The MacBook Neo • Hacker News Board

Re: The MacBook Neo

#251

Post by poulsbohemian » Wed, Mar 11, 2026, 6:54 PM UTC

bigyabai wrote: post #223

mikestew wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 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…

> It's amazing someone can post that without the slightest hint of self-awareness. It's amazing that people attribute it to lacking self-awareness. You can spend $400 on a laptop and have a perfectly fine experience. There are damn good Chromebooks in the $200-300 territory that I can genuinely recommend to people. If you just need to do your taxes or answer a Zoom call, why would you get a Macbook Neo? macOS itself…

>If you just need to do your taxes or answer a Zoom call, why would you get a Macbook Neo?

Because it's a Mac. Maybe not to you, but to many people Apple signals luxury. It signals trust. You have an iPhone, an iWatch, and AirPods in your ears, why wouldn't you also buy a Mac? And at that price point, mom and dad don't think twice about buying one for the kids anymore where previously they might have gotten by without.

>macOS itself has been declining in quality since at least Mojave; people don't rave about it anymore.

Maybe because computing devices overall are just so good. The gains are to be had in services that are part of the Apple ecosystem, not the OS alone (for the most part).

>The Macbook Neo will 100% continue the trend of people showing up at Best Buy and comparing the Lenovo machine to the Mac that costs 3x as much. This will not sway the average Joe any more than the Macbook Air did. It's not even seriously competing with the iPad price bracket that might tempt students.

In the 2000s, Apple has not cared about competing at Best Buy. That isn't their customer. If anything though, the Neo is more of a foray into that wider market. Anyone with kids lugging home a crappy school-issued Chromebook though took one look at this device and knew this is a device Apple can position into schools -- a market they once dominated and lost. There are lots of markets where this will be a great device, where the customer wants a Mac and not "just" an iPad. In those cases, it isn't the end consumer buying this device, it's an IT manager - who can likely be tempted by that Mac ecosystem and a better grade of device relative to competition.

Re: The MacBook Neo

#252

Post by Kirby64 » Wed, Mar 11, 2026, 6:55 PM UTC

ryandvm wrote: post #233

drcongo wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they're your friend, why didn't you just tell them to get a Mac?

Cute, and while I will agree that Apple hardware is generally superior or at least an excellent value, and OS X is miles beyond Windows in usability, I can't in good conscience recommend a Mac on principle. They impose obsessive control over their walled garden, constant pressure to use Apple ecosystem products, and they are staunchly opposed to interoperability regardless of it being an obviously anti-consumer tacti…

As opposed to Microsoft, the good guys right now? I don’t see how incessant privacy violations, selling your data, and general shovelware behavior of Windows 11 is better. In many ways, it’s much worse in my view.

Re: The MacBook Neo

#253

Post by amenhotep » Wed, Mar 11, 2026, 6:55 PM UTC

ozlikethewizard wrote: post #133

Schmerika wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/

Is that more rents are insane though, british perspective but 600 ~ £450, £450 is still around a third of an average rent, but I'd consider a budget laptop those in the £2-350 range. For the average user £400+ (so $500+) is decidely midrange purely on the virtue that its the middle of the range for general use laptops (being £150-1000 really, anything more than that and you're entering decent gaming/workstation specs…

Not to mention that it they are, naturally, going to convert $600 to £600.

Re: The MacBook Neo

#254

Post by cannolicannon » Wed, Mar 11, 2026, 6:56 PM UTC

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…

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.

Re: The MacBook Neo

#255

Post by bigyabai » Wed, Mar 11, 2026, 6:56 PM UTC

Teever wrote: post #181

drnick1 wrote: post #174

> You cannot buy an x86 PC laptop in the $600–700 price range that competes with the MacBook Neo on any metric — performance, display quality, audio quality, or build quality. And certainly not software quality. I would argue the opposite: while Apple hardware is generally excellent, it is the software that leaves to be desired. Apple has also been consistently pushing the industry in a dangerous direction (walled ga…

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?

