I might get one. I work 99,9999% of the time at my desk so got a beefy Mac Mini. This would be perfect for the few times I need to travel and work at my computer.
1 Like
One problem with this is the price. Cities like Chicago and New York run 350,000 - 400,000 Chromebooks. And NYCâs Dell Chromebooks are reported to have LTE wireless. The Neo probably wonât be popular with large school systems.
1 Like
- For anybody looking for a cheap computer.
- There is a lot of potential for switchers. People who bought cheap, crappy PCs before. They are able to get a nice Mac. I know a lot of people that did not buy Macs because they do not want to pay more than 1,000 Euros for a computer. Now they can get a Mac for almost half the price of a MacBook Air.
- For price-conscious desktop Mac users that do want a secondary Mac while on the road.
- For Mac users that just surf the web and do no heavy lifting stuff.
P.S. Somebody 
published a nice post about the Macbook Neo.
6 Likes
A number of people reviewing this on the Internet have gone the âfor students but not real workâ route. I have no problem using the base MacBook Neo for doing IT support at a University research center.
When the screen on my first generation 8GB M1 MacBook Air developed a fault after bouncing around in my backpack every day for years, I scrounged a used 24" monitor and turned my old laptop into my second work desktop, and the only time I swivel my chair around to use my Windows 11 desktop is when I need to use Microsoftâs Active Directory tools.
SOFTWARE:
I have OmniFocus, Safari, Fantastical, TaskPaper, BBEdit, Drafts, and Preview open all day and I often have ChatGPT loaded, along with MS Word and MS Excel (and Microsoft doesnât write memory efficient Mac programs!). I sometimes edit big Adobe InDesign documents (4x6 pages when printed) that are a map showing all network connections overlaid on an actual building blueprint. Adobe Photoshop opens and lets me edit photos as needed, and they arenât slow. I no longer produce videos but ten years I was doing that on an Intel processor that was much slower than this.
HARDWARE: My weakest-ever-made M series MacBook Air still runs fine, doesnât need more memory for the work I am doing, and just needs a single small hub to connect up my display, printer, backup drive, StreamDeck and my microphone. I rarely use the second USB-C port.
The MacBook Neo would be an actual upgrade over the machine I use for my actual work.
7 Likes
Had it existed a few months ago, it probably wouldâve been perfect for my Mom, whoâs interested in learning and needs it only for lightweight tasks. (At the time, I advised her to go with the base model M4 Air, which was available at a very good sale price.)
Iâd get one. I use my Air as a way to browse the web and do some minimal tasks when travelling. I paid ÂŁ1500 for a 512GB M2 Air and would have happily chosen this instead. However, itâs no smaller or lighter than my current Air so I wonât be changing until this Air fails.
1 Like
Iâve thought about getting one for travel â this summer overseas for study for example. It would be lighter than my iPad Pro 13", and run ârealâ Mac software. But I would be paying $700 to save a pound and lose the better features of the iPad.
Isnât it interesting how a few times a year Apple does something and we all fiddle with our cost-benefit analyses, just because thereâs a cool new thing we just got to have?
Katie
5 Likes
There were plenty of people who praised the M1 Air when it came out as being better than almost every single Intel Mac ever. The Neo is better than the 8GB M1 Air, and on par with the 8GB M2/M3 Air. For plenty of people still on Intel this is an upgrade.
For plenty of people in the majority world this may be their first experience of macOS. Theyâll love it.
For anybody here who has a travel laptop, will you really upgrade to the Air in 5 years time when your current travel laptop loses support, or will the then current Neo be a better use of funds?
6 Likes
It has two fewer performance cores than the M1, and two or three fewer GPU cores.
The fact that they are faster will be helpful, but I will be interested to see the benchmarks.
albeit in the iPhone 16 Pro Max, not the MacBook Neo, but the benchmarks already exist.
A18 Pro Compared to M1:
- way better single core
- rounding error better multi core
- slightly better metal score
~ better or equal across the board, and comes with fixed function units like AV1 encode/decode.
A18 Pro Compared to M2/M3:
- decently better single core
- decently worse multi core
- fair bit worse metal score
~ my assessment for a range of workloads is that these are roughly similar.
2 Likes
Those school districts are not paying $499 apiece for a NEO. I truly believe there is a discount for purchases that large. Would be as cheap as a Chromebook? Probably not but might be close.
1 Like
I hope soon there will be Linux Support.
Nice hardware!
Unlikely that there will be Linux support any time soon, as Asahi still only supports the M1 and M2 (no M3, M4 or M5) and the A series (from the iPhone / Neo) are not supported at all yet:
1 Like
Interesting that there is much talk about the 8GB/256GB and Touch ID. Not a lot of people are talking about the substantial list of other âdeficienciesâ this device has.
1 Like
TouchID is only available on the 512GB Neo model. Itâs like âcâmon guys, a useful security measure is only available on the âbigâ Neo?â
Katie
If youâre writing papers, browsing the web, managing email, taking video calls, and maybe editing a few photos, this machine does all of that. And it does it with 16 hours of battery life in a fanless design. (âŚ)
The Neo isnât trying to be the lightest computer Apple makes. Itâs trying to be the most accessible. And at $599, it nails that.
They are going to sell a lot of these.
What he said!
My two cents: The Macâs deficiency has been previously that there was no Mac before in this price range. This computer is a true gem at its price point. You can now move on from Windows without the need to switch to Linux at a price range that is affordable to anyone. And this is possible due to the capability of âiPhoneâ CPUs. I totally get that power users have their valid points criticizing what the Neo is âlackingâ. But this computer is not for power users. This is for those who go to a store and want to buy a computer at a certain price point. Now, they are able to get a Mac - and yes, this seems to be a decent one as far as I am concerned. And, Apple, can we please have actual colors on other Macs, too? 
1 Like
When you use iPhone 16 Pro, you take a lot of photos and videos with some editing on it. You may also play games, install a lot of apps. Coping with various daily situations, this iPhone (as well as others in entry level) can deal with real-time image processing like portrait mode.
But when A18 Pro chip is inside MacBook Neo, influencers said itâs for emails and documents.
Apple in their webpage has already said you can use Canvas and even Affinity. Understanding MacBook Air and even Pro can cope with more graphics in a faster way, I donât think Neo should be underrated.
4 Likes
OTOH, schools may not need/want TouchID on their laptops. Even a $20 increase in the price of a Neo could add $ millions to the cost for large school systems.
2 Likes
I think the big thing is going to be multitasking. iOS is pretty aggressive about getting things out of memory and minimizing background processes. MacOS, not so much.
I think that if the sort of person who mostly just wants a computer to do computer-y stuff like emails/documents/web browsing fires up Final Cut, itâs going to work fine. But if they want to fire up Final Cut while switching back and forth between their email, the Photos app, and a couple dozen browser tabs, itâll be swapping heavily due to RAM usage.
Yes, perhaps, however itâs likely Apple would be a school-spec Neo rather than the two consumer Neos on offer in the Apple Store. Chromebooks for schools are usually specced for school use â ruggedized, device/software management, etc.
Katie
1 Like