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MacBook Neo is so popular that Apple doubled production
- startpage_com 5mo ago[dead]
- no_wizard 5mo agoI’m not shocked in the slightest. Great price point for younger folks to buy or be given as a gift, the build quality is good for what it is and it is snappy for most uses. It’s many years too late IMO but I suppose the economics only made sense once they controlled their own chipset. I imagine doing this in the intel days would have been a far worse choice
- brianwawok 5mo agoEvery school I know of is deep in the Chromebook pot. These are fairly bad computers, Neo would be a big upgrade. But I suspect it would be years for school systems to even evaluate this.
- PaulHoule 5mo agoIt's no accident that they are bad computers. They aren't "fit for purpose" unless they are too weak to play Krunker.
- thewebguyd 5mo agoKids also destroy them every year. They need to be bad, and the absolute cheap pieces of crap possible because kids will throw them against walls and destroy them on purpose. "Can it run google classroom, can we lock it down, and is it $300 or less" are the only things that matter.
- geodel 5mo agoNot related to this discussion. But kids destroying school computers wantonly is expected? Is there no cost associated for destroying property on students or their parents?
- thewebguyd 5mo agoYes, its expected. As for recovery, depends on the school district. Early on during COVID, it was basically a free for all because, well, if you didn't have one you wouldn't be participating in school remotely, and for some families they wouldn't be able to afford a replacement, best to just give the kids a new one. Some districts (including my local one where I live) are now charging a "tech fee" but given these devices are still mandatory to participate, they don't withhold if they can't collect from the parents, which collection still remains a problem. Another district near me does a keep your own device program, each student is issued a chromebook and it becomes theirs after they graduate, which seemed to have helped a little bit knowing they have to use that same device for 4 years and it becomes their own after. edit My own solution would be just make sure the devices can't leave the classroom. Letting kids take them home is a huge part of the problem, but schools are now totally reliant on assignments being done digitally instead of just sending kids home with a textbook and worksheets.
- LgWoodenBadger 5mo agoI think the "keep it after 4 years" program is to eliminate a huge disposal/recycling cost from the schools. A 4 year old ChromeBook is effectively worthless, and can't (shouldn't) just be thrown in the garbage. What better way to save than to push that cost out to your students' families, all while selling it as a positive?
- benoau 5mo agoIt actually was done in the Intel days, and it was also wildly popular - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asus_Eee_PC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asus_Eee_PC
- microtonal 5mo agoI had one, but even for those days it had a mediocre screen, mediocre keyboard, mediocre CPU, and mediocre slow storage. The MacBook Neo has none of that.
- baal80spam 5mo agoYou must be joking. I had Eee PC, and it was terrible.
- lowbloodsugar 5mo agoHilarious comparison. I bought one. Unusable garbage. Tiny screen. Unusably slow. 8 second battery. Awful keyboard.
- benoau 5mo ago...and yet this sparked a revolution called netbooks that took over a full 20% of the laptop market at their peak. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netbook https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netbook
- doubled112 5mo agoThey sold well. In my experience working at Staples at that time, small and cheap beat any other consideration for many customers. Hard to argue with a $99 PC. A few months later, they'd realize it wasn't working out, come back, scream at us, and buy something bigger and faster. I really liked the MSI one I had, but I knew what I was getting into.
- lowbloodsugar 5mo agoI mean, I did buy one =)
- 5mo ago
- OskarS 5mo agoNot even young people: I have a very expensive MacBook Pro M5 i got from work, but my personal laptop is old and needs replacing. I’m a well-paid senior software developer and could afford any computer I wanted. But the MacBook Neo is a top contender even for me. I mostly need something for like editing documents, hobby coding and watching YouTube videos. It runs Codex or Gemini-CLI fine. For the price point, it seems perfect for a second computer. I could pay premium prices for something better, but honestly: I don’t think I need to.
- hadlock 5mo agoThe fact that everything bolts together inside like a ThinkPad and there's no glue means it's highly repairable. I've been looking at getting one as well, they're almost too good, I'm worried apple will revert to gluing things together as they're user repairable, which means they ought to last nearly forever. I've been eyeballing one as well, I would prefer the higher end air or pro but being able to take the whole thing apart with a single screwdriver is very appealing.
- tim333 5mo ago[dead]
- 800xl 5mo agoAgree. I could afford "better" but the Neo suits my needs perfectly and I don't like expensive laptops that are prone to damage and theft. Dollar for dollar it is the best computer I've ever bought.
- nyadesu 5mo agoI second this, MacBook Neo is a good balance between a cheap and more than good enough machine that you can carry in your backpack everywhere The fact that I'm not carrying a +1k USD machine all the time gives me peace of mind
- Aperocky 5mo agoHell, I have a personal macbook m4 pro and I still wanted one. I got the m4 pro when it first got out, but on restrospect I really should have gotten either: 1. A max spec max + 128GB ram for local models. 2. an air with 15 inch for max comfort. And I settled in the middle regret land.
