7 ms·

When the cheap one is the cool one

172 points by ddrmaxgt37 5mo ago

prngl 5mo ago
Resonates. Reminds me of old Thinkpads. Cheap sometimes means accessible, simple, minimal, functional.
- userbinator 5mo ago
  Thinkpads were definitely never cheap.
  - protocolture 5mo ago
    Eh cheaper than now for sure. I got my old G1 X1 Carbon for somewhere between 900 and 1100 from memory. Theres a fair discount in there mind, but its not a discount I could possibly hope to replicate these days. (I think that was 1600 dollars partner pricing - charity discount - volume discount (hopped on an order for 12 already identical already going through) - tax incentives) The cheapest Gen 13 Carbon currently available is ~ 2600 in the same currency, and that's already discounted by 9%, and has a shittier OS (Ships with Home edition instead of Pro), I doubt that would get below 2200 even with partner/channel pricing. If you add "Winflation" that is, Windows 7/8 running perfectly smoothly on the Gen 1 with 8 Gig of memory, the replacement thinkpad being one that runs Windows 11 comfortably would be the $3150 in the same money, for its 32GB memory. Again doubtful it would go below 2700 or so even with channel. Macbook NEO is funnily enough 900 bucks landed for me, with 8 gig of memory. I am betting the user experience of the thing is as good or if not better than my old carbon.
    - userbinator 5mo ago
      What? They cost a LOT more back then: https://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=125036 https://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=125036 26 years ago, a Thinkpad 600X cost $4100, which is the equivalent of around $8k today.
      - protocolture 5mo ago
        Assuming you read my comment, understood exactly what I was outlining, insofar as "26 years ago" is completely irrelevant and you chose to add that nonsequitur, I have located the thinkpad carbon USD launch price and its within cooee of my recollection. https://www.engadget.com/2013-01-02-lenovo-thinkpad-x1-carbon-touch-review.html https://www.engadget.com/2013-01-02-lenovo-thinkpad-x1-carbo... 1600 dollars advertised rate via review channels. And I have confirmed that I wouldnt have been paying much more at all due to currency conversions. AUD/USD 5 cents off parity. https://www.exchangerates.org.uk/USD-AUD-spot-exchange-rates-history-2013.html https://www.exchangerates.org.uk/USD-AUD-spot-exchange-rates... So its still the case that getting a G13 will cost 2-3 times the cost depending on metric for my G1. But even looking at the data you quoted, the end of the IBM period shows lots of cheap thinkpads. Look at the R40 prices in your own source. Heck look at these: 765D $6,500 (street! pcmag.com early 97) street $1,999 PC Mag 1 Sep 1998 (-60%) XGA 13.3 first model beyond 12.1" 765L $5459.16 - $6,779.05 street 11/4/97 pcmag.com (765D without cd/modem) street $1,899 PC Mag 1 Sep 1998 (-60%) XGA 13.3 4500 dollar haircut in 12 months? Thinkpad 500 500 $1,699 IBM PC Direct (PC Mag 31 May 1994), $999 08/24/94 Sub 1000 dollars in 94?
    - ge96 5mo ago
      Carbon X1 was so hot when it was new, can your laptop do this? (folds flat like a gamer chair). I only was able to afford em 10 years later. I have a gen 6 carbon x1 now 4k screen got it for $200. The batteries are what's not great with old laptops, hard to get replacement batteries that aren't fake. I like having a Linux laptop handy eg. with gparted
  - prngl 5mo ago
    Should have specified old used thinkpads. I’ve never bought one new. My daily driver is 10+yo, bought for $200 and upgraded mem, battery, and ssd with another $100.
  - torginus 5mo ago
    I just had a company Thinkpad break because its fan started rattiling. It was just out of warranty, like 3.5 years old. Within a span of a year, out of my dozen coworkers who have the exact same laptop, half of them went down with similar issues.
    - deleted 5mo ago
      [deleted]
  - burnt-resistor 5mo ago
    Yup. My T480 was ~$2500 new on-sale. It has 2 batteries with one removable one, and upgradeable RAM.. features not found on the T490 or T480s. I subsequently swapped the logic board from the iGPU to the dGPU + max performance CPU model, swapped the top cover for a magnesium one, HDD->SSD, and installed a better WiFi module. Also had to replace the screen once because I suck and broke it.
readthenotes1 5mo ago
"Back then, Porsche was not in the fantastic position it is in today. Its model lineup was aging. " Kinda hard to take this article seriously... https://newsroom.porsche.com/en/2026/company/porsche-deliveries-2025-41516.html https://newsroom.porsche.com/en/2026/company/porsche-deliver...
- TacticalCoder 5mo ago
  No it's correct. When the 968 came out it was the absolutely worst years ever for Porsche: they were nearly completely bankrupt and Porsche ceasing to exist was actually on the table. They were selling as little as 15 000 cars in a full year in 1992 or something like that (compared to nearly 60 K, nearly 4x as much, in 1986). Compared that to nearly 300 000 today and an insane lineup. Sure, the EU pretty much killed its auto car industry, offering the markets to Tesla and Chinese EVs (and there are talks of chinese buying Porsche), but Porsche has a crazy lineup compared to what it used to have: 911, Cayman, Boxster, Panamera, Taycan (the 100% EV), Macan and Cayenne and soooo many different sub-models of those (GT4, GTS, Turbo (S), Targa, GT3 (RS), GT2 (RS), S/T, S/C ...). They just even announced a 911 GT3 S/C // convertible (heresy for some but I love it). For any Porsche enthusiast, we're pretty much living the golden age of Porsche where you can still buy a normally aspirated, stick shift, driver's car. In 2026: thank you so much Porsche for being sufficiently crazy to still do that in 2026, in an era where people are paying subscription to receive OTA updates for their EVs. And any Porsche enthusiast knows that the early 1990s were nearly the death of Porsche. It was a close call. BTW to anyone saying the modern Porsche aren't "real" Porsche cars, I send them love from my 911 Carrera from 1988. You can both love old and new Porsche cars.
