The MacBook Neo (daringfireball.net)

The big players are just awful at marketing; too many SKUs and models - it takes a paragraph to figure out how 2 Dell laptops from the same release year differ.

Just hired a new colleague who prefers Windows. Dell seemed like a reasonable option for a good laptop. Here is Dell's current lineup:

- Dell Laptop (with 14, 15, 16 inch variants)

- Dell Plus (with 14, 15, and 16 inch variants)

- Dell XPS (with 13, 14, and 16 inch variants)

- Dell Premium (with 14 and 16 inch variants)

- Dell Pro Essential (with 14 and 15 inch variants)

- Dell Pro (with 14 and 16 inch variants)

- Dell Pro Plus (with 14 and 16 inch variants)

- Dell Pro Premium (with 14 and 16 inch variants)

- Dell Pro Max (with 14 and 16 inch variants)

- Dell Pro Max Plus (with 14, 16, and 18 inch variants)

- Dell Pro Max Premium (with 14 and 16 inch variants)

It's maddening trying to sift through the differences at this level. Then when you select a model, there can upwards of 8 different pre-built options to review.

Then the OS is full of ads and pre-installed garbage “gaming-optimization-tool” or driver tools taking up 99% of a single core while being riddled with security holes.

But inevitably, some chucklehead comes along "wut? I can get <proceeds to type spec sheet> for half that! Have fun paying the apple tax, lol." Someone posted that on Ars yesterday, with a random Amazon link from Naikan, your name for quality computing. Or rather, "Naikan, your name for a quality trackpad, screen, and high-quality ABS case! Be sure to check out the $12,000 of 'bonus' software add-ons, no extra charge!". It's amazing someone can post that without the slightest hint of self-awareness.

The last competitor remaining is Lenovo with the ThinkPads and pre-installed Linux [1].

But even Lenovo cripples them:

    * You need to be very careful. Select alwaysCTO build with the best available display. But even then, Lenovo *removed* the HiDPI display from the X13. The only actual competitor to the MacBook Air is the ThinkPad X13.
    * Lenovo added useless camera humps protruding out of the panel. There is a thick bezel and enough space for a much better camera. And for opening the laptop used to be a dent in the (round!) palmrest, nothing protruding.
    * AMD, Intel and Lenovo fail to ship a fanless X13 and T14. I would happily keep same performance for two years, just getting rid of it.
    * Lenovo is drowning us in Yogas, Z13 or whatever Legion. 

[1] By the love of god. Don’t order them with Windows! You are putting 80 to 130 euro right into Microsoft’s stock owners. And they will use it to harm Linux. And of course, making Windows even worse. They use it to harm you. Select Linux. Donate the rest (Fasst, GNOME, KDE…) or use it for the better display.

> It takes a hour of research to know if the trackpad is not-awful

This, so much this! I run Asahi on M1 Air but wanted to upgrade to something with fuller Linux support. After trying Thinkpad T14s, trackpad quality has rosen to my attention, something I never thought about before. Turns out glass, haptic trackpads are still only available in probably about a dozen laptops on the market and it's not easy to actually know which ones are these!

Yeah, for a while my favorite laptop was the Surface Book 2. Decent specs, does what I want it to. Then Microsoft started going through "Marketing Driven Development" for Windows and its just been downhill for my experience with that laptop. It's not just the marketing trash, the OS has gotten noticeably slow despite me keeping it pretty vanilla. It's downright insulting. As for my desktops, I just smoosh over Windows and install Linux over now, I don't care about anything on Windows enough to keep it. I can play all my games on Linux just fine. I can do all my dev stuff on Linux too.

> taking up 99% of a single core while being riddled with security holes.

And don't forget significantly shortening the usable battery life.

Windows 11 and the crapware it typically ships with are all very hard on battery life, and sleep support is unreliable so you can often find significant battery drain even when the machine is supposed to be sleeping.

For me it means that if I'm having to use a Windows laptop (and quite literally thank god that hasn't been true for 2 years now) then I've got to have the power supply and cables with me at all times, and I've got to be somewhere I have a realistic chance of plugging in just in case the worst has happened.

This is my advice anyone asks me about a laptop. The specs don't matter (at least if you're asking me, it means you don't know computers and will mostly just use a web browser, and therefore nearly any specs on the market will be fine) and the things that do matter are just never on a spec sheet -- keyboard, trackpad, speaker, screen quality. Some stuff won't be discovered until years later: for instance I had an Acer laptop in 2007 which was designed with insufficient cooling, and cooked its thermal paste in about a year or two. Once it was cooked, you couldn't play games or do anything intensive without rebooting the machine. I hadn't thought to research that issue since I figured cooling was a solved problem. But, I'm sure Acer saved a few dollars per unit. (and of course, the screen, trackpad, speaker (yes, singular!) and keyboard were all awful as well.)

I recently helped a friend picking a new laptop. Just going through the options at the websites of manufacturers was a nightmare. Huge amount of choices, shitty filtering, separated into multiple product lines were I often enough had no idea what separated the lines from each other

I had a Microsoft surface book 2. The provided charger could not provide enough power to the device when it was under heavy load and there was no higher charger option either. That shit should be illegal. And if the battery for the base/GPU died? You can't use the computer w the gpu even with a charger attached. The device itself could have been a dream and something i could have seen Apple doing : a touchscreen monitor that was also a computer and could be detached from the keyboard/gpu.

> The big players are just awful at marketing; too many SKUs and models - it takes a paragraph to figure out how 2 Dell laptops from the same release year differ. The exact same specs will be in two different chassis designs.

> Additionally, you can’t count on the basic being correct. It takes a hour of research to know if ...

Truer words were never spoken!

I gave up on PCs years ago because of this very reason. The irony is that it is well known from psychology that giving consumers too many choices is actually counter-productive. Most people do not have the time nor the knowledge to research and configure their "perfect" PC. They just know their usecase and want the best for their money.

I had hoped Microsoft Surface series would become the standard in the Windows world (i still have a 1st gen model) but they don't seem to read the market.

As much as I like the performance and the power consumption of the current apple lineaup, the problems is I can not install Linux on the Neo. I can beraly install it on the M1, M2, and M3. And not everything works. If I could install Linux and have everything working, I will buy a Macbook (not a Neo) right away.

> IMO the consumer PC industry is near an existential crisis. The big players are just awful at marketing; too many SKUs and models -

I see your point, but as a counterexample, look at the TV industry, at PC monitors, at washing machines, etc. There manufacturers have, for decades, created SKUs left and right, sometimes only so that a large dealer can offer to match lowest prices because no other dealer has access to the same SKU.

> it takes a paragraph to figure out how 2 Dell laptops from the same release year differ. The exact same specs will be in two different chassis designs.

I don’t know how they do things nowadays, but it used to be the case that the same SKU didn’t even guarantee you the same hardware. Two machines of the same order could even be slightly different, requiring different drivers.