The same way I reconcile the fact that the 11" Macbook sold millions of devices; consumers don't care. They don't buy Macs as a conscious evaluation of what the device is capable of or how well it was made. Even the 2019 16" Macbook Pro, arguably the worst Mac ever sold, has millions of units floating around in Obsoleteland.

Personally I agree with the parent's comment. I used to buy Macs, but nowadays Apple alienates me. I'm one of the millions that don't buy a Mac because the hardware is gimped by arbitrary software limitations. Unless Apple changes that stance, I'm a lost customer. Cupertino has the market share statistics, they know where to find me.

Re: The MacBook Neo

#256

Post by mmcnl » Wed, Mar 11, 2026, 6:57 PM UTC

officeplant wrote: post #225

hackyhacky wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Yep. I'm a long-time ThinkPad user, but I have no idea how Lenovo's ThinkPad T series differs from the ThinkPad E series or ThinkPad L series or ThinkPad X series, and their website certainly…

> I have no idea how Lenovo's ThinkPad T series differs from ... My personal rundown and how they get assigned: E - Educational / Lower office personnel spec L - Office personnel you hate spec, but don't offer the E because they might complain. T - Give this to all the technicians because they can't take care of anything and it will survive typically. P - Give this to the engineers who believe having an RTX gpu will…

This still doesn't tell me how they differ. What are the factual objective measurable differences between E/L/T/P?

Re: The MacBook Neo

#257

Post by carabiner » Wed, Mar 11, 2026, 6:58 PM UTC

drnick1 wrote: post #174

> You cannot buy an x86 PC laptop in the $600–700 price range that competes with the MacBook Neo on any metric — performance, display quality, audio quality, or build quality. And certainly not software quality. I would argue the opposite: while Apple hardware is generally excellent, it is the software that leaves to be desired. Apple has also been consistently pushing the industry in a dangerous direction (walled ga…

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.

Re: The MacBook Neo

#258

Post by ecshafer » Wed, Mar 11, 2026, 6:58 PM UTC

retired wrote: post #198

drcongo wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they're your friend, why didn't you just tell them to get a Mac?

15 years ago this comment would have been a troll. Nowadays it’s solid advice. The current Mac line-up is a step ahead of the competition. App compatibility is hardly an issue anymore with the exception of some very niche software.

Niche software, and almost all video games.

Re: The MacBook Neo

#259

Post by xp84 » Wed, Mar 11, 2026, 6:58 PM UTC

> You cannot buy an x86 PC laptop in the $600–700 price range that competes with the MacBook Neo on any metric — performance, display quality, audio quality, or build quality.

Interesting metrics, though I'd add that if you count storage and memory as metrics, it'd be hard to find a worse PC laptop. And I don't see why we should artificially exclude ARM PC laptops from the comparison.

https://www.bestbuy.com/product/asus-vivobook-14-wuxga-lapto...

2x the RAM and 2x the storage isn't meaningless to a lot of people.

The PC has a single-core geekbench around 2100 single / 10,000 multicore. The Neo is apparently in the range of 3600 / 9,000 multicore.

No arguments on the Mac's screen being way nicer though. However, the low-end computer market - unlike most of us on HN - has never cared about pixel density, color accuracy, or really any screen specs other than size (Looks like the Asus has the Mac by an inch on that spec).

Bottom line, for a high-end Chromebook replacement (literally everything is done in the cloud, so storage doesn't matter, and only running a browser, so RAM isn't a big deal), as long as it's for someone who will take care of such a delicate device, the Neo is pretty great. For everyone else, it's debatable.

> And certainly not software quality.

This is most definitely only a little true in that Windows has jumped the shark lately with ads and various enshittification, and thus ties with Mac OS. Tahoe is without a doubt the worst Mac OS ever released. It's both poor quality and poorly designed.

Re: The MacBook Neo

#260

Post by jclardy » Wed, Mar 11, 2026, 7:00 PM UTC

softfalcon wrote: post #136

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…

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 p…

Neo and Air are quite simple when looking at it from the bottom up. Air is the "nice" Neo for basically $500 more. Backlit keyboard, MagSafe, Thunderbolt 4, M5, way faster SSD speeds, double the RAM, larger display, Force Touch trackpad.