  - parpfish 5mo ago
    Were they worse off in the 90s than they were in the late 70s? Because I’ve heard that the entry model 924 saved them from the brink in that decade. Funny that each end of the transaxle lineage were saviors
  - ddmitriev 5mo ago
    > where you can still buy a normally aspirated, stick shift, driver's car The problem is that you can't buy them. All of these "interesting" 911s are limited production in practice even when not limited editions per se and are sold to most favorite clients only, a good chunk of whom then immediately flip them with delivery mileage---i.e. playing Ferrari games without the Ferrari name. I respect and like Porsche the car manufacturer, and I have put a lot of track miles on my 991.2 GT3 RS across the US, but I despise what their sales model has become. /rant
serf 5mo ago
in my car circles the 968 was seen as a total pos that was really just sort of trying to compete with the RX-7 and Fairlady, do a worse job at being a good sports car than them, and push the brand into further cheapened territory towards the every-person for the sake of financial incentive while inflating the cost of their premium offering, the 911. 1:1 example, but i'm not sure those were the points being made here.
- majormajor 5mo ago
  The 968 is such a weird choice for this when the Boxster exists, did basically everything better, was a major commercial success, and has spawned a line of cars that many argue are better than the 911 except for the name and traditionalist-fandom over exact engine position that prevents Porsche from giving them all the biggest engines and fanciest tech. But the Boxster didn't try to replace the 911 on day one. Or even go after the other 300ZX/Supra/whatever 2+2s on day one. It was instead nearly a whole-cloth "what if pure 2-seater convertible driver's car, but the best possible version" upscale-Miata initially, which wasn't an existing segment at all, and being roadster-first was a key separator from the also-2-seater Corvette. (The iPhone or iPad were arguable Apple's Boxster "entry-level that ends up dominating sales and growing into full blown new product lines" anyway, except that the comparison eventually falls down because the form factor difference with the Mac is much more of a fundamental separation. So maybe Apple's Boxster is instead the laptop in the first place, which wiped out most of their desktop workstation business by the early-2010s at latest.)
  - 71bw 5mo ago
    I presume the 968 was chosen because it all seems like the Neo is only the first hurrah into this whole entry-level field for Apple.
- keyle 5mo ago
  Yeah this is looking at the 968 with rose tinted glasses. But a lot of the comparison does check out and the Neo is a fine on-ramp for first time macOS users just like the 968.
- 5mo ago
havaloc 5mo ago
I bought a Neo to "replace" an M3 MacBook Air "travel/out of the house/outside" laptop. Are there drawbacks? Most certainly, but it feels like something special, and I enjoy the slightly smaller form factor. The main drawback is perhaps the most surprising, the screen, which is really good at 500 nits, draws a disproportionate amount of energy compared to the rest of the system, so you get about 3.5 hours in bright sunlight / maximum brightness. As the only IT person in an 80 person unit, I can say the Neo trounces Dell Latitudes in a lot of ways, those have awful 250 nit screens out of the box, and they are nearly $1,200!
chillfox 5mo ago
I am so tired of everything electronic only coming in black and maybe gray. I like colors! So it's nice to see apple finally bringing a bit of color back.
- TomWhitwell 5mo ago
  https://www.alexandercowan.com/yellow-walkman-data-art-of-customer-discovery/ https://www.alexandercowan.com/yellow-walkman-data-art-of-cu...
  - chillfox 5mo ago
    ok, so focus groups suck... I have actually picked the colored version almost every time I have bought electronics. I have got red and blue usb drives. I have got a purple phone. I have a blue mouse, the previous one was pink, and my keyboard is green.
- socalgal2 5mo ago
  I'm fine with a case. I can change the color to match my outfit https://www.amazon.com/Se7enline-Compatible-MacBook-Protective-Keyboard/dp/B09WTM27CX/ https://www.amazon.com/Se7enline-Compatible-MacBook-Protecti...
Gigachad 5mo ago
Apple has been doing this for ages. The base tier one always gets the fun colors while the pro models get silver, grey, and maybe some muted blue. Not sure why they make the cheaper models cooler than the top tier ones. Maybe it's just too expensive to stock multiple colors of every product. The Neo has minimal customization options for specs so making it colorful is cheaper.
- brailsafe 5mo ago
  I'm definitely getting sick of the dull colours in the higher end laptops. Give me a yellow, give me a red, forest green, whatever, anything but silver and darker silver
  - margalabargala 5mo ago
    $10 in enamel paints and a free half hour and you can have as cool looking of a laptop as you like!
    - ChrisMarshallNY 5mo ago
      You can fairly easily get skins that will customize your laptop. I’ve done that, in the past. Seems the thing most people are into, these says, is “bumper stickers” on their laptop lids. I suspect neutral colors work best for that. I’ve found that I tend to replace my primary development machine every 3 years or so. Since retiring, I don’t travel much, so I got an M4Pro Mini. Works great, and I still have my M1Max MacBook Pro (my previous development machine), for when I want to hit the road.
      - squeedles 5mo ago
        I large part, the sticker trend is so that people can distinguish one gray rounded slab from another. It is the reaction, not the cause.
        ChrisMarshallNY 5mo ago
halapro 5mo ago
[flagged]
- hamandcheese 5mo ago
  And in 2026 it starts at $599.
- jshier 5mo ago