Inarguably one of the great things done by apple is the rather easily overseeable models. And no mattter the processing power in the models you get a rather great experience from the haptics, audio and visual in all of them.

And I would be very much in the Apple Camp for personal laptops, if Gaming was in any way shape or reasonable. Thats the only downside of apple. They tried to fix this before but that really did not work out.

After growing up in eastern Europe it's still wild to see young Americans stupidly demand less choice and more monopolies in their market.

Like seriously, having laptop choice is causing you crippling issues? Is other people having a laptop to choose based on preference causing you distress when you go to Apple store?

To what extent is there still a “consumer PC industry?” You mention Dell; for like a decade I think I’ve only ever seen Dells that were company-issued.

My sense is that consumers spend most of their tech money on phones, tablets, headphones, watches, services. People who really want a laptop get a Mac or Chromebook. Gamers buy / build PCs, for gaming. Linux geeks buy Linux machines for Linuxing.

I’m not saying no one buys PC laptops at consumer retail. I guess I’m just wondering how big that market is anymore after consumer discretionary spending on tech has been hollowed out by the above list.

(I’m sure most people reading this have purchased a laptop. I think the HN audience is a tech outlier compared to most consumers.)

In addition to your research categories - is the fan going to sound like a jet engine when just opening slack? Is the case going to wobble and creak after a few weeks? Is it going to tank performance when unplugged? And if not - is battery life going to be a concern?

> The big players are just awful at marketing; too many SKUs and models - it takes a paragraph to figure out how 2 Dell laptops from the same release year differ.

Yes!! It's awful. I'm a long time Mac user and my wife needs a Windows laptop because of a specific software. I've tried three times to pick a computer for her, but I always give up after 10min and postpone the task...

People may not remember that Apple once had a product lineup like this (before SJ returned) with tons of different model numbers nobody could tell apart.

> Remember Apple in the late '90s? The tech giant was facing significant struggles until Steve Jobs returned and pinpointed the crux: a lack of innovation and focus. Jobs took bold steps to streamline Apple’s bloated product line. He cut down on the excessive range of choices, simplifying the product lineup to focus on quality and innovation. Jobs famously asked his team, "Which ones do I tell my friends to buy?" When he didn’t get a simple answer, he decided to reduce the number of Apple products by 70%. This move included cancelling projects like the Newton digital assistant and focusing on just four key products: the iMac, iBook, Power Macintosh G3, and PowerBook G3.

https://strategeos.com/f/how-your-business-can-focus-on-the-...

In my opinion PC industry is also cooked because of fans. I simply cannot use any recent PC laptop, because the moment you do something it engages fans in the most obnoxious way.

Every time someone turns on their PC laptop next to me, my ears feel assaulted.

My Mac does engage fans from time to time, but I never notice the noise.

This is how I ended up with my first MacBook in >10 years. I'd been a Thinkpad (T series) guy in the early days, the tried a MacBook in 2015... couldn't get used to it and used a Chromebook for the next 8 years. Needed to buy a new laptop in 2023 and ... the entire Windows laptop industry turned me off. Yes, something like System76 is an option, and so is installing Linux on a Windows OEM machine, but then you still have to deal with the hardware. Apple isn't perfect, but MacBooks are consistent and reliable, with minimal telemetry and no advertising or upselling. That's enough for me.

> the OS is full of ads and pre-installed garbage

Running Windows in 2026 is either a mistake, or a sad necessity. Fortunately, unless you need The Right Kind of Excel, you can choose either Linux on a PC (best, IMO), or a Mac.

This... so much this.

> too many SKUs and models - it takes a paragraph to figure out how 2 Dell laptops from the same release year differ.

And yet, I just watched a YouTube video where a "PC guy" was like, "adding the Neo just completely confuses the Apple product line. Are we heading towards having too many Apple options that confuse the buyer here?"

I get it, other than price, the Neo and Air are a bit confusing product wise. Have they looked at how Asus, Lenovo, and Dell are doing their products though? It's absolutely wild the disparity between PC and Apple for laptops.

I run both PC's and Mac devices in our house, we use what fills the job. Recommending PC laptops for family members feels like a total crapshoot though. Every time, I do all I can to find the right device for their needs and there are just so many trade-offs. Maybe I get all the right specs, ensure it doesn't thermal throttle, keyboard/trackpad are A-OK... but the webcam is trash. Ooof... now Mom is complaining about how no one can see her properly at bridge club call.

I brought up how the Neo might do to the PC industry what the Air did to Ultrabooks back in the day. The amount of hate I got on YouTube/Verge with copy-paste, "hahaha, wut, with 8 GB of RAM? lmao, lol, you Apple bot?!" was expected, but also disappointing. There is clearly a market segment happy to continue to put up with the mess that Dell/Lenovo are selling (anything but a Mac).

Wild how tribal we are to our corporate computer overlords.

The era where something like Framework with its fully customizable, repairable, modular laptops becomes the standard can't come soon enough.

For the time being, I'll let Apple/PC continue to duke it out. Hope some competition helps in the long run. :shrug:

> The big players are just awful at marketing

Apple is great at marketing to consumers. The other big players, I have to assume, are more focused on B2B where the threshold for UX acceptability is lower.

The only ads I ever hear from them are on economics podcasts ostensibly aimed at business owners. For "Copilot+ AI PCs" no less, whatever that means. They're chasing a target audience of approximately 3 people in the world that are improbably held back from achieving their wildest AI dreams by not having a commodity laptop with an NPU.

> it takes a paragraph to figure out how 2 Dell laptops from the same release year differ.

Don't forget, one is going to be the "Business" version and the other identical one is going to be the "Consumer" version. God help whoever buys a "business" category laptop for personal use. The world will come to an end!

Is the laptop market even choosy or discerning? Very few people I know would actually understand specs. Especially when you step outside people who majored in fields that require some programming. I assume they must buy laptops, if they still even buy laptops, based on things like yearly sales periods at retailers, since you do see a surprising amount of square footage reserved for laptops to sit open on tables (not just apple's) in places like best buy, costco, target, etc. So there must be buyers. Maybe their comparison only goes as far as whatever bullet points Costco highlights on the price tag I suspect, in a "bigger number is better for the price" sort of way vs understanding a persons own compute needs.

The consumer laptop industry has been dying for a while now IMO. The average person doesn't need a computer. They have a smartphone, and if they need a bit more screen then they have a tablet. If you're a power user or gamer a desktop is preferable.

The secret is to buy a used ThinkPad on eBay. I have two of them. I think the ridiculous MSRP for them combined is $7000 and I paid $1600 in total for a p series and an x1 carbon (3 years old, but essentially new).

These neos are for college and high school students.

For me right now, there are a bunch of Strix Halo unified memory laptops offering 64 to 128GB of unified memory that are the current best value. This will probably spill into next generation (Strix Medusa IIRC).

They're just very versatile and performant, and they're usually very good value. As a big plus you can run very decent models locally.