- fastball 5mo agoSeems to be right on time. Hard to justify putting a mobile chip in your laptop until performance has reached a certain threshold.
- tencentshill 5mo agoIt's amazing you can get an iPad for $349 and a Macbook for $599. Even the plastic 2009 macbook alone was $999 at the lowest. Very strange to see a company do this when everything else just seems to have gone up and up.
- sva_ 5mo agoSomeone who uses a MacBook Neo in School/University probably has a much higher chance of getting a higher-end MacBook later on.
- m463 5mo agoThis is a tried and true long-game. Microsoft did this with educational versions of office/etc
- hylaride 5mo agoMy understanding is that Apple has been seeing market share issues at the low end, especially in education. Since everybody has a phone, the "casual" computer market is full of Chromebooks at cheap laptops. Laptops are a tool (again?) instead of a necessity.
- vovavili 5mo agoWould be foolish of them not to take advantage of Microsoft having self-sabotage as its favorite pastime.
- PaulHoule 5mo ago... and a huge amount of help from Dell, Lenovo and the like.
- forsalebypwner 5mo agoyeah, that's a good point... man, my opinion of Lenovo has tanked in the last decade and I'm only just realizing it now. I always thought of Dell as kinda shitty, but Lenovo had a great thing going that just kinda atrophied in some cases, and actively got worse in others
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- alberth 5mo agoI wonder what the margin profile is of the Neo vs Air vs MacBook Pro. I have to imagine the Neo is lower margin %, but maybe I'm wrong.
- jmkni 5mo agoI wonder if they're losing money on the actual units to get more people into the ecosystem?
- _fw 5mo agoLeaving money on the table, as opposed to losing it. They make a decent buck on the hardware, but could have charged more (though likely would have sold fewer units).
- fra 5mo agono chance
- cute_boi 5mo agoactually i am thankful that microslop is losing more than apple. They could've made better OS than macos by not adding candy crush or copilot slop.
- rjrjrjrj 5mo agoI don't think so. For most people in the Apple ecosystem, the iPhone is central and the Neo is another useful (but secondary) companion device. Not unlike the Watch and Airpods.
- ksec 5mo agoSince most of the R&D are done on the iPhone side, Neo's margin is actually quite good. The R&D for M5 and M5 Pro etc have to be amortised by Air and MacBook Pro. The percentage should be similar. In the old days of Apple pricing, Apple margin is nearly fixed and you could literally work out their BOM by doing reverse calculations. Things changed with Tim Cook but it is still largely similar.
- ksec 5mo agoIt was not the normal Apple Mac Pricing to begin with. But let see if they will stick to $599 next year when it comes with 12GB RAM and hopefully double the SSD speed. I wouldn't be surprised it would have similar sales if it was priced $699. It was also a very low initial production volume to begin with. So doubling isn't because it is doing above everyone's expectations, it is because Apple underestimated the demand. That is also ignoring the summer back to school season.
- CharlesW 5mo ago> So doubling isn't because it is doing above everyone's expectations, it is because Apple underestimated the demand. Clearly it's doing above their expectations, and they had precise data in the form of their test selling the M1 Macbook Air at $599 (occasionally $499) since 2024. It's too bad you weren't at Apple so they could've avoided this mistake!
- ksec 5mo ago>occasionally $499) Only in selected store and only in US.
- dylan604 5mo ago> It was also a very low initial production volume to begin with. So doubling isn't because it is doing above everyone's expectations, it is because Apple underestimated the demand. That is also ignoring the summer back to school season. Doesn't that mean precisely that the sales are above Apple's expectations which is everyone in all that matters here.
- ksec 5mo agoWell yes. But it is also a mistake that should have avoided and Apple are usually better than this. This suggest they have under estimated for one reason or another. My guess is that they were extra cautious in case of a flop just before new CEO was appointed.
- 5mo ago
- AdmiralAsshat 5mo agoNot surprising. I've been looking at potentially getting one for my mother. Her last Windows 10 laptop is pretty long in the tooth, and there's no way in hell I'm getting her one with Windows 11 on it. The Neo seems to fill the same niche that the Chromebook once did, and, since she's already in the Apple ecosystem due to her iPhone, an "Apple Chromebook" seems like an attractive proposition.
- cyberpunk 5mo agoiPad is the happy path for parents I've found. Zero support calls, just the occasional "This is spam, right?" question.
- skrtskrt 5mo agoI would like to know how these are on XCode - would love to have the cheapest/most lightweight possible way to build iOS apps (derived from some cross-platform builder like Expo/Lynx/Dioxus) since I have no other use for MacOS. Looking at tech specs, it seems like the one with 512GB drive might be serviceable. I have a very old 256GB Air and I struggle to keep enough drive space open to have XCode installed on it.