  Ridiculous. First Mac mini was a 1.25GHz G4 with 256MB RAM in 2005 for $499. There have many models since there, ranging from $499 to $799 for the base model. 2018 was indeed the highest at $799, but that was mainly Intel's fault, and Apple's poor refresh timing. Current M4 mini starts at $599, which is over $1000 in 2005 dollars, so the value has largely increased through the model's entire history, especially once we hit the Apple Silicon era.
  - halapro 5mo ago
    > starts at $599, which is over $1000 in 2005 dollars That's not how money works > Ridiculous You can say all you want and you'll come back to this comment in 2028 when the price is set at +100 or +150.
  - halapro 5mo ago
    The Mac Mini starts at $800 now. How many false information will you include in your comments? https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/mac-mini https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/mac-mini
  - halapro 5mo ago
    [flagged]
- ayush--s 5mo ago
  it's 2026, apple's computers do justify their price.
- protocolture 5mo ago
  I dont know hey. I think they want a bigger bite of the wintel market before they raise the drawbridge. This device seems perfectly crafted to grab every non gamer, who needs a daily driver but doesnt want bloated Win11 AI nonsense. These days the Apple ecosystem is basically at parity for Microsoft cloud services, so its even good for WFH/BYOD. I dont think its getting cheaper but I bet the entry model will double its memory allocation without shifting too far north in price.
ehnto 5mo ago
It's a shame most companies don't do weird and interesting variants anymore. I suppose it's hard to do when you need mass market appeal. Especially in regards to cars, often getting a bargain is about finding the cars with faults you personally don't care about but most people do, or versions not many are interested in. Unfortunately the way speculators have inflated the used market means the rare (because no-one wanted it) versions are priced on their rarity not their utility.
deleted 5mo ago
[deleted]
paulmooreparks 5mo ago
I'm thinking about buying a Neo for two reasons: my laptop is only ever used to RDP into my home Windows workstation, which is where I do all my serious work; and because I need to have a Mac to test some software I'm writing (Tela, find it on my GitHub) that has to be multi-platform. The battery life is also a plus for remote work, but that's about it. I don't want to spend four digits where three will do.
kleiba2 5mo ago
> Cut back to Porsche in 1992, and you’ll see a similar story playing out in a very different industry. Back then, Porsche was not in the fantastic position it is in today. Its model lineup was aging. Perhaps picking Porsche for this analogy wasn't necessarily the best choice: https://investorrelations.porsche.com/en/financial-information/financial-performance https://investorrelations.porsche.com/en/financial-informati... So much for "fantastic position it is in today"...
- la_oveja 5mo ago
  i might be mistaken but you are looking at Porsche AG; the actual car company was made into a holding in 2007 and now called Porsche SE, then founded Porsche AG to make the cars. Porsche AG is part of the Volkswagen Group that is owned by Porsche SE. either way car manufacture is not a big profit game
gradstudent 5mo ago
Weighing up a Neo vs Framework 12 for my kids. The Neo is nicer, but I'll probably get the Framework even though it's more expensive. Apple products seem to have a fixed shelf life; a certain number of years of support and then the machine is slowly incompatible with apps that have since moved on to newer versions of macOS. Meanwhile Framework supports Linux and is still providing hardware/software upgrade paths for their old machines.
- mjamesaustin 5mo ago
  Just my personal perspective, every Apple laptop I've ever owned has lasted 10+ years. Their phones may have some planned obsolescence, but I don't find that to be the case at all with their computers.
  - fainpul 5mo ago
    My personal perspective: 2 out of 3 MacBook Pro, I worked with, had expanding batteries after about 5 years. Replacement was a big hassle and the new no-name batteries are nowhere near as good as the original ones. I sure wish it was as easy as a battery replacement on a Framework laptop (with an original part). I know the Neo has easier battery replacement (not glued in), but still it has an iFixit rating of 6/10 whereas the Framework 12 has a 10/10.
  - gradstudent 5mo ago
    I think this is less true than it used to be? I ran my MBP2013 into the ground after 10+ years, but my circa 2018 imac retina is stuck on pre-Catalina, installing which requires opencore patcher anyway. Hardware is fine, but it's increasingly less useful as a daily driver on account of software.
    - philistine 5mo ago
      You're absolutely right; the Apple Silicon transition really lowered the years of support of their later Intel machines. The same thing happened with the G5 machines, and the last Motorola 68000 Macintoshes in the early 90s. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/07/some-macs-are-getting-fewer-updates-than-they-used-to-heres-why-its-a-problem/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/07/some-macs-are-gettin...
KaiserPro 5mo ago
The thing that keeps me questioning is the "its using binned parts" dialogue. I'm sure _some_ parts might be discards from the iphone 16, but the volume they had at launch to me suggests that not the story. I've read somewhere that they made/budgeted for 5 million laptops shipped this quarter/half. but if they are made from binned CPUs, that suggests at least 4-7% yeild loss for the original iphone CPU. Bear in mind thats this 4-7% loss only counts dies that have just one broken CPU unit. There are many other failure modes as well. That just seems very very high. I've also not really seen any official channels that support this assertion, even apple insider seems sceptical that this is true: https://appleinsider.com/articles/26/04/07/incredible-macbook-neo-demand-may-finish-off-apples-a18-pro-stock https://appleinsider.com/articles/26/04/07/incredible-macboo... With my logic hat on, Apple contracts chip manufacturing, so I would have assumed that rejects and failed parts would be recycled at source. I would imagine that apple only pay for parts that pass QC. So I suspect that actually these chips are either leftovers (at best) or specifically manufactured using the old tooling.