Framework are among my current top choices. Hearing good things about the Lenovo Yoga Pro 7a as well, and HP rather surprisingly. But there are a bunch of Ryzen AI Max+ 395 based laptops supporting up to 128GB of unified memory, and it looks like you can hardly go wrong with these.

I fully agree.

Ann then try to buy a nice linux compatible laptop. The research period climbs to days. It's ridiculous.

I don't even really mind spending 1500 (well , I do, but if that's what it takes) but 'just buy apple' doesn't work when you want a linux laptop, with apple trying to sabotage running linux on their hardware at every opportunity.

Exactly. PC manufacturers have so many SKUs and are changing so many things from one model to another that their brand doesn't mean anything anymore. Buying a Dell, HP, Lenovo or Asus branded laptop doesn't say anything meaningful about what you're actually going to get. Unlike Apple (or Framework) where the brand still means something.

Not just PC industry!

Feels that way in auto too.

I go to Tesla, Lucid websites. Breath of fresh air. Clear choices.

Porsche website: WTF. (just one example, there are many)

The base model of the MacBook Air is $1099 now. That has 16GB ram and 512gb disk. And it’s a hell of a computer.

The crazy thing is we often cite an Apple Tax, but in this case, I think they actually have a cheaper product.

I bought a $50 ThinkPad last year and put Linux on it.

I'm obviously not the target market, but this seems to me like the "correct" way to use a PC laptop, and solves all the problems you mentioned.

(I don't game though, which seems like the only reason most people get a PC in the first place.)

I'd really love it if the manufacturers would just say what wireless chipset they use in a given model but the unfortunate truth is even they don't always know for a given run

The SKU proliferation is truly awful. I honestly had to use Claude to understand the current landscape for daily driver Windows laptops when I finally needed to replace my old one.

too many SKUs and models - it takes a paragraph to figure out how 2 Dell laptops from the same release year differ.

Same for Apple, especially as you can't upgrade them so if you get a 8gig Nano, you have a 8gig Nano, That's a different SKU than a 16gig Nano. And if you get 16gig Nano with 256gig storage, that's a different SKU than a 16gig Nano with 512gig of storage.

Apple has 48 SKUs at their stores, not included adding in color and custom configurations

> The big players are just awful at marketing; too many SKUs and models

and as far as I know, they do this on purpose!

PC laptops have been dead outside of jobs that give them to you for years.

>IMO the consumer PC industry is near an existential crisis. The big players are just awful at marketing; too many SKUs and models - it takes a paragraph to figure out how 2 Dell laptops from the same release year differ. The exact same specs will be in two different chassis designs.

Existential crisis?

This kind of nonsense has existed for the entire history of the laptop market.

One of the major reasons Apple is a trillion dollar company is they don't sell dozens of versions of their product. When it was a mystery which Dell laptop was the good one (or insert any other brand) you just picked the size of Apple that you wanted and it would be the good one.

The last Dell laptop I bought I really liked... except for the terrible battery life and the fact that the structure was so poor that if you held it at the corner it would force reboot because the circuit board flexed to much and shorted or unplugged something.

Takes 1 hour to open notebookcheck?

Often I don’t purchase anything because I have to sift through a billion different options.

Model identifiers are often unique to specific stores, because they carry laptop configurations made just for them.

Apple, AmazonBasics, and a few others, by contrast, understand the consumer and offer a very limited—though often configurable—selection.

A very important point is the RAM and flash shortage. With their humongous volumes, Apple is certainly a member of the happy few with preferential contracts with guaranteed volumes and prices. No other PC maker can remotely compete with Apple on volumes, and now they'll get their already thin margins crushed even more.

In the past Apple had constantly sold high-margin products and grabbed 70 to 80% of the whole industry's margins. Now they're coming for the rest !

It's a false comparison, because you are aggregating hardware and OS vendors in the same category while Apple is actually the one doing both.

It gets worse when you look at Intel/AMD's CPU naming schemes. Ryzen AI 9 HX 370, Intel Core Ultra 9 285H. Clown show all around.

If you ask me, all web devs should be forced to work on 4 Gb machines.

This way you'll be able to run more than one "web app" at the same time on your devices.

> It might be worthwhile to ensure that a web app you're developing will work on a less powerful machine

If that’s your goal this machine is still too powerful. Web apps generally care about single thread performance. The machine has a single thread performance that exceeds any and all Intel/AMD processors, according to Geekbench (A18 Pro: 3445; Ryzen 9 9950X: 3385). My own test for ensuring my web app performs well involves a machine less than half as fast, and my web app runs with all assertions turned on.

The CPU is capable. The 8GB of RAM not so much. If this had even just the 12GB of the A19 Pro that'd be a huge upgrade. Unless the RAM shortage gets developers to actually start giving a shit about RAM efficiency, but that seems unlikely to happen honestly.

Especially not when a certified macbook air refurb straight from Apple isn't that much more if you're not able to get the $500 EDU pricing on the Neo. $850 gets you a 16GB RAM / 512GB M4 Air, which is significantly better than the $700 Neo in every way.

There are multiple videos out there of reviewers running multiple “Pro” apps at the same time on the Neo. It’s an impressive machine.

As Marques Brownlee (MKBHD) mentioned in his review, the Neo has the same keyboard as Apple's MacBook Pro line, just without backlighting. That makes them really good for writing and potentially coding on the go.

I can definitely see why the Asus CEO would want to put it in that box, though.

I have a macbook pro m1 with 8gb ram and it has been surprisingly good for all kinds of work. And I've had it since about 2020.

Content consumption definitely seems like the wrong term, it seems perfectly cromulent for let's say a college student, or an executive.

It’s not even a less powerful device. It has the same performance as the M1, which is still a beast.

(We've since merged the threads, but the pcmag.com link is in the toptext above)

[flagged]

There is a ton of fascinating work to make the "software" camera in use indicator just as secure if not more secure than an LED attached to the power lines of the camera. Apple hasn't publicly talked about it much but here are two sources that aren't terrible.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.09272 https://randomaugustine.medium.com/on-apple-exclaves-d683a2c... https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/19/on-apple-exclav...

We've seen a few examples on HN lately (Coruna iOS Exploit Kit) of nation state level exploits in the hands of financially motivated organizations. I'm not free of bias here but the industry is quickly headed towards a reckoning in terms of security over the next few years.

It's possible that they use the camera to measure room brightness

https://support.apple.com/guide/security/mac-on-screen-camer... > MacBook Neo combines system software and dedicated silicon elements within A18 Pro to provide additional security for the camera feed. The architecture is designed to prevent any untrusted software—even with root or kernel privileges in macOS—from engaging the camera without also visibly lighting the on-screen camera indicator light.

Huh. I hadn't digested the iphone indicator was also software based only.

But it's not like hardware indicators are foolprof, even apple has suffered hardware based circunvent via firmware: https://appleinsider.com/articles/13/12/18/researchers-find-...

I guess for Neos it's back to the good old postit.

Arguably with SIP a hardware indicator light is not strictly necessary, the OS could force the indicator pixels to be lit.

