For someone who wants a secondary (travel) laptop I don't like how needlessly thick and heavy this is.
MacBook Neo
881–890 of 1001 posts
Re: MacBook Neo
#882List of differences from the MacBook Air: * Only supports 8 GB of unified memory * No MagSafe * One of the two USB-C ports is limited to USB 2.0 speeds of just 480 Mb/s * No Thunderbolt support means the Neo cannot drive either of Apple’s new Studio Displays. However, it can push a 4K display with 60Hz refresh rate over USB-C. * “Just” 16 hours of battery life, compared to the 18 hours quoted for the 13-inch MacBook…
I want to see the person buying the Neo and pairing it with a new Studio Display.
Even better, pairing it with a Vision Pro as your monitor.
Re: MacBook Neo
#883List of differences from the MacBook Air: * Only supports 8 GB of unified memory * No MagSafe * One of the two USB-C ports is limited to USB 2.0 speeds of just 480 Mb/s * No Thunderbolt support means the Neo cannot drive either of Apple’s new Studio Displays. However, it can push a 4K display with 60Hz refresh rate over USB-C. * “Just” 16 hours of battery life, compared to the 18 hours quoted for the 13-inch MacBook…
So no real issue at all for the target group
Re: MacBook Neo
#884As a Master's student, I didn't have money to afford a MacBook. So, I begrudgingly bought a Dell Vostro 13" at the time. Pretty much all of my friends just got the Dell/Sony/HP laptops and it's not like those laptops were powerful either. They were just pretty much entry level for a price tag of $600-$750. I got mine for $750. This was back in 2009. I had to remove the selection of a Webcam. These companies would pul…
The cheapest new laptop you can buy from HP right now has 4 GB of RAM, a 64GB eMMC drive, and an N100. It's $200-300 depending where you look. And somehow this pitiful thing is running Windows 11.
I know it's half the price of the Neo, but it feels like way less than half the computer. I don't like Apple, I won't be buying this, and I won't be recommending it to anyone. But damn, Apple.
Re: MacBook Neo
#885Basic question: will this be able to run any app built for M chip? I suppose so because both a18 and the M chips are ARM?
Re: MacBook Neo
#886List of differences from the MacBook Air: * Only supports 8 GB of unified memory * No MagSafe * One of the two USB-C ports is limited to USB 2.0 speeds of just 480 Mb/s * No Thunderbolt support means the Neo cannot drive either of Apple’s new Studio Displays. However, it can push a 4K display with 60Hz refresh rate over USB-C. * “Just” 16 hours of battery life, compared to the 18 hours quoted for the 13-inch MacBook…
> One of the two USB-C ports is limited to USB 2.0 speeds of just 480 Mb/s This is one of the things I never really expected Apple to do, since they've somehow managed to avoid the confusing black/blue colouring of USB-A ports, giving every laptop they've ever produced since 2012 USB 3.0 ports. Seems like they're buying into hardware enshittification too (macOS and iOS 26 being software monstrosities with liquid glAs…
Confusing? Seems pretty straightforward, more so than the USB-C system of no indication at all. If you're lucky, you'll get a label.
Re: MacBook Neo
#887List of differences from the MacBook Air: * Only supports 8 GB of unified memory * No MagSafe * One of the two USB-C ports is limited to USB 2.0 speeds of just 480 Mb/s * No Thunderbolt support means the Neo cannot drive either of Apple’s new Studio Displays. However, it can push a 4K display with 60Hz refresh rate over USB-C. * “Just” 16 hours of battery life, compared to the 18 hours quoted for the 13-inch MacBook…
The biggest drawback is no Thunderbolt. The biggest sell for Macs right now is the ability to daisy chain them with the new RDMA update. A used M1 Mac Mini is more valuable than this.
The Neo is basically the mac flavor of an iPad meant for schoolchildren. It's a Chromebook competitor, not meant for whatever kooky AI shit you're doing at home.
Re: MacBook Neo
#888List of differences from the MacBook Air: * Only supports 8 GB of unified memory * No MagSafe * One of the two USB-C ports is limited to USB 2.0 speeds of just 480 Mb/s * No Thunderbolt support means the Neo cannot drive either of Apple’s new Studio Displays. However, it can push a 4K display with 60Hz refresh rate over USB-C. * “Just” 16 hours of battery life, compared to the 18 hours quoted for the 13-inch MacBook…
You forgot an important difference: the macbook neo has the A18 Pro chip (2 performance cores + 4 efficiency cores) whereas the macbook air has the M5 chip (4 performance cores + 6 efficiency cores) Also the A18 Pro chip has a 5-core GPU whereas the M5 chip has 8 or 10. Personally, the only dealbreaker in the list you posted is the amount of RAM. macOS 15 uses ~5GB on startup without any app open. I'd be swapping all…
> macOS 15 uses ~5GB on startup
What, in fact, is it doing? I'm of the opinion that RAM not used is RAM wasted, but I prefer that philosophy for application memory, not background OS processes.
Re: MacBook Neo
#889List of differences from the MacBook Air: * Only supports 8 GB of unified memory * No MagSafe * One of the two USB-C ports is limited to USB 2.0 speeds of just 480 Mb/s * No Thunderbolt support means the Neo cannot drive either of Apple’s new Studio Displays. However, it can push a 4K display with 60Hz refresh rate over USB-C. * “Just” 16 hours of battery life, compared to the 18 hours quoted for the 13-inch MacBook…
You forgot an important difference: the macbook neo has the A18 Pro chip (2 performance cores + 4 efficiency cores) whereas the macbook air has the M5 chip (4 performance cores + 6 efficiency cores) Also the A18 Pro chip has a 5-core GPU whereas the M5 chip has 8 or 10. Personally, the only dealbreaker in the list you posted is the amount of RAM. macOS 15 uses ~5GB on startup without any app open. I'd be swapping all…
For $300 more the base MacBook Air is a significantly better machine than the Neo.
Re: MacBook Neo
#890I don't this product has many audiences on HN. But I would definitely recommend it to anyone not doing much computing.