- DanielHB 5mo ago
  > Bear in mind thats this 4-7% loss only counts dies that have just one broken CPU unit. There are many other failure modes as well. That just seems very very high. Is it? I thought the average for lastest-architecture chips was around 5%.
  - KaiserPro 5mo ago
    Sorry I was unclear about what "very high" meant. From what I can see, one can expect about 80-90% yield per wafer, the bit that that doesn't make sense is that the "binned" narrative implies that of those broken parts of the wafer, 25-50% are usable with just one GPU disabled. To me that sounds wrong, and far too high.
    - DanielHB 5mo ago
      I would expect 80% of the failures would have only one core not pass QA. I remember back in the day it wasn't that unusual for intel to sell quad core CPUs and dual core CPUs that exactly the same hardware-wise, but the dual-core ones didn't pass the QA to be sold as a quad-core. In fact they sold many functional quad-core CPUs as dual-cores with 2 cores disabled and you could unlock the extra cores with some magic if you got lucky and got one that passed the quad-core QA.
voidUpdate 5mo ago
I'm surprised "mobile phone specs with laptop form factor" isn't a larger product base. Modern smartphones seem capable enough to run a lot of "normal" software, obviously not super heavy ones like after effects or something, but for lighter tasks (web browsing etc), it seems like a good market
- sandos 5mo ago
  Isnt chromebooks to a large extent just this?
  - voidUpdate 5mo ago
    Wikipedia suggests chromebooks generally use normal x86 hardware, they just run chromeOS
    - martheen 5mo ago
      Most of the major vendors are already assembling x86 laptops for the far larger Windows market, it's cheaper to just reuse those models for ChromeOS instead of designing a special ARM design, which in turn due to lack of scale are priced similarly to their x86 counterpart. Price sensitive customers thus don't see that much saving. Battery life is nice, but I doubt there's that much market yearning for a cheap laptop with long battery life. People who really need large screen for long work without wall power either go at x64 (which can reach 12 hours on mid range now), or change their workflow to use Android tablet. The ubiquity of USB charging port that can power the laptop (or at least top it up while standing by on lunch) also means even if an x86 laptop may not last an entire day, the owner don't have to suffer the inconvenience of carrying around the power brick.
      - voidUpdate 5mo ago
        I'm shocked there isn't a market yearning for a cheap laptop with long battery life. That is like the two things I'd like most from a laptop
dude250711 5mo ago
They had defective chips to get rid of.
gib444 5mo ago
Excellent move by Apple to distract people from the declining software with shiny colours and low price.
timpera 5mo ago
While I am back to my Surface Laptop 7 after a few weeks with the Neo because the latter wasn't good enough for my usage, I agree it's the coolest Mac right now, the colors are great! I don't really understand why Apple keeps its "more serious" devices mostly color-less, it's a shame.
- DANmode 5mo ago
  > the latter wasn't good enough for my usage Please say more. Specs?
  - timpera 5mo ago
    Yes, the battery life was way worse than the Surface, I missed the 120 hz screen more than I thought I would, and the 1 external monitor limit was too annoying. It's still a great device for the price.
    - DANmode 5mo ago
      Thanks for your concise + helpful reply!
amadeuspagel 5mo ago
When I think of companies that make cheapness cool I think of IKEA, Primark, Ryanair and Fiat, not Apple and Porsche. The Macbook Neo and the Porsche 968 are cheap only compared to other products by the same brand and they are designed not to cannibalize those other products.
- goobatrooba 5mo ago
  Not sure how a company like Primark that is known for using slave labour is "cool" or who would see it that way. Everyone I've ever heard talk about Primark went there solely for the price. Zara might be a better example (though not much better in practices).
binarysolo 5mo ago
I see a buncha folks complaining about how the high end macbook laptops don't have color -- for what it's worth there's plenty of fun colors to be had from buying case covers and skins, but yeah they add bulk or interfere with heat dissipation... (Have a MBP with fun case covers that I take off when I do a work presentation.)
rldjbpin 5mo ago
quite interesting comparison and well designed. but while we are speaking about a decent device, sometimes it feels like we are giving its maker too much credit. tim's apple has been about the supply chain, with many past "parts bin" offerings, some arguably more appropriate than the neo. for instance, the "se" edition devices. while for the neo, they had to create a new chasis and trackpad from scratch, the se phones were literally a mash up of the older parts. to me, they had several other approaches to hit the price point unlike the carmaker, also with lower capex required. while they show some courage with the liquid glass and the change in ux, combined with the same core architecture powering all their devices, just empowering the ipad would have been good enough. in car terms, they have showed a capable sports car internals inside a tricycle and pat themselves in the back. for me, neo resembles more like a mass-market brand overbuilding the car chassis while using an old powertrain from a capable platform. the same brand use the same capable vtec engine across hatchbacks, sedans and a crossover.