- starkparker 5mo agoyou'll hit the RAM limit at some point, and you'd almost certainly want to mod it to alleviate the heat issues that kill sustained performance
- fragmede 5mo agoIt'll throttle itself when it gets hot during compiles and slow down. You can mod it to cool it down so it will run (compile) faster.
- chedabob 5mo ago8GB RAM and no active cooling would be miserable. Mac Mini is the best bang for buck at the moment. I have an M1 Air as well, but if I'm away from my desk and doing anything that would push the SOC hard, I remote into my Mini.
- elxr 5mo agoThey're fine if you just need it mainly for the build/bundle step. I've used an 8GB M1 mac for react-native iOS dev for over a year back when the M1 first came out. If I had to look for the cheapest way to build iOS apps, but still on a laptop form factor (aka no mac minis), and I don't use macOS for day-to-day development, I'd do exactly this.
- juancn 5mo agoI ended up getting two (one for each of my daughters). The thing about Apple is that as the "IT" guy for my family, its ecosystem is the one which needs the least attention from me. It really just works. They have used Windows and Linux before (my kids and wife, that is), but something is always not quite right and needs my involvement. These days gone 100% Mac, my interventions are usually initial setup and whenever the Samsung printer jams.
- sgt 5mo agoI figured this out around 2005. Get your entire company on Mac, get your entire family on Mac. Your life will have zero support calls, maybe outside of the intial "How do I install an app" which seems to confuse some people.
- wil421 5mo agoThe desktop support people agreed at my last job said MACs was more expensive upfront but less hardware faults and RMA for devices that were dead on delivery. They also had less support calls after new users learned the platform. The business said hell no we would rather pay less upfront.
- commandersaki 5mo agoI think Apple's era of unreliable laptops were the ones with Butterfly keyboards. So many issues back then, but they did a complete 180 once they reintroduced the magic keyboard and then Apple Silicon.
- raspasov 5mo agoApple Intel laptop + a butterfly keyboard was the absolute gutter tier experience. Not only it was slow and ran hot, but after a few months a random key would get stuck and stop working.
- frollogaston 5mo ago
- everdrive 5mo agoIt's always surprising when companies don't understand that people what inexpensive, quality goods. The original Ford Maverick retailed for $19,995, Ford absolutely could not keep up with production. Ultimately, they raised prices both because they could and in order to reduce demand because they could not actually product enough units.
- echoangle 5mo agoThey probably know that but don’t want to cannibalize their more expensive products.
- asdff 5mo agoA lot of the buyers were never going to be buyers for the more expensive products.
- alooPotato 5mo agothat doesn't, on its own, alleviate the cannibalization concerns
- asdff 5mo agoIf they don't make this product at this pricepoint, a competitor does and that also cannibalizes potential higher sku macbook sales to a degree. Every chromebook sold is a potential macbook neo customer and apple let google eat their lunch for years.
- echoangle 5mo agoYou can afford to lose a lot of low-value low-margin buyers for not losing one high-value high-margin buyer.
- MikeNotThePope 5mo agoI’m guessing the Neo attracts a lot of new Apple customers, many of which will become subscribers of higher margin Apple services & apps in the App Store.
- sgt 5mo agoWith 12GB it's a seriously cool offering. I actually know 8GB works as well, and I've seen people on MacBook Airs with 50 tabs open, full IDE's and breezing. But I still would want at least 4GB more to be on the safe side.
- paulpauper 5mo agoWeb applications and websites are more bloated than ever. I think you need more ram not less.
- sgt 5mo agoWell, you'll be fine on pretty much all websites out there with 8GB, and virtual memory helps you with multiple apps, dozens of tabs. They don't all need to be in memory at once. Apple Silicon helps move that data around very fast.
- lostlogin 5mo agoI wonder what effect the colours have on sales? It’s a hell of a lot more interesting than silver or dark grey.
- ryandvm 5mo agoI don't doubt the Neo is a quality product, but I'm curious whether cheap MacBooks are going to sabotage Apple's cachet as a luxury brand. It's my personal experience that iOS users tend to look down on "green bubbles" in a way that can only be explained as some sort of brand superiority complex. I'm sure millionaires wouldn't appreciate it if Lamborghini sold a $25K model...
- summermusic 5mo ago> I'm sure millionaires wouldn't appreciate it if Lamborghini sold a $25K model... Oh no, won’t someone think of the millionaires
- rjrjrjrj 5mo agoThey make the best-selling phone model in the world. Best-selling smart watch, etc. Apple is not a luxury brand.
- elicash 5mo agoI haven't had the chance to touch one yet. But the reviews seem to suggest the hardware doesn't "feel" cheap in the way a lot of low priced computers can. I can't vouch on whether it's true, but that's the brand question here in my opinion. If the hinge was crappy and it felt like it was going to break any second and the keyboard was a return to the butterfly and it was slow and so on, because they wanted to make it cheap, then yeah I think that'd hurt their brand overall.
