MacBook Air. If something happened to it, honestly, this seems like a really meaningful alternative - like for real work I'd still prefer a ThinkPad, but for being on the move and for having something to throw in my bad, the Neo would be great! I used to have a Techbite Zin notebook that tbh had a really, really nice keyboard, but it was anemic when it came to literally anything else - and the 4 GB of RAM made even lightweight Linux distros struggle.

davidkwast 7mo ago

Still better than my Lenovo

ilovechaz 7mo ago

Can’t expand it at all. Not for me.

KPGv2 7mo ago

also, less space than a Nomad. Lame.