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The MacBook Neo

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Re: The MacBook Neo

#701

Post by hinkley »

rtpg wrote: post #583
hinkley wrote: post #570

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Well the Macbook Air pricing in USD was always around $1000 right? 2013 MBA pricing in USD was $1100 2013 MBA pricing in JPY was 110k JPY 2026 Macbook Neo pricing in JPY is ~100k JPY 2026 Macbook Neo pricing in USD is $600 2026 Macbook Air pricing in JPY is ~140k JPY 2026 Macbook Air pricing in USD is ..~$1100 So depending on the currency either the Neo is a massively cheaper thing or filling a gap in a product line…

Apple has a different relationship with the Paradox of Choice than most companies. The price stability makes it a bad idea generally to buy the old model right when the new one comes out. And not chasing inflation numbers I think is also part of that.

They also have some of the highest margins on consumer electronics in the business. Higher IIRC than Nokia had, before smartphones killed them. So absorbing a 3% bump in the dollar isn't that big a deal for them.

Re: The MacBook Neo

#702

Post by LPisGood »

sys_64738 wrote: post #652
cosmic_cheese wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How little attention cooling gets in the laptop industry outside of expensive gaming laptops is crazy. I have a ThinkPad that gets huffy when I plug it into a 2560x1440 external display while otherwise idle (yes, under Linux too) which shouldn’t even be possible.

Even the Intel MBP laptops had fans firing up the afterburners to keep the Intel CPU cool when monitors were plugged in. Intel CPUs of the past were just massive heating elements.

I think a big part of this is the RISC vs ARM architecture, unless RISC has improved more than I know in this area

Re: The MacBook Neo

#703

Post by marcellus23 »

intrasight wrote: post #321
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…

> 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 use Windows and macOS both daily and it's truly baffling to me that anyway could consider Windows software quality to crush the Mac -- either first party or third party. macOS has no shortage of bugs but compared to Windows it works like a dream.

As one example of many, Night Light (Windows' version of adjusting your screen to be warmer at night) has been broken for me, for 5+ years. I mean literally it just never works on its own. The only way to kick it into working is toggling HDR on and then off, every single time I wake it up.

I would guess it's just my configuration but I built a second PC from totally new parts, and got a different monitor, and installed Windows 11 instead of 10, and it's still broken.

Re: The MacBook Neo

#704

Post by heironimus »

SllX wrote: post #636
dhosek wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From all the reviews, those of us who are skeptical of 8GB of RAM are very much wrong (I’m guessing it’s lingering PTSD from being stuck on underperforming systems with too little RAM that makes us buy much more RAM than we actually need). I’m inches away from buying a couple of these for my kids.

I have an M1 MacBook Air with 16GB of RAM. It’s a great computer, but even on days where I’m doing fuck all but using the web I can pressure that memory easily. I also have a tendency to never reboot until that becomes the fastest way to fix whatever performance bottlenecks I’m running into. I’m not saying you can’t get away with 8GB of RAM. You can , but I won’t recommend a Mac with only 8GB of RAM to anybody for a…

If you had 32G RAM it would use that too. It uses all it can. 8GB is fine. And will be for years.

Re: The MacBook Neo

#705

Post by esprehn »

The missing camera light seems pretty serious. Any sandbox escape can turn on the camera and record without you noticing. Or your school or employer could. If you're in full screen mode the menu bar is hidden too. It's a very strange move for privacy centered Apple.

Re: The MacBook Neo

#706

Post by heironimus »

usefulcat wrote: post #682
dhosek wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From all the reviews, those of us who are skeptical of 8GB of RAM are very much wrong (I’m guessing it’s lingering PTSD from being stuck on underperforming systems with too little RAM that makes us buy much more RAM than we actually need). I’m inches away from buying a couple of these for my kids.

I don't doubt that 8GB is enough for most uses today . But is it closer to "more than enough" or "just barely enough"? Seems unlikely to be the former at a price point this low. Five years from now, I have no doubt that the processor will still be fine for most uses, but I doubt that 8GB will be. Especially given that some of the most common memory hogs aren't under Apple's control ( cough Chrome cough ).

You don’t buy a $600 laptop to be useful in 5 years. And I’ll bet it will be more useful in 5 years than any 2031 $600 PC laptop.

Re: The MacBook Neo

#707

Post by runako »

SllX wrote: post #351
Reason077 wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple isn’t this bad, of course, but they’re slowly heading in that direction. The number of overlapping iPad models and variants, for example, is getting kind of crazy these days. Now there’s the MacBook Neo and a rumoured new MacBook Ultra in the pipeline. The easy days of “pick standard or pro, select a display size, select RAM & storage” are starting to fade.