- thewebguyd 5mo agoI don't think it'll dilute the brand at all. The neo still feels like a premium product. Other laptop OEMs are now starting to come out with their competitors, and they are putting 1080p crap display panels on them like they always do. A $599 laptop with a 1080p screen from Dell is going to feel like a cheap piece of junk next to a Neo.
- abrowne 5mo agoI agree with your comment generally, but note that Dell's $699 competitor they announced this week has has a slightly larger screen than the Neo with similar resolution and brightness but better color coverage.
- mrinterweb 5mo agoThe Neo's value prop is great for many people. I keep needing to remind myself that most computer users can get by fine with 8GB or RAM, and that the I'm not the target market for products like the Neo. I do get nervous with how future proof 8GB of RAM will be in terms of total usable lifespan for the Neo. Maybe the idea is shortened timeline to obsolescence means more sales. Not digging on the build quality, but just if 8GB or RAM will still be fine 5 years from now.
- Centigonal 5mo ago> if 8GB or RAM will still be fine 5 years from now. I actually think right now is the perfect moment for this! I suspect that the massively increased cost of memory will limit the amount of memory in most consumer PCs from increasing over the next few years. In turn, this will create pressure on developers to memory-optimize their software.
- mrinterweb 5mo agoI agree with everything except > this will create pressure on developers to memory-optimize their software Ideally, yes, realistically, no. It is rare that I hear FE devs considering how much memory their apps are using. I really wish RAM use would be a much greater concern, but when I look at programs I normally run, I can tell RAM is not a concern (imagine me giving a dramatic accusing look at Docker Desktop, next-server, ...). RAM use for web pages is often not given much consideration either.
- thebruce87m 5mo ago> Maybe the idea is shortened timeline to obsolescence means more sales. Not digging on the build quality, but just if 8GB or RAM will still be fine 5 years from now. It’s products like this that mean 8GB will remain fine for longer. If every base model had 16GB then sites like linkedin would just add more bullshit to use it. Let’s keep the bar at 8GB please - we’re not really doing anything different than I was doing 20 years ago with much less. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47561489 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47561489
- perarneng 5mo agoI would rather own a used MacBook AIR than a new MacBook Neo. I usually don't like used computers but I just can't stand the anxiety of having to only have 8Gb RAM. Sure, it swaps, it compresses memory etc.. but still.
- reaperducer 5mo agoAccording to Dell, 8GB is perfectly fine, even under Windows, since that's what its Neo competitor ships with.
- 2001zhaozhao 5mo agoI think Apple's cost efficiency advantages are really compounding now and it'll get increasingly hard for competitors to catch up. Everything they put in the product is either in-house or benefit from their scale and negotiating power. In the MacBook Neo's case, everything from the in-house chipset and scale (for stuff like aluminum body) and the more RAM-efficient software is working in its favor. I'd bet that a different laptop manufacturer will struggle to make a profit at all if they made a $599 Neo-equivalent product with lower scale, having to pay for chips and Windows licenses, and having to put in 12GB of RAM instead of 8 to get a similar user experience.
- adgjlsfhk1 5mo agoI think the clear demonstration of this is how small Apple's motherboard is for the neo (and other M series) compared to everyone else). It really seems like the PC makers don't understand the benefits of low power chips sufficiently. If you cap your chips TDP such that it can be cooled passively, you save money on heatsink, fan, vents, power circuitry (e.g. fewer capacitors), battery size, etc.
- philistine 5mo agoYou are so right, and I blame some of the thinking on this very website. People are adamant that they need to upgrade the RAM, change the storage, and replace the battery on their laptops. Adamant. All that means that you need a separate memory controller, a separate this and that. It adds up, and PC makers are forced to put in a fan. On its face, it doesn't sound stupid at all. The thinking that you need to be able to upgrade and maintain your laptop sounds elegant. But those people, they never argue that they must be able to change the CPU. Why not? It used to be that upgrading the CPU in a laptop was a common occurence. Why don't they throw a fit that they can't upgrade the CPU? Because technology caught up with them. CPUs are now soldered on the board, for multiple very good reasons. Coupled with the fact that a good CPU is good enough for a very long time, and no one feels the need to upgrade their CPU on a laptop. Same thing with the math co-processor, no one's arguing to be able to change that!
- 5mo ago
- usefulcat 5mo agoI am hopeful (not exactly optimistic, but hopeful) that increased sales of MacOS devices will warrant increased investment in MacOS by Apple.
- codedokode 5mo agoThe screen is too small, not usable for work, you can buy a 15-inch Linux laptop for the same price. And it might even have replaceable RAM and SSD. Also, 8 Gb is too little, it will become a useless toy several years later. Also, there are just 2 USB ports and no USB-A. Also I wonder how long the keyboard lasts and how does one replace it.
