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The MacBook Neo

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Re: The MacBook Neo

#31

Post by KingMachiavelli »

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.

Additionally, you can’t count on the basic being correct. It takes a hour of research to know if the trackpad is not-awful, keyboard doesn’t suck, and display isn’t a 300nits POS unusable even in a bright room.

You want the same performance as a MacBook Air without one of these fatal flaws? You’ll hand to spend $1500+ anyway so you save nothing. 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.

Re: The MacBook Neo

#32

Post by gamblor956 »

He wasn't referring to the build quality which is about average, or the ipad level performance.

He was referring to the supply chain. The shock is that Apple was able to build something like this with current component costs.

Re: The MacBook Neo

#34

Post by hulitu »

GeekyBear wrote: post #8

PC Magazine came to the same conclusion: > Apple pulled off what I thought wasn't possible. The MacBook Neo is poised to set the budget-laptop world on fire as a $599 system that's better-built and sharper than anything else at or below its price. https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/apple-macbook-neo Similar to the Verge: > even the cheapest MacBook Neo is good enough to be the go-to Apple laptop for a lot of people. Actua…

[flagged]

Re: The MacBook Neo

#35

Post by frankacter »

atoav wrote: post #16
frankacter wrote: post #7

I’m a bit confused about who this article is really for. The MacBook Neo starts at $600 so when I read: “MacBook Neo is built on an iPhone chip—the A18 Pro. 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.” and that: “It’s merely the right kind of performance for anybody who wants to browse the internet or stream video.” ...at this p…

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.

Agreed, which is why a $600 price point on a "budget laptop" targeting users running a web browser seems quite over priced.

Re: The MacBook Neo

#36

Post by theshrike79 »

frankacter wrote: post #7

I’m a bit confused about who this article is really for. The MacBook Neo starts at $600 so when I read: “MacBook Neo is built on an iPhone chip—the A18 Pro. 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.” and that: “It’s merely the right kind of performance for anybody who wants to browse the internet or stream video.” ...at this p…

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.

Re: The MacBook Neo

#37

Post by smackeyacky »

My daughter just ordered one of these. She’s a student (not stem) and her ancient 8Gb MacBook Air with an intel processor was still serving well but the battery has become unuseable and her keyboard is becoming flaky.

The Neo is such a perfect replacement and easier than fixing the Air.

Re: The MacBook Neo

#38

Post by hutattedonmyarm »

KingMachiavelli wrote: post #31

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. Additionally, you can’t count on the basic being correct. It takes a hour of research to know if the trackpad is not-awful, keyboard doe…

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

Re: The MacBook Neo

#39

Post by bdbdbdb »

hulitu wrote: post #34
GeekyBear wrote: post #8

PC Magazine came to the same conclusion: > Apple pulled off what I thought wasn't possible. The MacBook Neo is poised to set the budget-laptop world on fire as a $599 system that's better-built and sharper than anything else at or below its price. https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/apple-macbook-neo Similar to the Verge: > even the cheapest MacBook Neo is good enough to be the go-to Apple laptop for a lot of people. Actua…

[flagged]

*Gb not Mb

Re: The MacBook Neo

#40

Post by mastermage »

KingMachiavelli wrote: post #31

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. Additionally, you can’t count on the basic being correct. It takes a hour of research to know if the trackpad is not-awful, keyboard doe…

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.

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