172 points by ddrmaxgt37 5mo ago

prngl 5mo ago

Resonates. Reminds me of old Thinkpads. Cheap sometimes means accessible, simple, minimal, functional.

userbinator 5mo ago
Thinkpads were definitely never cheap.
- protocolture 5mo ago
  Eh cheaper than now for sure. I got my old G1 X1 Carbon for somewhere between 900 and 1100 from memory. Theres a fair discount in there mind, but its not a discount I could possibly hope to replicate these days. (I think that was 1600 dollars partner pricing - charity discount - volume discount (hopped on an order for 12 already identical already going through) - tax incentives) The cheapest Gen 13 Carbon currently available is ~ 2600 in the same currency, and that's already discounted by 9%, and has a shittier OS (Ships with Home edition instead of Pro), I doubt that would get below 2200 even with partner/channel pricing. If you add "Winflation" that is, Windows 7/8 running perfectly smoothly on the Gen 1 with 8 Gig of memory, the replacement thinkpad being one that runs Windows 11 comfortably would be the $3150 in the same money, for its 32GB memory. Again doubtful it would go below 2700 or so even with channel. Macbook NEO is funnily enough 900 bucks landed for me, with 8 gig of memory. I am betting the user experience of the thing is as good or if not better than my old carbon.
  - userbinator 5mo ago
    What? They cost a LOT more back then: https://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=125036 https://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=125036 26 years ago, a Thinkpad 600X cost $4100, which is the equivalent of around $8k today.
    - protocolture 5mo ago
      Assuming you read my comment, understood exactly what I was outlining, insofar as "26 years ago" is completely irrelevant and you chose to add that nonsequitur, I have located the thinkpad carbon USD launch price and its within cooee of my recollection. https://www.engadget.com/2013-01-02-lenovo-thinkpad-x1-carbon-touch-review.html https://www.engadget.com/2013-01-02-lenovo-thinkpad-x1-carbo... 1600 dollars advertised rate via review channels. And I have confirmed that I wouldnt have been paying much more at all due to currency conversions. AUD/USD 5 cents off parity. https://www.exchangerates.org.uk/USD-AUD-spot-exchange-rates-history-2013.html https://www.exchangerates.org.uk/USD-AUD-spot-exchange-rates... So its still the case that getting a G13 will cost 2-3 times the cost depending on metric for my G1. But even looking at the data you quoted, the end of the IBM period shows lots of cheap thinkpads. Look at the R40 prices in your own source. Heck look at these: 765D $6,500 (street! pcmag.com early 97) street $1,999 PC Mag 1 Sep 1998 (-60%) XGA 13.3 first model beyond 12.1" 765L $5459.16 - $6,779.05 street 11/4/97 pcmag.com (765D without cd/modem) street $1,899 PC Mag 1 Sep 1998 (-60%) XGA 13.3 4500 dollar haircut in 12 months? Thinkpad 500 500 $1,699 IBM PC Direct (PC Mag 31 May 1994), $999 08/24/94 Sub 1000 dollars in 94?
  - ge96 5mo ago
    Carbon X1 was so hot when it was new, can your laptop do this? (folds flat like a gamer chair). I only was able to afford em 10 years later. I have a gen 6 carbon x1 now 4k screen got it for $200. The batteries are what's not great with old laptops, hard to get replacement batteries that aren't fake. I like having a Linux laptop handy eg. with gparted
- prngl 5mo ago
  Should have specified old used thinkpads. I’ve never bought one new. My daily driver is 10+yo, bought for $200 and upgraded mem, battery, and ssd with another $100.
- torginus 5mo ago
  I just had a company Thinkpad break because its fan started rattiling. It was just out of warranty, like 3.5 years old. Within a span of a year, out of my dozen coworkers who have the exact same laptop, half of them went down with similar issues.
  - deleted 5mo ago
    [deleted]
- burnt-resistor 5mo ago
  Yup. My T480 was ~$2500 new on-sale. It has 2 batteries with one removable one, and upgradeable RAM.. features not found on the T490 or T480s. I subsequently swapped the logic board from the iGPU to the dGPU + max performance CPU model, swapped the top cover for a magnesium one, HDD->SSD, and installed a better WiFi module. Also had to replace the screen once because I suck and broke it.

readthenotes1 5mo ago

"Back then, Porsche was not in the fantastic position it is in today. Its model lineup was aging. " Kinda hard to take this article seriously... https://newsroom.porsche.com/en/2026/company/porsche-deliveries-2025-41516.html https://newsroom.porsche.com/en/2026/company/porsche-deliver...