- wat10000 5mo agoI guess all these buyers must be idiots.
- nicole_express 5mo agoPersonally I prefer having a smaller screen on my laptop, because I can plug it into a monitor when I need a large screen but it makes it more portable. Still miss the 11" MacBook Air, what a great form factor.
- codedokode 5mo agoYes but monitor is not free, and you cannot travel (to the couch) with it.
- commandersaki 5mo agoAlso I wonder how long the keyboard lasts and how does one replace it. Can't say how long the keyboard will last since it's only been out for a few months, but I expect a long time as these are their new (now old) magic keyboards. As for replacement, the keyboard is comes out as a module, so it just takes about 10-15 minutes of disassembling and putting a new keyboard in. Macbook Neo is one of Apple's best repairable laptops.
- cromka 5mo ago> Also I wonder how long the keyboard lasts and how does one replace it Or you could just google it to see how extrapolating here was not a good move.
- Jblx2 5mo agoWhat do you use the USB-A for? I mean, I get it, I still have flash drives with the A-style connector. Is there some other critical item that you use on the regular (and is awkward with the little adapters)?
- onesociety2022 5mo agoApart from the price, I think what's really attracting people to the Neo are the cool colors. I was at an Apple Store a couple of weeks ago trying to buy a M5 MacBook Air and I was eavesdropping on the conversations going on next to me from people looking at the Neo. Almost all of it was positive and people really love the colors! I suspect Apple is going to cannibalize some MBA sales with the Neo because I'm recommending the Neo to anyone like my mom who use their laptop mostly just for browsing and FaceTime calls, and even the MBA is overkill for that.
- frollogaston 5mo agoIt was like this back then with the iPhone 5C too
- emp_ 5mo ago> I suspect Apple is going to cannibalize some MBA sales with the Neo ... Hopefully it allows for the macbook air to return to being a ultra light machine, I held an Asus X14 ARM at 900 grams and it felt so much better. There's also a huge market for the M1 MacBook Air because of the old form factor of being ultra thin even if faking it with bending the shell, the boxed layouts dont fit with MBA to me. Too bad there is no 15 2021 M1.
- lobf 5mo agoThe wife just bought an Air and it’s incredibly light. Not as thin as they used to be but shockingly light still!
- emp_ 5mo ago100% but I suggest doing the 1-handed pick up test with the lid open, a 900g laptop feels weightless against the 13 air at 1200g
- frollogaston 5mo agoYeah it's funny, my M4 Air looks and feels like my wife's M1 MBP. It makes sense though, they made the MBP actually pro instead of being the default.
- newobj 5mo agoHaving "accidentally" purchased one, I can tell you that doing anything 8GB or RAM on a mac laptop is impossible. I have no idea what people are doing with this laptop. Macs are absolute dogs at 8GB.
- annagio_ 5mo agoIt's a product that you can't upgrade and you can't fix easy. It's no for me.
- commandersaki 5mo agoSure it's not upgradable but you're completely wrong about repairability, unless you're talking about micro component repair ala Louis Rossmann, which as a whole is going the way of the Dodo.
- annagio_ 5mo agoYes, I'm speaking of repairability of Louis Rossmann. I guess someone has to have apple care.
- commandersaki 5mo agoI mean sure if it has to do with CPU & memory & storage there's probably little you can do except replace the SoC, but it's also the least likely component to fail. Everything else is a removable module and pretty easy to replace, it's one of Apple's best repairable laptops. It'll also be a parts bucket with how much volume is sold, so genuine parts should be easy to come by on the aftermarket if you don't go through apple self repair program directly.
- rrgok 5mo agoI need a new home laptop. Just for web browsing, streaming videos. I hate MacOS. I used MacOS for 10 years. When came back to Windows, I felt as I can breathe again. I hate there are no comparable price/performance in Windows world.
- commandersaki 5mo agoAll the PC manufactures are rallying to make a comparable Neo at the price point, it's been making waves in tech media for the last 2 weeks.
- vsgherzi 5mo agoAwesome, it’s nice to see a large company actually trying to make a decently crafted product for the entry level market and for it to be popular! I hope Apple can continue this and release more nice products at lower prices especially at a time where hardware is going parabolic.
- hackerbeat 5mo agoCan someone explain to me why the standard iPad ($349) is so much cheaper than the iPhone 17e ($599)?
- altairprime 5mo agoCompact density is expensive, cellular is expensive, and the iPhone has to pass all-day battery and pocket bending tests. (Edit: also being dropped on gravel)
- drnick1 5mo agoEnough idiots buy $1000 phones, so $599 is cheap.
- hbn 5mo agoIt's more expensive to make a computer tiny. Plus the iPhone's cameras are better, cellular modem, vibration motor, etc.