That's going to be a problem for the education market though.

I have a macbook air from 2022 and it is easily the "best" computer I have ever owned.

Its portable. It has a great keyboard, screen, and battery life. No fans or overheating. No issues with the operating system or installing software I need.

I can even use it for some lighter software development directly, and for everything else I can ssh back to a beefier machine.

If I weren't already so happy with this macbook air, I would be ecstatic for the neo.

Same. Equally comfortable on Windows, Mac and Linux. But almost almost all new hardware choices for the last 25 plus years have been mostly from Apple. The old Macs don't really die, even as I replace them with faster models, so my house is slowly becoming an Apple/Mac museum, starting with a Mac 512k, Mac CI and Mac LC, and so on, right down to a trash can Mac in the mix, and then to M series Macs. All CPU generations from Apple: 6502 (Apple ][), 68000, 68040 (NeXT) PPC, ARM (Newton, iDevices), Intel and M series. Can't get myself to throw/give/sell them away.

Coming to terms with two uncomfortable truths: I'm a hoarder, and an unapologetically incorrigible Apple fanboi.

Agreed, macOS has hardly improved in the past decade. The only improvements are about ecosystem integration, which I don't really care about. Everything else is stuck in the 2010s. UI has regressed if you ask me.

Haven’t HN users been warning that Apple was going to turn the Mac into a wall garden since the Mac App Store was introduced in 2009?

Same here, MacBooks are decent hardware but nowhere near so superior as to justify all the downsides and increasingly dark patterns Apple has been pushing left and right.

> MacOS is also very behind Linux these days in terms of app compatibility (especially games).

For the average consumer looking for a $599 MacBook Neo, Mac is the better choice for apps they actually use.

Linux can be used for gaming with a lot of titles, but both Mac and Linux are too far behind Windows or consoles to be considered as gaming machines.

Its a shame there isn't more goodwill for some companies to bankroll a project like asahi linux. Keeping up with reverse engineering apple silicon seems like a very large task.

MacOS is a bug filled nightmare, and it's still light years better than Windows. I haven't used Ubuntu extensively since early 2019, but it still wasn't comparable to OSX at the time.

Apple and specifically MacOS is significantly worse than it has ever been, but again, still far better than the alternatives.

As a developer, MacOS is super reliable to me. I love Linux, but there are always somethings not working, which drive me crazy.

I buy a macbook for the hardware and tolerate macos. I mostly do terminal stuff so i can largely avoid it.

Linux compatibility would be sweet, but Apple has no incentive.

Hopefully this product gives other companies the kick in the pants they need to improve their hardware.

Though they still haven’t been able to complete that well against the Air and Pro, so seems unlikely they will adapt well to this either.

How do you reconcile the fact that that Apple will sell millions of these devices without a compatible Linux distribution shipping for years if ever with your claim about it being DOA?

Like sure it’s DOA to you, but in what world does that really matter when it’s going to sell so well?

Most consumers don't use Linux, and MacOS is far ahead of Windows IMO -- and I use all three OSs (and have for 30 years)

I disagree that the software leaves to be desired

Just an example, I'll take Apple's Office suite (Pages, etc.) over MS Office any day - or LibreOffice.

for 99% of consumers, the question is windows vs. macOS, and that's all there is to it. Between the two on a budget-price laptop, it's no competition.

> it is the software that leaves to be desired

That is how I had interpreted "And certainly not software quality" - that the PC not only competes but crushes the Mac.

I fully agree. My use case sees a fairly intensive use of MacOS, Linux and Windows, and out of all these, MacOS is the worst experience for me, and that's saying a lot when I prefer to use Windows 11 over MacOS.

Macs have very strong advantages but the software, the OS is absolutely infuriating. There's so many annoyances over regular use. You can remedy some of them with third party software (which should have been just system settings), but not all, and by the way some of these cost money for stupidly basic settings.

Finally and probably most painful, is Apple's constant push to update your software stack and things just stop working, and they expect you to keep chasing their decisions. You can't really build anything for Apple that's meant to last. It's exhausting. Meanwhile Windows can run programs from 30 years ago and Linux has extremely efficient, beautifully implemented software from all eras probably already installed in your Distro.

The software is fine. I've been using macs for over 20 years, currently running an M2 with Sequoia 15.7.3 and haven't had any issues. I can't remember the last time I had any OS issue with an Apple machine. Sure, their Music app is terrible, but the OS is just fine.

Sorry but if "Switch to Linux" is a valid suggestion, then you most likely aren't talking to someone the Neo is marketed to. As good as Linux is, non technical people still should not switch to it. It needs to be MacOS or Windows.

I think the thing is "MacOS" itself hasn't really been evolved for some time - what has been happening is taking iOS ideas and concepts and porting them back.

I think that's ended up with a bit of a mess.

Yeah. There are a couple of Apple devices in the house and it's the software that causes me the most grief. The only thing worse is a Chromebook.

Is 2026 the year of the linux desktop?

Can I update video drivers in Linux without seeing a console? OS X updates them automatically where it's a non-issue.

> I won't be buying a Neo before a compatible Linux distro is confirmed.

You mean confirmed by Apple? I think that seems unlikely

I don't know about this, MacOS for productivity is still better performing than Windows.

Both Apple and Microsoft have been pushing the industry into directions we aren't happy with. But MacOS is still fantastic and in this laptop will work extremely well.

People also aren't buying this laptop to play any games that require decent power.

all of my normal pcs served me well for many many years. They don't get slower naturally, it was windows getting ever more bloated. I put linux on an 8 year old computer and it just flies again

> Their entry level Macbook before the Neo you could buy and it would be a laptop that would see you for many many years.

I hope they fixed the ultra brittle screens of their Macbook lineup. I bought a MacBook Air M1 a few years ago and I've been royally pissed off when, after 13 months (one month out of warrant in my case/country) the "bendgate" hit me: the screen died overnight, without any reason (was fine the day before, woke up: screen dead. MacBook Air didn't move). Many people had the same happen to them and they called this the "bendgate" (except there was no "bend").

This prevented me from buying a MacBook M2, M3, M4 and now M5.

Well... Unless I can be convinced that this time the screen isn't going to die overnight.

Saddest thing of them all: I'm the kind of person to only ever use the laptop at home on my lap and never ever put it in a backpack (I don't even own a backpack).

2016-2019 was an awful blip but otherwise I agree

Windows 11 has 1 Billion+ installs. That's not a decline and hardly a crisis. That's a huge install base.

There is no way all these corporations will change their infrastructure. Nearly impossible.

Yeah I got one from work. I was quite excited to get one as macos is supposed to be a paragon of design but after using it I'm so glad I didn't spend my own money on it as it's been a total disappointment. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't want to launch it off the roof.

> But you’re stuck with MacOS

I believe this is the whole reason this device exists. Apple saw Windows 11 fiasco and decided to push MacOS to low-end computer market.