The iPad line makes a lot more sense when you’re just shopping and realize you’re just on a price ladder. Start from the bottom and climb up picking up features along the way until you reach the point where you’ve got what you want or you’re not willing to spend more money. The Neo is either easy to recommend or rather easy to not recommend. It has a fixed 8GB of RAM. I think that’s too little for a modern Mac operat…

> fixed 8GB of RAM. I think that’s too little for a modern Mac operating on the modern web.

The best comparator here is likely the iPhone 16 Pros, released in late 2024. These were the flagship iPhones until late 2025. They are only one generation old. They have the same CPU and the same 8GB of RAM. I have never heard anyone complain that they suffer performance-wise from having too little RAM.

Many of the apps non-devs use will likely be universal binaries, or adapted from iOS versions. Chrome, Safari, Slack, Calendar, Gmail, Zoom, Claude, Contacts, Notes, Maps, Music, Pages, Numbers, etc. These are apps that run concurrently with no issues on the iPhone Pro 16. I'm not sure why people expect those same apps would cause issues on materially the same hardware because its package includes a hardware keyboard.

(The most RAM you could purchase in an iPhone until late 2024 was 6GB. iPhone 11 had 4 GB of RAM. I have not at any point since approximately iPhone 6 heard anyone complain about the speed of an iPhone Pro for "normal" consumer/not professional media stuff. iPhone 6s was released in late 2015 and had 2GB of RAM.)

Yes, MacOS is a different OS than iOS. But the very same company who built the Neo also make MacOS. They are known to adapt the OS to the hardware they are shipping. I'm willing to bet the experience for the non-dev is similar to the experience of using an iPhone 16 Pro in 2026.

Re: The MacBook Neo

#708

Post by alwillis »

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…

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

There are levels to this. Sure, recent versions of macOS have some issues, no doubt. Part of the reason Mac users complain about relatively minor issues is because Apple has set the UI/UX bar so high.

But even in its current state, macOS is still leaps and bounds better than Windows. When I worked with customers using Windows and dealing the usual Windows issues, I realized most of them had no idea that computing didn’t have to be so bad, due to the Stockholm Syndrome that Windows users experience--they think all computers are the same.

Re: The MacBook Neo

#709

Post by jll29 »

SllX wrote: post #351
Reason077 wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple isn’t this bad, of course, but they’re slowly heading in that direction. The number of overlapping iPad models and variants, for example, is getting kind of crazy these days. Now there’s the MacBook Neo and a rumoured new MacBook Ultra in the pipeline. The easy days of “pick standard or pro, select a display size, select RAM & storage” are starting to fade.

The iPad line makes a lot more sense when you’re just shopping and realize you’re just on a price ladder. Start from the bottom and climb up picking up features along the way until you reach the point where you’ve got what you want or you’re not willing to spend more money. The Neo is either easy to recommend or rather easy to not recommend. It has a fixed 8GB of RAM. I think that’s too little for a modern Mac operat…

The original article doesn't dwell too much on the RAM limitation, but I agee with you that 8 GB is too little for the near future or even today.

I agree with most of the post's arguments, and most of the specs and limitations of the Neo would be okay with me, except there should be 16 GB RAM in 2026.

Apple could perhaps mitigate this somewhat by releasing a "slim" MacOS Neo version that is less bloated by pruning some features. Currently, the OS uses much of the available RAM for caching (I've seen "40%" of total OS RAM usage) to make the system faster, whereas 8 GB RAM permits only essential caching.

(Surely, the tough 8 GB RAM decision was influenced by the three factors 1. current DRAM cost and 2. limited DRAM availability considerations as of 2026, and 3. the massive Neo market size resulting from its attractive price tag, and this may get reconsidered in future editions.)

Re: The MacBook Neo

#710

Post by kunai »

TheAmazingRace wrote: post #467
ho_schi wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 b…

I know Lenovo has their issues, but out of all the non-Apple laptop companies, they are by far the best out there. And to their credit, they do try to listen to customer feedback. Also, AFAIK, Lenovo still has their ThinkPad designs developed by a design think-tank lab in Japan that they own (and IBM still has a bit of influence here as well) so I know Lenovo still gives somewhat of a damn in trying to develop a soli…

Only the T and X series benefit from the Japanese design studios though and have the build quality to match. The E and L series are indistinguishable from a myriad of bargain bin business laptops, including Lenovo's own ideapads.
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