TacticalCoder 5mo ago
No it's correct. When the 968 came out it was the absolutely worst years ever for Porsche: they were nearly completely bankrupt and Porsche ceasing to exist was actually on the table. They were selling as little as 15 000 cars in a full year in 1992 or something like that (compared to nearly 60 K, nearly 4x as much, in 1986). Compared that to nearly 300 000 today and an insane lineup. Sure, the EU pretty much killed its auto car industry, offering the markets to Tesla and Chinese EVs (and there are talks of chinese buying Porsche), but Porsche has a crazy lineup compared to what it used to have: 911, Cayman, Boxster, Panamera, Taycan (the 100% EV), Macan and Cayenne and soooo many different sub-models of those (GT4, GTS, Turbo (S), Targa, GT3 (RS), GT2 (RS), S/T, S/C ...). They just even announced a 911 GT3 S/C // convertible (heresy for some but I love it). For any Porsche enthusiast, we're pretty much living the golden age of Porsche where you can still buy a normally aspirated, stick shift, driver's car. In 2026: thank you so much Porsche for being sufficiently crazy to still do that in 2026, in an era where people are paying subscription to receive OTA updates for their EVs. And any Porsche enthusiast knows that the early 1990s were nearly the death of Porsche. It was a close call. BTW to anyone saying the modern Porsche aren't "real" Porsche cars, I send them love from my 911 Carrera from 1988. You can both love old and new Porsche cars.
- parpfish 5mo ago
  Were they worse off in the 90s than they were in the late 70s? Because I’ve heard that the entry model 924 saved them from the brink in that decade. Funny that each end of the transaxle lineage were saviors
- ddmitriev 5mo ago
  > where you can still buy a normally aspirated, stick shift, driver's car The problem is that you can't buy them. All of these "interesting" 911s are limited production in practice even when not limited editions per se and are sold to most favorite clients only, a good chunk of whom then immediately flip them with delivery mileage---i.e. playing Ferrari games without the Ferrari name. I respect and like Porsche the car manufacturer, and I have put a lot of track miles on my 991.2 GT3 RS across the US, but I despise what their sales model has become. /rant

serf 5mo ago

in my car circles the 968 was seen as a total pos that was really just sort of trying to compete with the RX-7 and Fairlady, do a worse job at being a good sports car than them, and push the brand into further cheapened territory towards the every-person for the sake of financial incentive while inflating the cost of their premium offering, the 911. 1:1 example, but i'm not sure those were the points being made here.

majormajor 5mo ago
The 968 is such a weird choice for this when the Boxster exists, did basically everything better, was a major commercial success, and has spawned a line of cars that many argue are better than the 911 except for the name and traditionalist-fandom over exact engine position that prevents Porsche from giving them all the biggest engines and fanciest tech. But the Boxster didn't try to replace the 911 on day one. Or even go after the other 300ZX/Supra/whatever 2+2s on day one. It was instead nearly a whole-cloth "what if pure 2-seater convertible driver's car, but the best possible version" upscale-Miata initially, which wasn't an existing segment at all, and being roadster-first was a key separator from the also-2-seater Corvette. (The iPhone or iPad were arguable Apple's Boxster "entry-level that ends up dominating sales and growing into full blown new product lines" anyway, except that the comparison eventually falls down because the form factor difference with the Mac is much more of a fundamental separation. So maybe Apple's Boxster is instead the laptop in the first place, which wiped out most of their desktop workstation business by the early-2010s at latest.)
- 71bw 5mo ago
  I presume the 968 was chosen because it all seems like the Neo is only the first hurrah into this whole entry-level field for Apple.
keyle 5mo ago
Yeah this is looking at the 968 with rose tinted glasses. But a lot of the comparison does check out and the Neo is a fine on-ramp for first time macOS users just like the 968.
5mo ago

havaloc 5mo ago

I bought a Neo to "replace" an M3 MacBook Air "travel/out of the house/outside" laptop. Are there drawbacks? Most certainly, but it feels like something special, and I enjoy the slightly smaller form factor. The main drawback is perhaps the most surprising, the screen, which is really good at 500 nits, draws a disproportionate amount of energy compared to the rest of the system, so you get about 3.5 hours in bright sunlight / maximum brightness. As the only IT person in an 80 person unit, I can say the Neo trounces Dell Latitudes in a lot of ways, those have awful 250 nit screens out of the box, and they are nearly $1,200!

chillfox 5mo ago

I am so tired of everything electronic only coming in black and maybe gray. I like colors! So it's nice to see apple finally bringing a bit of color back.

TomWhitwell 5mo ago
https://www.alexandercowan.com/yellow-walkman-data-art-of-customer-discovery/ https://www.alexandercowan.com/yellow-walkman-data-art-of-cu...
- chillfox 5mo ago
  ok, so focus groups suck... I have actually picked the colored version almost every time I have bought electronics. I have got red and blue usb drives. I have got a purple phone. I have a blue mouse, the previous one was pink, and my keyboard is green.
socalgal2 5mo ago
I'm fine with a case. I can change the color to match my outfit https://www.amazon.com/Se7enline-Compatible-MacBook-Protective-Keyboard/dp/B09WTM27CX/ https://www.amazon.com/Se7enline-Compatible-MacBook-Protecti...

Gigachad 5mo ago

Apple has been doing this for ages. The base tier one always gets the fun colors while the pro models get silver, grey, and maybe some muted blue. Not sure why they make the cheaper models cooler than the top tier ones. Maybe it's just too expensive to stock multiple colors of every product. The Neo has minimal customization options for specs so making it colorful is cheaper.