- Aunche 5mo agoI'm sure that they have a fatter margin on the the iPhone, but the iPhone does cost quite a bit more to manufacture. Cellular itself is probably $50 or so. The iPad has more material, so you may perceive you're getting more "device per the money" but the cost of those materials is dwarfed by the cost of manufacturing the additional components. This is incidentally why consumers don't buy small phones even though they say they want them. They feel cheaper even though they cost about the same to manufacture.
- hbn 5mo ago> This is incidentally why consumers don't buy small phones even though they say they want them. They feel cheaper even though they cost about the same to manufacture. Actually from what I understood, making a small display with modern specs like Apple did on the iPhone mini was MORE expensive because all of modern high-end smartphone display manufacturing is designed for larger, 6+ inch screens.
- jerlam 5mo ago
- drnick1 5mo agoI am more interested in the XPS13 at a similar price point mentioned in the article. My intention is to run Linux, and that probably won't happen for a long time on modern Apple hardware.
- ioblomov 5mo agoHave you considered Asahi Linux?
- drnick1 5mo agoDoes not run on the Neo, unfortunately.
- cromka 5mo agoWell if you're looking at XPS13 then a comparable machine is a MacBook Air M1 or M2, not a Neo. You can get an M1 refurb for 600 USD, AFAIK Costco sells them at that price in the US. Or buy used for even less. It will still match or surpass that XPS13's performance and battery life.
- static_motion 5mo agoI think they were talking about the upcoming XPS 13 that's based on the new Intel Wildcat Lake platform and will be priced very close to the MB Neo, so it's pretty comparable. It wouldn't be fair to compare it to something that starts at $1000.
- cromka 5mo ago> It wouldn't be fair to compare it to something that starts at $1000. But that's my point: first-gen M1 Air is still available and costs 600 USD.
- static_motion 5mo ago
- hbn 5mo agoI purchased my girlfriend a refurbished M2 MacBook Air literally a week before the Neo was announced. Been kicking myself ever since.
- kylehotchkiss 5mo agoI've already sold (recommended) 4 of these. I will continue to do so. These are the right computer for the non-creative/non-technical people in your life. HP/Acer/Dell/etc etc have decided to die on the hill of plasticy laptops with alien sounding model numbers. Good riddance.
- surcap526 5mo ago[dead]
- ivraatiems 5mo agoI'm writing this from a Macbook Neo. It's goddam fantastic. The best product Apple has put out in years. There simply is not a Windows laptop out there that can compete on speed, price, and build quality all at the same time. The low amount of RAM is simply not noticeable for everyday tasks. The display is fantastic. It feels really solid and great to hold and use. macOS is far and away the worst thing about it. It's never exactly been a customizable or flexible OS, but Tahoe is also loaded with bugs, has tons of unconfigurable settings (or buries useful things in "accessibility" layers), and is still missing basic features (still no NTFS write support out of the box? really?) for anybody who is not an entry-level user. But that said, for about $500, I truly don't think anything better exists. One of the best bang-for-buck new electronics I've ever bought.
- erelong 5mo agosad to hear if true, apple products are locked down / proprietary disappointments would enjoy seeing them open them up though (push for this?)
- rbanffy 5mo agoI’ll wait for the next generation though. 8 gigs is a bit tight for my normal uses.
- stasomatic 5mo agoIt's too expensive. As a long time user ('91) I am fully aware how blessed we are with Macs' prices today. However, an M5 Air 16G/512 is $1,100 without any discounts and Airs are frequently discounted by $200 at least in the States. $599 is dangerously close to $1,100. Yes, it's 40ish % diff before any discounts, but the Air is like 3x the value and the Air has much more runway in it. I would not recommend a Neo to anyone in my circles at this price. They deleted the wrong things, imo. I'd rather it was plastic, with a backlighted kb and TouchID at $400. TouchID by default should be table stakes on Apple hardware today, it's that useful. Then, I'd have 3 right now. I am just talking about surface level stuff, they thought of cannibalization, repair costs, upgrade ramps (8GB), etc, they are smart.
- killingtime74 5mo agoIt's not designed for your circles or for people where paying 40% more is a choice. Many products make no "sense" when you can hand wave the price away.
- stasomatic 5mo agoI think it's a throwaway given its specs and inherent limitations at $600. At $400 USD, I wouldn't be yapping here. Caveat emptor, yo.
- m463 5mo agoI could make a counterpoint: it's too cheap. It will cannibalize the market for better apple products. Mac pro is already gone. Sort of how $1.99 apps, then $0.99 apps drove the app price to free. Now apps are supported by advertising or trick subscriptions and the good/honest apps are pretty much gone. (except I do like and respect anything from omnigroup)
- stasomatic 5mo agoFair, but I thought I addressed this in my last paragraph. My gut tells me the Neo sits at an uncomfortable price spot, given its specs, in the line up. Geeks won't buy it as a daily because they know what an Air costs and brings. I am with Christina Warren who more than twice said on MBW that the Neo is not a good fit for students as it’ll run out of air a year or two in (pun intended :)).