I generally run chrome/firefox and vscode full screen, and then alt-tab between those and my email (outlook at current company) and messaging (slack). Plus terminal window/s. That workflow is mostly reproducible across win/mac/linux. What features are you using that MacOS is getting in the way?

For now. These will be pretty cool Linux machines if Asahi starts supporting them at some point.

From work, I have a Thinkpad X1 gen 13 and it's awesome. Super lightweight, and great power. But, when I tried Linux a few months ago its hardware was still too bleeding edge. Things may be better with kernel v7 on the way. I like the Gram as a personal device so may I know what model Gram you have?

macOS pre-26 was great. I'm on Sequoia, and it's… fine?

I really, really hope Apple fixes liquid glAss with macOS 27, especially now that Alan Dye left.

I think assuming that this is a disposable, non-serviceable machine is a bit premature. Yes the RAM and SSD are soldered to the mainboard, but otherwise it looks like this might be Apple's most serviceable computer in a long time.

https://www.macrumors.com/2026/03/12/macbook-neo-six-minute-...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5k7Lv7f-5CQ

Non-expandable is a fair criticism. I think 8GB would be a bit constraining for a CS student but will be fine for many others.

It's definitely a product for the middle class, not the poor ("broke students" vs "mom bought me this laptop").

The distinction is a lot of (most?) Apple products are _expensive_ for middle class buyers, while this represents good value.

If it's well designed and robust, it might be a great machine to buy second hand in 3-5 years.

> laptop for a computer science student ... most likely outgrow 8 GB RAM faster than laptop CPU

A couple years ago I would have agreed with you. Today I'm not sure how reasonable it is to try to future-proof via expandable RAM. Imagine a hypothetical point a few years in the future where RAM factories have ramped up production and manufacturers are pumping out laptops with 512 GB RAM to enable running local LLM. You couldn't expand a current laptop to have enough RAM if you wanted to, so I'm not sure how reasonable it is to try to prepare for that future.

They already cannibalized a lot of Linux users, developers mainly when they released MacOS X around year 2000.

Suddenly you could have a Unix, with pretty much the same CLI as Linux but without all the supported hardware/driver issues. Laptop sleep in particular was pretty finicky.

If MacOS didn't pick a Unix/BSD base, I'm pretty sure all the tech companies running Mac would be on Linux.

Apple wants to make money with services, however, and buying more devices in their ecosystem. Full Linux support would counteract the lock-in.

If apple came out with their own linux distro, with open drivers and a mainline kernel... A girl can dream!

You really overestimate how many people care about Linux …

Don't need to imagine, it did not take off, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MkLinux

> Reception was mixed, focusing on the difficult installation process and the significant performance costs of the Mach kernel. Reviewers noted its potential as a "Unix killer", but that it required users to abandon the user-friendly Macintosh experience for a pure Linux environment.

The keyboard issue was probably caused by the battery, which can be replaced, and the keyboard would have likely returned to normal after the battery replacement.

In fact, depending on the model, the battery replacement may well have also entailed replacing the whole top cover (including the keyboard).

[flagged]

> Apple has been delivering way cheaper laptops ever since M1

I wouldn’t "way cheaper".

A baseline Neo with 256GB SSD is $599 vs the first M1 MacBook Air with 256GB SSD was $999 ($1,251.09 in 2026 dollars)

A Neo with 512GB SSD is $699 vs the M1 MacBook Air with 512GB SSD was $1249--that's $1,568.38 in 2026 dollars.

So this is a big deal; the Neo is the first Apple Silicon MacBook where the starting price is less than $999.

This product effectively cuts the entry price for a new model Mac laptop in half. The cheapest current-generation MacBook has been $999 or above for a very long time, even back to the iBook days.

Yes, Apple has offered discounted prices by continuing to sell older models or offer straight discount sales via third party retailers. But I expect that will continue here too. This is $599 MSRP at Apple but will probably be $499 via the usual retailers by the end of 2026.

That's a bit different than continuing to sell a 5-year-old model at a discount.

I still remember how Apple fans run around singing praises what their 8GB M1 absolutely kicked ass of Intel Macs with 16GB (and even more). Only to quietly replace them with a model with more RAM next year or some even way earlier than that.

I can open even 500 apps on any laptop. This is what swap for. But with only 8GB you are getting into the swap territory very fast because you need almost half of it for the OS and video memory.

Eg: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47272996

And here I am on my M2 w/ 24GB RAM and a couple of RAW 48MP photos will bog the system down.

And if Time Machine kicks in, there goes any form of performance since Apple can't seem to figure out what a 'background task' is.

Is swapping more efficient on Apple machines thana Wintel running Linux?

I wonder how long those flash chips can survive with the OS swapping 24/7.

Hardware is hard, and Apple's scale lets them make things that are nice while still maintaining their margins.

A decade ago, but still relevant: https://beneinstein.com/no-you-cant-manufacture-that-like-ap...

More importantly, they need to find an alternative to Windows. A $10,000 computer wouldn't fix that dogshit.

I thought I was so clever for buying one of those things for like $190 and putting Lubuntu on it to make it usable. It worked - but the joke was still on me when it died a year later.

Oh i had one of those! The acer aspire one d250, with 1gb ram and 160gb of spinning rust.

Once i got Debian, fluxbox and emacs on it i was able to do java development (with ant and the j2me toolkit).

It was no big issue at all really, once you got linux on it.

I must say, however: the web was much lighter back in the day and electron was still to be conceived. That’s very relevant.

I used have a netbook as a second personal device around 2013 and loved it. Very easy to carry around and work on the go, and it could do everything except development work (web browsing, Word, Excel). I actually miss the form factor.

This is pretty much a repackaged M1 air from 2020, so it’s a competent machine

> 600 might seem budget, but it's out of budget for most people.

Out of budget for my parents but I'll pay the difference myself. It's just painful to see them use their pile of shit $300 laptop that can barely open a text editor, sounds like a jet engine and has about 45 minutes of battery life.

The only haptic feedback they get if the entire fucking thing creaking as soon as you lightly touch it.

They've been through at least 5 of them since I bought my 2015 mbp, which is still working fine in every aspects

The thing about "switching" is you just need to capture the next generation. Kids who have an iPhone 17e. Then go off to college.

The last time certain family members asked me for a computer recommendation, I gave them a detailed breakdown of which MacBook they could get to meet their lightweight needs for the next decade. They thanked me, agreed, went to Best Buy, and came back with the laptop that the salesperson convinced them was better "because he knows computers". It was an utter piece of crap and they've had nothing but problems with it.[0]

Had this existed when they were shopping, I would've just asked what color they wanted it in, ordered it for them, and been done with it.

[0] OTOH, that got me out of all future tech support duties. "Hey, why can't I connect our new printer to it?" "I'm not sure. Does that Best Buy expert still work there? He might have some suggestions." (Phrased more politely IRL because I'm not a monster, but the intent was there.)

My dad the other month, in need of a computer with webcam and ideally portable, bought some $400-500 HP 17" laptop. He was so proud of it, proud of buying a piece of hardware without asking me, and rather than tell him the truth, I nodded and said "yeah this is neat".