brailsafe 5mo ago
I'm definitely getting sick of the dull colours in the higher end laptops. Give me a yellow, give me a red, forest green, whatever, anything but silver and darker silver
- margalabargala 5mo ago
  $10 in enamel paints and a free half hour and you can have as cool looking of a laptop as you like!
  - ChrisMarshallNY 5mo ago
    You can fairly easily get skins that will customize your laptop. I’ve done that, in the past. Seems the thing most people are into, these says, is “bumper stickers” on their laptop lids. I suspect neutral colors work best for that. I’ve found that I tend to replace my primary development machine every 3 years or so. Since retiring, I don’t travel much, so I got an M4Pro Mini. Works great, and I still have my M1Max MacBook Pro (my previous development machine), for when I want to hit the road.
    - squeedles 5mo ago
      I large part, the sticker trend is so that people can distinguish one gray rounded slab from another. It is the reaction, not the cause.
      - ChrisMarshallNY 5mo ago

halapro 5mo ago

[flagged]

hamandcheese 5mo ago
And in 2026 it starts at $599.
jshier 5mo ago
Ridiculous. First Mac mini was a 1.25GHz G4 with 256MB RAM in 2005 for $499. There have many models since there, ranging from $499 to $799 for the base model. 2018 was indeed the highest at $799, but that was mainly Intel's fault, and Apple's poor refresh timing. Current M4 mini starts at $599, which is over $1000 in 2005 dollars, so the value has largely increased through the model's entire history, especially once we hit the Apple Silicon era.
- halapro 5mo ago
  > starts at $599, which is over $1000 in 2005 dollars That's not how money works > Ridiculous You can say all you want and you'll come back to this comment in 2028 when the price is set at +100 or +150.
- halapro 5mo ago
  The Mac Mini starts at $800 now. How many false information will you include in your comments? https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/mac-mini https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/mac-mini
- halapro 5mo ago
  [flagged]
ayush--s 5mo ago
it's 2026, apple's computers do justify their price.
protocolture 5mo ago
I dont know hey. I think they want a bigger bite of the wintel market before they raise the drawbridge. This device seems perfectly crafted to grab every non gamer, who needs a daily driver but doesnt want bloated Win11 AI nonsense. These days the Apple ecosystem is basically at parity for Microsoft cloud services, so its even good for WFH/BYOD. I dont think its getting cheaper but I bet the entry model will double its memory allocation without shifting too far north in price.

ehnto 5mo ago

It's a shame most companies don't do weird and interesting variants anymore. I suppose it's hard to do when you need mass market appeal. Especially in regards to cars, often getting a bargain is about finding the cars with faults you personally don't care about but most people do, or versions not many are interested in. Unfortunately the way speculators have inflated the used market means the rare (because no-one wanted it) versions are priced on their rarity not their utility.

deleted 5mo ago

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paulmooreparks 5mo ago

I'm thinking about buying a Neo for two reasons: my laptop is only ever used to RDP into my home Windows workstation, which is where I do all my serious work; and because I need to have a Mac to test some software I'm writing (Tela, find it on my GitHub) that has to be multi-platform. The battery life is also a plus for remote work, but that's about it. I don't want to spend four digits where three will do.

kleiba2 5mo ago

> Cut back to Porsche in 1992, and you’ll see a similar story playing out in a very different industry. Back then, Porsche was not in the fantastic position it is in today. Its model lineup was aging. Perhaps picking Porsche for this analogy wasn't necessarily the best choice: https://investorrelations.porsche.com/en/financial-information/financial-performance https://investorrelations.porsche.com/en/financial-informati... So much for "fantastic position it is in today"...

la_oveja 5mo ago
i might be mistaken but you are looking at Porsche AG; the actual car company was made into a holding in 2007 and now called Porsche SE, then founded Porsche AG to make the cars. Porsche AG is part of the Volkswagen Group that is owned by Porsche SE. either way car manufacture is not a big profit game

gradstudent 5mo ago

Weighing up a Neo vs Framework 12 for my kids. The Neo is nicer, but I'll probably get the Framework even though it's more expensive. Apple products seem to have a fixed shelf life; a certain number of years of support and then the machine is slowly incompatible with apps that have since moved on to newer versions of macOS. Meanwhile Framework supports Linux and is still providing hardware/software upgrade paths for their old machines.

mjamesaustin 5mo ago
Just my personal perspective, every Apple laptop I've ever owned has lasted 10+ years. Their phones may have some planned obsolescence, but I don't find that to be the case at all with their computers.
- fainpul 5mo ago
  My personal perspective: 2 out of 3 MacBook Pro, I worked with, had expanding batteries after about 5 years. Replacement was a big hassle and the new no-name batteries are nowhere near as good as the original ones. I sure wish it was as easy as a battery replacement on a Framework laptop (with an original part). I know the Neo has easier battery replacement (not glued in), but still it has an iFixit rating of 6/10 whereas the Framework 12 has a 10/10.
- gradstudent 5mo ago
  I think this is less true than it used to be? I ran my MBP2013 into the ground after 10+ years, but my circa 2018 imac retina is stuck on pre-Catalina, installing which requires opencore patcher anyway. Hardware is fine, but it's increasingly less useful as a daily driver on account of software.
  - philistine 5mo ago
    You're absolutely right; the Apple Silicon transition really lowered the years of support of their later Intel machines. The same thing happened with the G5 machines, and the last Motorola 68000 Macintoshes in the early 90s. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/07/some-macs-are-getting-fewer-updates-than-they-used-to-heres-why-its-a-problem/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/07/some-macs-are-gettin...