- lendgale 5mo ago[flagged]
- Danox 5mo agoImagine the potential sales overseas where the Neo fits into the budget of many more people who maybe wanted to get a Mac but could not afford it because it was just out of reach. But now there is a possibility.
- arjie 5mo agoGot my and my wife's parents all-in on iPhone + Macbook Air/Pro + Watch (with a single iPad Pro) and honestly it's been fantastic. Only problem is that they forget a password here and there and I just have that in my password manager. After that, the ecosystem is just super convenient: watch finds their phone, find my friends has their/our location, Facetime dials in pretty easily. Honestly, the problem with the Apple ecosystem is that hooking it up into a machine is annoying, so our claw-like has to be on a Mac Mini. But apart from that, everything is pretty good.
- taude 5mo agoI bought one: I was hesitant about the 8 GB of memory at first. But I'm happily running Chrome with like 20 tabs and some other apps, and performance isn't an issue. It's mostly a couch laptop. I run Obsidean, messaging apps, writing tools. I use some CLI toolings... I really wanted a Framework 12, but I got $180 credit on a ipad AIR 4, and sold a 2017 Macbook Pro for $150 (US), so that effectively made this a 280 upgrade, and reduced the risk in me going for it. I love this thing. * love the keyboard, it’s such an improvement over the older laptops. Worth getting rid of that old Macbook Pro for this alone * Keyboard isn’t backlit. Thought that would be annoying, but i’m good enough touch typist that in the dark, i can still navigate around no problem. * Lack of touch sensor. I just turned off most security prompting, like passwords when filling in websites, etc. and just rely on typing my password in once when logging on. On my todo is to turn on authentication from my Apple Watch, might make not having a touchid a non-issue. * The screen! Did I say I love the form factor? I still wish it was shaped like my former favorite computer: the 11" Macbook Air, with the tapered edges and such. I'm optimistic that the next version of Framework 12 will have better screen and be a nice aluminum body...but until then.....
- miguel-muniz 5mo agoI think it's a damn shame we finally have the technology to make really good small computers but the consumer demand for small computers is gone.
- taude 5mo agoare you sure the demand is gone? The whole point of this article is that Apple had to double production because demand was so high. EDIT: i just looked up how many ipads apple shipped in 2025: 60M, so yeah, no shortage of demand in iPads. Most people are consumptioners, though, so that kind of makes sense.
- elxr 5mo agoWay too much keyboard backlight discourse around this laptop. Just learn to type folks, it takes 2-3 weeks. As long as you're able to quickly feel out the homing bars, you should know where all your keys are. First thing I do on every laptop is turn off keyboard backlighting. Ram wise, I agree that for light use, with mostly note-taking, writing, and browser use; 8GB shouldn't cause any serious problems. But those of you who know you regularly go over 8GB should really consider something else. There are plenty of used M2 and M3 airs with 16GB out there for reasonable prices. Of course if you're hard-capped at $600, then the Neo is pretty dang nice.
- p0w3n3d 5mo agoYet open two tabs in chrome and your tam is gone...
- jdswain 5mo agoI'd like to see the same thing applied to desktop computers, a Mac Neo maybe. The Mac mini has moved up the cost/performance ladder, there's room at the bottom for a simple, low cost desktop, maybe with Neo colours too.
- djyde 5mo agoThe Mac Mini's price is already quite low while its performance keeps getting stronger.
- justapassenger 5mo agoI love my macbook neo. I have more powerful macmini at home as my daily driver, but neo is amazing for me basically as a companion to my corporate laptop. I use it: - to take as my personal device when I travel - do personal stuff when my corporate laptop is connected to my home setup and constant switching between computers is a hassle (even with a built in kvm in a monitor). i know, 1st world problems It has a price point that makes it no brainer for me.
- aj7 5mo agoIt took Apple 42 years to kill the pc, but they did it.
- emp_ 5mo agoI bought two Touch-ID models as gifts and while doing the setup I must say the lack of keyboard backlight is the only thing that bothered me A LOT. Great machines otherwise.
- r0m4n0 5mo agoI wonder if this will cannibalize their other more expensive product lines. I know some people and have recommended this to folks that would have purchased more expensive laptops otherwise. My grandpa never needed the macbook air he has continually repurchased over the years. I am planning on purchasing one of these for my oldest, would have opted for a more expensive macbook air as well otherwise. Others that thought the macbook air was too expensive may have purchased used or not at all so this does bring in some more money with that demographic. I have to imagine the margins are smaller if the product is cheaper. I guess time will tell.