The monitor is awful. Like, the horrible way it changes color and brightness depending on exact viewing angle is sickening; I am shocked California hasn't declared it illegal. It feels cheap, keyboard is cheap, who knows what the battery life is.

If the Apple Neo were available then, and he had asked what to buy, I would have instantly told him to get one.

you might be underestimating how much lifting the apple logo on the lid will do for this laptop. If it advertises the whole apple ecosystem thing well, then those people who already have iPhones, AirPods etc they would be very very compelled to go with this versus an Acer or a Lenovo

"We need to put Copilot into more places!" - Satya Nadella most likely

I've yet to meet anyone who wants AI added to anything. If they released a version of windows+office tomorrow that was "guaranteed free of AI" it would be their top seller

Needs more javascript for native functions in the OS.

Anyone who knows what any of that means, or even to looks at those specs, are not in the market for this and should know better.

Why do you think the cheapest MacBook available should be one that costs more to support power users. Apple has the MacBook Air for those users.

Note that 8GB of ram on a Mac plays out a lot more different than 8GB on a PC.

I work professionally on a Macbook Air 16GB now and I have quite a few docker images and services running bare metal, + browser, vscode etc. on top. Not a problem until I start loading up some LLMs.

The paging works wonderfully well; an advantage of everything being fused.

If anything, I'm much more bound by the CPU limitations and the eco-cores than the memory.

On a PC, I wouldn't think about less than 32GB for a dev pc.

If I had a fulltime gig programming C, I'd even say I could work on this A14 8GB device. Why not? It's as powerful as a 10 year old powerful machine; probably. Or in that ballpark.

I can't be the only one who remembers the celebration 18 months ago when Apple finally stopped selling Macs with 8GB of memory... only for 8GB to suddenly be excused again when the Neo arrived. Perhaps it's not the same people but the general vibe is giving me whiplash.

I've had an 8GB M1 since they came out and had almost no problems with memory shortage. The only thing is Firefox sometimes gets in a loop and takes up 20GB+ doing nothing much and you have to close it but that's not really the laptop's fault. You can have programs use >8GB because it swaps to the SSD very well.

Eastern europe here. At mobile operator that offers laptops for 2 year no interest loans. The only laptops that are cheaper than Neo are essentially atom garbage with crappy screens. And those that cost about the same are also 8gb ones.

Portrait or landscape - if your use is dominated by looking at the screen and/or situations where it can't set it down (to use the KB), then the iPad is better.

Assuming the software you need supports iPad, etc.

I had a similar view, then I realized I was not the target user. My kids love playing Minecraft on the iPad. Great little device for entertainment.

USB-C PD (power delivery) has been a standard for over a decade now. I first used it on a Nexus 4 or 5, and later on a Chromebook Pixel in 2016. It would be surprising for apple to not use that standard, particularly when both ports are probably run from the same controller.

I think that makes it a non-standard implementation though (I agree it's certainly more practical for the user), sounds like it's usb-c pd but with nerfed data, an odd choice that feels like it would actually have cost more to develop than just adding two identical usb-c 3.x ports...

> That means you can charge and use the fast usb port at the same time.

For some use cases, you can do that with a single USB port, too. For example, a single USB cable connected to a monitor can both send video and charge the laptop.

>The legacy PC makers are lucky that Ubuntu doesn’t work on this

If Linux would be able to be installed and fully working on this out of the box, then the laptop wouldn't cost 600 dollars. Apple profits from monetizing people tied to its iOS+MacOS ecosystem. If you're not gonna be a MacOS/iOS user, you're worthless to them and selling you a laptop for only 600 dollars is not good for business anymore.

The indicators are controlled along with sensor access at a very low level within a secure “exclave” from the main kernel; this is how the on-screen indicators have worked on iPhones for a few years. The indicator is rendered within the display controller at the firmware level, so can’t be affected by anything in _either_ user mode or kernel mode. [1][2]

1: https://randomaugustine.medium.com/on-apple-exclaves-d683a2c...

2: https://asahilinux.org/2021/08/progress-report-august-2021/#...

>(then the M1 wins handily).

How do you came to this conclusion when both are passingly cooled and A19 Pro is faster. Not to mention AV1 and other newer codec hardware accelerator and NPU / GPU improvements.

Also remember M1 MBA is may be Walmart and US only. Around the world most dont even get a chance to buy M1 at $599. The display dont have P3 but is actually brighter than M1 400 nits. Not sure how Keyboard is worse. Neo also have 1080P webcam rather than 720P.

And if Walmart is selling M1 at $599, I am sure they will also sell Neo at lower than RSP may be even same as educational discount $499. And this point surely Neo would win?

What a lot of people dont talk about, and may be wait until iFixit to confirm. Neo is basically the iPhone 17 of MacBook. It is perhaps the easiest to repair and cheapest MacBook for Apple to services.

Neo has ~5 more years of support, is not US specific from a specific store,comes at $100 off for students (which is a primary target for the product), and many of the things you say are worse often are a balance of tradeoffs in many ways (e.g. the screen on the Neo is definitely brighter).

I had an M1 MacBook Air and just set a Neo up for my niece. If I had to pick between the two for myself I'd choose the Neo again.

Even cheaper if you buy from Walmart's refurb outlet, they are $380.

The Walmart M1 only exists in one country.

For me the longer software support would play a role in my decisions. The M1 MBA will probably lose support in 4-5 years whereas the Neo has a longer road ahead.

Combine that with the enormously improved single core performance (which matters more in the real world than sustained load for an entry level notebook), fun colors and 499 price tag for students and I can see the interest.

The screen is good compared to the MBA (only loses P3 colors) but the bummer seems to be ports and the "normal" trackpad.

Why compare the M1 MBA discounted at Walmart but not give the same edu discount to the Neo? The target audience for Neo is likely people who would be able to use the edu discount.

I know many people who would not care about the differences you have outlined and gladly pay $499 for the Neo.

I can’t find where Apple really explains how it works.

People keep calling this "a phone chip" when M1 was literally "a phone chip" to begin with, based on A14. It's entirely reasonable that in 4 generations of "phone chips", the A18 reaches the speed that M1 did during its "one-generation" rework.

Why do you need to wonder about this? We've had mechanical trackpads for ages to compare them to. They feel worse. Getting even click pressure across a large surface is nearly impossible.

Given that the 12” MacBook cost $1300 back then, that new MacBook would be triple the cost, or around $1800 today. Still worth it?

yeah, I expect they use the camera as a make-shift ambient light-sensor, just with a lower frequency than a illumination sensor would be used (due to power consumption impact), and with overall lower accuracy (lower dynamic range, reduced FoV, very bad accuracy in low-light/bright conditions,...).

This pretty much matches the described experience in the article that Gruber had, as he mentions he had to adjust brightness up and down at least twice every day...

