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The MacBook Neo

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Re: The MacBook Neo

#111

Post by foldr »

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…

> 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.

Re: The MacBook Neo

#112

Post by TiredOfLife »

pjmlp wrote: post #15

All these PC can't compete reviews are based on US prices, outside it is ridiculous expensive for a 8 GB laptop.

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.

Re: The MacBook Neo

#113

Post by TiredOfLife »

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…

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

Re: The MacBook Neo

#114

Post by red-iron-pine »

scuff3d wrote: post #3

"Of course, it's not that it cannot do all the work, but considering user experience and those hardware limitations, the experience, I think, differs significantly from mainstream products..." I worked in retail for a decade, a lot of that was selling computers. The vast majority of what people buy computers for could be done a toaster. You don't exactly need top end specs to browse the internet, reply to emails, and…

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.

Re: The MacBook Neo

#115

Post by red-iron-pine »

rf15 wrote: post #24

Except for the bit that immediately killed it for us in the office: only one external display. Even if you close the lid. I dream of the day I can kick windows into the next bin, but this is the one thing that the Neo fails hard on, all other compromises would've made this a great remote dev machine.

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

Re: The MacBook Neo

#116

Post by Carstairs »

pragmatic wrote: post #104

But you’re stuck with MacOS. I can’t stand it and every update makes it worse. Been running popos abs everything I can and it’s petty nice. Installed it on a new LG Gram and everything works including fingerprint reader. Is my favorite laptop and my old Mac sits gathering dust,

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.

Re: The MacBook Neo

#117

Post by ryandrake »

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…

> 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!

Re: The MacBook Neo

#118

Post by ryandrake »

Not Asus, but I have a crappy Lenovo plastic laptop that was around that price range when new, and it's horrible. The hinges have so much resistance that the garbage display panel flexes when you try to open the lid. The junk trackpad is the size of a credit card, and requires some amount of force to actually pick up the fact that your finger is moving on it. The SDCard reader has failed twice (I'm on my third). It's just a piece of garbage and is even then it's about middle of the road when it comes to PC laptop quality. And outside of specific defects, (and this is what's endemic throughout the PC laptop ecosystem) the build quality just subjectively feels like it's barely held together with tape and glue. Like what you'd expect from a toy from an old cracker jack box. These OEMs have been shipping absolute trash for years, and it's about time the industry got a shock.

Re: The MacBook Neo

#119

Post by ryandrake »

bdbdbdb wrote: post #50
pupppet wrote: post #22

Microsoft will respond to this by furiously adding more garbage to Windows.

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

But, then all Microsoft's top managers, who apparently have bonuses based on how much AI is shoved down our throats, wouldn't get those bonuses. Nobody's cares whether or not something is a top seller because their incentives are obviously aligned toward cramming AI.
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