- Kuyawa 5mo agoCurrent RAM prices make the Mac Neo a steal
- brandon272 5mo agoI have always had this notion that buying a Mac is the "premium" option, not just in quality, but maybe in price too. I am in the process of trying to find a business notebook for my spouse who is a Windows user. The goal is to have something that is as close to a Macbook Air as possible in terms of price, weight, performance and durability. What I am learning is that nothing that like that exists in the PC world. It's a minefield of tradeoffs: plastic chassis', bad screens, weird keyboards, bad trackpads, questionable reliability, etc. The current contender is a ThinkPad X1 Carbon which even after a bunch of business discounts is still a good $300 more than a Macbook Air and appears to come with a pretty poor trackpad in comparison. Apple has an incredible strength in distilling what a product or series of products should be down to its essence and selling it. You could argue that there is more "choice" among Windows PCs but the reality seems to be that it is an illogical mess of tradeoffs.
- protocolture 5mo agoYeah I was an X1 Carbon True Believer for a while but I cant justify their current prices. It used to be 1200 bucks or so cheaper than the equivalent macbook (probably saying as much will piss off the "Thinkpads were never cheap weridos but thats fine)
- noir_lord 5mo agoThere was a time the T series where the go-to if you wanted a good Linux laptop as well. I'm typing this on an old T470P (7700HQ/32GB/2560x1440) that is running my TV - it's uptime is measured in months (usually for a kernel upgrade). Just a stellar machine but the new ones don't seem to be worth the price. It is somewhat remarkable that no one has managed to get close to Apple quality by now. I think the major manufacturers just have too many SKU's with too much differentiation instead of focussing on making 4-5 good SKU's.
- protocolture 5mo agoI think they can get to apple on quality or price but not both anymore. And its not Wintel holding them back, Lenovo has their ARM experiment too, and its a bit average.
- NordStreamYacht 5mo agoFTA: "confirms that there's real appetite for premium quality at accessible prices" Ya think?
- diimdeep 5mo agoAmazing hardware, 8GB out to keep developers in check with sane memory management, if only Apple themselves cut down on their macOS operating system memory usage, 3GB idle is too much. The obvious out of spec for this laptop is emulated gaming with rosetta and wine, this need minimal 16GB.
- edg5000 5mo agoIs the MacBook Neo like my Xiaomi phone: fully locked down; no way to put custom software on it? That would be bad. My laptop is the last bastion of control left.
- saispas 5mo agoIt's a fully functional MacOS computer: you install the same software on it that you can any Mac laptop. That means it will run third-part software. (Obviously, it won't run some heavy duty software as quickly as a fully-specced MacBook Pro would, but it will still run it.)
- pjmlp 5mo agoI would like to know how well it is selling worldwide, on PC markets where Apple hardly has a presence. As most of these selling well news are from markets where Apple has anyway already a big presence and living standards can afford Apple prices.
- wewewedxfgdf 5mo agoIt looks so awesome, I just find it SO hard to buy any computer with 8GB.
- AbhiAmbad 5mo agoOur company also giving us now MacBook neo . First time int he history of our company providing MacBook. Otherwise lenovo thinbook we used.
- ksec 5mo agoThings I hope will improve with Neo 2. SSD Speed. Currently 1.2GB/s. That is slower than MacBook Pro 2015. Hopefully we see 2GB/s as in iPhone 17 Air. Backlit Keyboard. A19 with 12GB Memory. That extra 4GB headroom make all the difference for everyday user. If they could sell this even for $699 everyone should just get a Neo
- wpm 5mo agoI have iStat Menus on my Mac showing me my SSD usage (R/W) in my menubar at all times. I have rarely ever seen it go over 1GB/s, and I'm on an M1 Pro MacBook Pro, using it pretty heavily. I see 1GB/s when using the xip command to decompress Xcode bundles. When doing gatekeeper checks on large app bundles, I typically see somewhere around 500MB/s, bottlenecked by the CPU performing the checks. What kind of work are you doing where 1.2GB/s isn't enough?
- ksec 5mo agoPaging. Part of something not mentioned was also IOPS. Are you on 8GB with your M1? With 8GB you will have lots of swaps happening. Especially with Safari. That extra SSD is going to make quite a lot of difference. Together with 12GB Memory this would be enough for ~90%+ usage.
- gck1 5mo agoI'm a recent-ish convert from 18 years of Linux to Mac. I paid $2k for a Dell laptop 5 years ago that has been used maybe 6 months and every single day of using it was miserable. Loud fans, stutter, horrible resolution, battery anxiety - all of these problems got resolved with a $2k Macbook. It almost feels like Apple knows that hardware shouldn't be getting in your way and the rest of the industry thinks it's still 2002. Granted, that memo didn't get to the software team at Apple, but that's a relatively small problem that you get used to.
- Floppyrom 5mo agoPrice actually matters! Surprised Pikachu
- dopesoap 5mo ago[dead]