If you ever try a mac laptop - there is simply no way back. I've got top tier Lenovo and Dell - the build quality is just incomparable. And that is sad. They may have edge on separate components - e.g. a gorgeous screen,but not the combination of it all.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224

Welcome to being old. Inflation is cumulatively 40% since 2013.

I think what you're describing is vertical integration rather than the walled garden specifically. The walled garden is the App Store restrictions, iMessage lock-in, that kind of thing. What made the Neo possible is that Apple controls the silicon, the OS, the firmware, and the industrial design as a single unit. They could put a phone chip in a laptop form factor and have it feel coherent because there's no seam between the hardware and software teams.

The distinction matters because it changes what the lesson is for the rest of the industry. You don't need a walled garden to compete here. You need to own enough of the stack that you can make aggressive tradeoffs (like shipping 8GB and an A18 Pro) without everything falling apart at the integration boundaries. Microsoft can't do that because they don't make the hardware. Dell and Lenovo can't do that because they don't make the OS. Qualcomm can't do that because they don't control the software ecosystem.

The one company that could theoretically pull this off is Google with ChromeOS on their own Tensor chips, and the fact that they haven't is probably the more interesting question than why Asus is shocked.

> I doubt Microsoft is holding developers hands when transitioning to Arm the way that Apple does.

While this is key it has nothing to do with the walled garden approach, and everything to do with Microsoft's contempt for users of its platforms.

likewise - surprised someone hasn't tried to run docker on it yet and reported success/failure.

>I'd love to see a consortium of computer makers come together to refine a Linux distro that's consumer-friendly enough to oust Windows and compete with Mac OS.

System 76 already has Pop!_OS. Lenovo.com/linux will redirect you to a list of linux compatible lenovo laptops that's a mile long.

Dell has been pushing Linux for like 20 years? I don't remember which distro, probably fedora or ubuntu...

I used both my thinkpads for 8+ years, generating $$$ for me. Build quality matters a lot when it comes to longevity, thinkpads were great at it decades ago. I would expect the same from MacBooks nowadays (I also had an M1 Pro Max from a former employer).

More of a testament to Apple device longevity.

Someone didn’t read the “There is something rotten in Cupertino” article that caused Apple not only to not make an executive available for his post WWDC podcast for the first time in a decade or how he continuously criticizes Tim Cook kissing Trump’s ass.

He has also been a continuous critic of Apple’s App Store policies and its handling of regulators

the average user could probably do most of their computing on a $150 cell phone and a raspberry pi 4.

gaming is a different beast, but there are xboxes, ps5s, steam boxen, etc.

electron...

"- yeah I have a macbook" "- what, an air?" "- no a macbook" "- ..?" "- the one in colors, not the one-port 12 inch one from 2015 but you know it just released!"

This already happened in 2015, they probably don't want for it to happen again.

To stop comparison to the old 12” 1 port MacBook?

If you were to align the MacBook line with iPhone line logically this would be an ‘e’ class device, the Air would just become the MacBook, pro remains pro, and there would be a nice gap for a new ultra light MacBook Air, a modern Apple silicon version of the 12” MacBook - expensive, small and fast, analogous to iPhone Air.

Also new names are fun. This name is a fun name. Nice to see some playfulness from Apple.

It might be helpful to have a modifier on all the models. It's a bit awkward (not that the naming geniuses at Apple have ever cared about how awkward it's to talk about their products, witness "Apple Watch Edition" and Max Macs) to talk about iPads, because one of them lacks a modifier. "Which iPad" "The iPad iPad", etc.

Because it's the new Macbook.

Mac Neo

It is also a critical part of watchOS.

I am still sad that they stopped putting it into iPhone, I think the tech is great and the watch really proves what can be done with it when it is a fundamental part of the hardware and the OS can be built around it. But we never had a situation that every compatible iPhone had force touch so everything that could be done with it had to work in other ways.

I think the iPad made that even more complicated since I doubt we would have ever gotten it on a screen that large, if it would have even worked.

As far as it being on the trackpad, it is honestly pretty wild when you realize it. It does an incredible job of faking feeling like it is actually moving. Was similar with the fake home button that some iPhone’s had for a little while.

That thing started at $1300 and had a dog slow Intel processor. I bet that the Neo outsells it by at least 20x

Sadly, "nail in coffin" is an exaggeration. Though the press would be throwing that phrase around. With plenty of dire-sounding quotes from cheap PC manufacturers.

Limiting cannibalization wouldn't be hard. Just load up a Neo, a 13" Air, and a 15" Air on the Apple web store's Compare page - a 15" or 16" Neo would be the "obviously lesser" laptop by 90% of the metrics.

My bet is that Apple has prototypes of the larger variant, and is waiting to see how the situation develops.

The manufacturers don't care about display quality, because displays are hard and expensive. Apple has enough volume that they can get a custom panel.

Users on the other hand, they definitely care about display quality more than they care about RAM. The display is the part you look at!

If you're in store and there's a Neo with a crisp 200 PPI screen and a Windows laptop with a cheap screen but more RAM, the vast majority of consumers will choose the laptop with the better display. People make purchasing decisions based on feels and the Neo has great feels.

>And I don't see why we should artificially exclude ARM PC laptops from the comparison.

As an ARM enthusiast who has tried a lot of WinARM, I think at this point I really struggle to believe MS has a single care in the world for improving quality of life for WinARM users. They sure do market it, and the laptops do work most of the time. I've just never had any other computers shit the bed when it comes to graphics drivers like a Qualcomm powered PC. Website with too many video/gifs playing? Screen whites out/all the video boxes go pink and explorer resets. Open up the gif search in Discord? Basically a coin flip chance its going to kill the graphics driver and reset explorer again. I had a Dell Inspiron with the Qualcomm 8CX Gen2 that could reliably be crashed just by quickly scrolling twitter on a video posting heavy day.

I would rather take a Mediatek powered Chromebook any other day until the Neo showed up and started to approach the sub $500 ARM chromebook price point.

I also am not a huge fan of the 256GB storage, but if someone doesn’t already know what ram is, they really won’t care and won’t notice much. I’m a tech guy. I bought an M1 air with 256GB storage and 8GB RAM. I was able to do development and mobile development fine. I never encountered RAM related slowdowns. I have an iCloud subscription because I don’t want to manage my own NAS. This is a heavier use case than what, say, a normal college student will do with it, and it worked just fine for me. This is by far the best laptop I have seen in this bracket. If I was just heading to college today, and I didn’t have the money for a Pro or Air, I would 100% get this far before a windows laptop.

Given you only have 8gb of RAM to share between MacOS and the Windows VM, running a Windows 11 VM in Parallels is not a great usecase for this machine.

It‘s capable enough not to be viewed as a Thin Client. Nor do I think many people want one.

Why would it be the end of traditional home PCs? If you can buy this much compute power for $600, who would pay a subscription for another computer?

Nor an Asus C101:

RK3399 6-core ARM v8, Mali-T864 GPU, 1.9lb aluminum body, 10" IPS multitouch display, USB-C, compact chicklet-style keyboard -- or since it's a 2-in-1, flip it around and use your own portable ergo/ortholinear. coreboot/libreboot support...