KaiserPro 5mo ago

The thing that keeps me questioning is the "its using binned parts" dialogue. I'm sure _some_ parts might be discards from the iphone 16, but the volume they had at launch to me suggests that not the story. I've read somewhere that they made/budgeted for 5 million laptops shipped this quarter/half. but if they are made from binned CPUs, that suggests at least 4-7% yeild loss for the original iphone CPU. Bear in mind thats this 4-7% loss only counts dies that have just one broken CPU unit. There are many other failure modes as well. That just seems very very high. I've also not really seen any official channels that support this assertion, even apple insider seems sceptical that this is true: https://appleinsider.com/articles/26/04/07/incredible-macbook-neo-demand-may-finish-off-apples-a18-pro-stock https://appleinsider.com/articles/26/04/07/incredible-macboo... With my logic hat on, Apple contracts chip manufacturing, so I would have assumed that rejects and failed parts would be recycled at source. I would imagine that apple only pay for parts that pass QC. So I suspect that actually these chips are either leftovers (at best) or specifically manufactured using the old tooling.

DanielHB 5mo ago
> Bear in mind thats this 4-7% loss only counts dies that have just one broken CPU unit. There are many other failure modes as well. That just seems very very high. Is it? I thought the average for lastest-architecture chips was around 5%.
- KaiserPro 5mo ago
  Sorry I was unclear about what "very high" meant. From what I can see, one can expect about 80-90% yield per wafer, the bit that that doesn't make sense is that the "binned" narrative implies that of those broken parts of the wafer, 25-50% are usable with just one GPU disabled. To me that sounds wrong, and far too high.
  - DanielHB 5mo ago
    I would expect 80% of the failures would have only one core not pass QA. I remember back in the day it wasn't that unusual for intel to sell quad core CPUs and dual core CPUs that exactly the same hardware-wise, but the dual-core ones didn't pass the QA to be sold as a quad-core. In fact they sold many functional quad-core CPUs as dual-cores with 2 cores disabled and you could unlock the extra cores with some magic if you got lucky and got one that passed the quad-core QA.

voidUpdate 5mo ago

I'm surprised "mobile phone specs with laptop form factor" isn't a larger product base. Modern smartphones seem capable enough to run a lot of "normal" software, obviously not super heavy ones like after effects or something, but for lighter tasks (web browsing etc), it seems like a good market

sandos 5mo ago
Isnt chromebooks to a large extent just this?
- voidUpdate 5mo ago
  Wikipedia suggests chromebooks generally use normal x86 hardware, they just run chromeOS
  - martheen 5mo ago
    Most of the major vendors are already assembling x86 laptops for the far larger Windows market, it's cheaper to just reuse those models for ChromeOS instead of designing a special ARM design, which in turn due to lack of scale are priced similarly to their x86 counterpart. Price sensitive customers thus don't see that much saving. Battery life is nice, but I doubt there's that much market yearning for a cheap laptop with long battery life. People who really need large screen for long work without wall power either go at x64 (which can reach 12 hours on mid range now), or change their workflow to use Android tablet. The ubiquity of USB charging port that can power the laptop (or at least top it up while standing by on lunch) also means even if an x86 laptop may not last an entire day, the owner don't have to suffer the inconvenience of carrying around the power brick.
    - voidUpdate 5mo ago
      I'm shocked there isn't a market yearning for a cheap laptop with long battery life. That is like the two things I'd like most from a laptop

dude250711 5mo ago

They had defective chips to get rid of.

gib444 5mo ago

Excellent move by Apple to distract people from the declining software with shiny colours and low price.

timpera 5mo ago

While I am back to my Surface Laptop 7 after a few weeks with the Neo because the latter wasn't good enough for my usage, I agree it's the coolest Mac right now, the colors are great! I don't really understand why Apple keeps its "more serious" devices mostly color-less, it's a shame.

DANmode 5mo ago
> the latter wasn't good enough for my usage Please say more. Specs?
- timpera 5mo ago
  Yes, the battery life was way worse than the Surface, I missed the 120 hz screen more than I thought I would, and the 1 external monitor limit was too annoying. It's still a great device for the price.
  - DANmode 5mo ago
    Thanks for your concise + helpful reply!

amadeuspagel 5mo ago

When I think of companies that make cheapness cool I think of IKEA, Primark, Ryanair and Fiat, not Apple and Porsche. The Macbook Neo and the Porsche 968 are cheap only compared to other products by the same brand and they are designed not to cannibalize those other products.

goobatrooba 5mo ago
Not sure how a company like Primark that is known for using slave labour is "cool" or who would see it that way. Everyone I've ever heard talk about Primark went there solely for the price. Zara might be a better example (though not much better in practices).

binarysolo 5mo ago

I see a buncha folks complaining about how the high end macbook laptops don't have color -- for what it's worth there's plenty of fun colors to be had from buying case covers and skins, but yeah they add bulk or interfere with heat dissipation... (Have a MBP with fun case covers that I take off when I do a work presentation.)

rldjbpin 5mo ago

quite interesting comparison and well designed. but while we are speaking about a decent device, sometimes it feels like we are giving its maker too much credit. tim's apple has been about the supply chain, with many past "parts bin" offerings, some arguably more appropriate than the neo. for instance, the "se" edition devices. while for the neo, they had to create a new chasis and trackpad from scratch, the se phones were literally a mash up of the older parts. to me, they had several other approaches to hit the price point unlike the carmaker, also with lower capex required. while they show some courage with the liquid glass and the change in ux, combined with the same core architecture powering all their devices, just empowering the ipad would have been good enough. in car terms, they have showed a capable sports car internals inside a tricycle and pat themselves in the back. for me, neo resembles more like a mass-market brand overbuilding the car chassis while using an old powertrain from a capable platform. the same brand use the same capable vtec engine across hatchbacks, sedans and a crossover.