Bring out a refresh, Asus.

https://www.asus.com/us/laptops/for-home/chromebook/asus-chr...

When it lasts 5 to 10 years. I’m still using my 2020 MacBook Pro, and figure I’ll get another half decade out of it. That’s <$200/year. The Neo could be a <$100/year laptop, which puts it in the same class as $200 shitbooks that crap out after two or three years.

Would you be surprised if I told you that $600 is slightly under 11 days of the average rent [0]?

0 - https://www.rentcafe.com/average-rent-market-trends/us/

I tell anyone spending less than that not to waste their money, and to get refurb instead.

It's $370 in 2006 dollars.

anyone can buy it for $500 using the education store

For existing Mac owners.

Recently after another round of 30-40% inflation.

esim has you covered.

I don't think it's a useful distinction. I wouldn't describe my car as "really a vacuum cleaner", despite them both having an electric motor.

The form factor is the defining characteristic, because that informs how people use it. The CPU does not.

The iPad has a touchscreen, supports Apple Pencil, etc. but the observation that the iPad has been Apple's "budget" computing platform for a while is spot on. It is interesting that they have reformulated it into a Mac laptop (and also that A-series iPhone chips offer M1-class performance.)

Fortunately/unfortunately for Apple, the M1 MacBook Air from 2020 is still a great laptop.

Really an iPad running MacOS instead of iOS, with a built-in keyboard and touchpad, without a touch screen, multiple ports.

In other words, indistinguishable from a laptop by virtually everyone. I don't even know what difference you might be referring to.

MKBHD said it best: If you're looking at the reviews of the product on tech youtube channels or tech news sites - it's not the laptop for you.

As for your comparisons: My aunt doesn't need a terabyte of storage or a Ryzen 7 5700U, she needs 15+ hours of battery life because the laptop is going to live next to her spot on the couch and she most likely can't remember to plug it in every night.

Also the first laptop is from a reputable brand called NIAKUN. They must have amazing customer service and unbeatable warranties, right? =) And they certainly will exist in 12 months when you go look for the brand on Amazon and won't be replaced by another random set of letters in all caps selling the exact same product?

The HP is on sale, it's MSRP is $699 and for some weird fucking reason has the numpad on it, making the whole keyboard wonky. Who wants that on a laptop?

And the final thing, as with all price-forward comparisons: build quality. We need an objective standard measurement for chassis and keyboard flex, the ability to open the lid with one finger, the amount of creaking and squeaking said laptop will do in normal use and how hot and loud it gets in your lap when doing light browsing.

Ah the classic NIAKUN, what we expect from brand name quality: awesome keyboard layout (love a number pad that smashes into the arrow keys), great resolution (1920x1080 so good for 2026!). I'm sure the speakers are state of the art for the form factor, gets amazing battery life (love me max 4-5 hrs on moderate usage), and of course can't forget the plastic body.

I'm sure a similar story can be said about the HP.

If you didn't detect the sarcasm, a laptop is much more than cpu, memory, and storage; it'd be short-sighted to only fixate on this trio. PC laptops compromise on pretty much everything and usually do everything poorly, including CPU (since apple silicon Macs are much better performance per watt).

Then there's the whole aspect of Apple support for both hardware AND software, something no PC vendor can provide.

Single thread performance on the Neo (important to web browsing) is literally 2-3 times faster than those laptops

> ...at this price point there are plenty of alternatives for laptops with better performance and specs.

Laughable. Seriously, how long has it been since the M1 Air dropped? And we're still this clueless?

> For example, you can get a 15.6" Ryzen 7 5700U laptop with 32GB RAM and a 1TB SSD for less than the “unbeatable” price of the Neo:

Awesome spec dump. Now, what's the real life usage battery life of that laptop like? Oh? Yeah, thought so.

Nobody buys a list of specs, they buy a set of capabilities. And the Neo is capable of supporting normal usage for 12h+ on battery. Go ahead and link me some alternative laptops that can do that, with comparable performance of course — which is on par or better than the original M1 Air mind you.

Killer move by Apple, and I'm shocked there's still so much ignorance around.

> It’s far less capable of running intensive tasks

The latest reviews are showing that's not really the case

I would take 8x worse specs for the computer to be built by Apple because it's guaranteed to be 2x faster and a 10x better user experience. Raw specs are meaningless.

I would ask the opposite. For years now for most of my family even a Raspberry Pi 3B+ 3ould be enough. 95% of people use their machine to run a web browser, that easily ran on hardware that was old 20 years ago.

> It’s far less capable of running intensive tasks than any of Apple’s M‑series chips or any moderately powered Intel or AMD processor.”

This is false. The A18 Pro has much better single core performance than the M1 and slightly better multi core performance. Most people would see no noticeable benefit to a faster CPU. Especially with a fanless design, the additional cores of a comparable M-series chip would give you better burst performance for some workloads, but possibly not much improvement in sustained performance.

Your amazon links are broken. But I think you're missing the point of this thing. This isn't for people that really even care about performance. It's for people that want a laptop that works with their iPhone, does all the things their school needs them to do in a browser, and doesn't come with a complete dogsh*t OS, and isn't of dubious quality like an HP or a "NIAKUN", whatever that is.

Now the color options, that's a tragedy.

Total cost of ownership.

I’d give my entire family these ahead of Windows laptops any day.

> 15.6"

eww

That's interesting. In my country ThinkPad E14 16/512 is 37% more expensive and comes with garbage 60% srgb screen. It's actually more expensive than MacBook air M4 16/512.

does the ~$400 consumer PC market -- which is what theyre aiming at -- need multiple external displays?

my mom might need a 2nd monitor, but probably not. that's who they're chasing.

my crappy business dell work computer can only do one too, but it comes with a docking station to do real multi-monitor

So what $599 Windows laptop are you using with multiple external displays?

Here’s a teardown:

https://youtu.be/5k7Lv7f-5CQ

Planning beyond the next quarter? That’s a rare level of foresight for most.

“Average” build quality? All the reviews I’ve seen rage about the build quality of the Neo

As much as I like the form factor and price point of the MB Neo, I just can't accept a computer that needs to phone home when reinstalling the (one approved) OS.

Bought yet another second hand 11" MBA instead. Now looking at SMT soldering equipmemt for doing ipgrades and repairs.

Here is a video of a user who opens up every single program on the Mac, including a video editor and edits 4k video at full resolution with no sluggishness. Care to reevaluate your opinion?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-VOt9559Gk

> Even non-technical web browsing users will notice the sluggishness coming from that spec.

I'm sorry but this line invalidates most of your comment, to the point of looking like satire.

We have reviews and videos of people editing 4k videos with glee, launching and switching between all apps at once, and stuff like that.

I used the base M1 as a power user/developer for years when it came out, and the only reason I had to switch was the storage. Sluggishness wasn't on the top 10 issues I had with that device.