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I bought the MacBook Neo and it sucks

alexandmanu.com

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Re: I bought the MacBook Neo and it sucks

#11

Post by everdrive »

awakeasleep wrote: post #4

https://web.archive.org/web/20260325183607/https://alexandma... (archive because the site is down for me) Summary: It's not as good as my old Thinkpad running Arch

Thanks for the summary. Tech enthusiasts already know to how to get good performance out of older computers, how to reuse older computers, and how to do their own maintenance and repairs. The macbook neo is obviously not really for those tech enthusiasts, but is for regular people who might like a macbook, don't know tons about technology, and don't want to spend $1k.

Re: I bought the MacBook Neo and it sucks

#12

Post by MeetingsBrowser »

> the keyboard actually feels pretty nice. apple did okay there.

I typed on a neo keyboard in store and coming from an M2 Air, the keyboard does not feel nice IMO.

Enough so that I would skip buying one for that reason alone. the keys feel more "squishy" than "clicky".

Re: I bought the MacBook Neo and it sucks

#13

Post by thekevan »

awakeasleep wrote: post #4

https://web.archive.org/web/20260325183607/https://alexandma... (archive because the site is down for me) Summary: It's not as good as my old Thinkpad running Arch

HN says your comment is 3 minutes old and the site is loading just fine for me. (But that was very thoughtful of you.)

Re: I bought the MacBook Neo and it sucks

#14

Post by dlcarrier »

jmkni wrote: post #7

I saw a post on a subreddit earlier where someone was considering getting rid of their 2019 Macbook Pro with an i9 and 32GB of ram, and so many of the comments were egging the poster on and saying it was an upgrade. Terrible idea. It's cool that Apple are entering the budget space, but the hype around the Neo is nuts. edit: found it https://old.reddit.com/r/macbookpro/comments/1s2tdrm/is_the_...

Was that the old or new keyboard? If it was the old one, I'd take the downgrade of everything else, to get a keyboard that doesn't jam up if you accidentally breathe on it.

Re: I bought the MacBook Neo and it sucks

#15

Post by Retr0id »

Used hardware is always going to be a better deal than something brand new. You can get a used M1 MacBook Pro for a similar price to a new Neo, and that will blow it out of the water on all axes except bursted single-core CPU perf. And it'll have a much better screen and trackpad than a similarly priced thinkpad.

The main place the Neo makes sense is for buying a whole classroom full of machines, or for someone who really wants to unbox something new and shiny. It's a chromebook killer.

Re: I bought the MacBook Neo and it sucks

#16

Post by aksss »

cortesoft wrote: post #6

I don't understand why installing 47 distros and it surviving two operating systems they didn't mean to install has anything to do with the hardware. It seems like the main complaint is that it is slow. I am not sure what all the other bits are about.

Had a similar initial reaction, but I guess it's the idea that a 10yo computer for a third of the cost runs circles around the Neo in terms of flexibility and horsepower, which says something about the Neo's character, for sure. I'm certain the Neo was not intended to compete for those prizes, but for me it seems like a very practical benchmark to understand what lane it's in when otherwise not paying attention to Neo's or paleos.

Re: I bought the MacBook Neo and it sucks

#17

Post by jmkni »

dlcarrier wrote: post #14
jmkni wrote: post #7

I saw a post on a subreddit earlier where someone was considering getting rid of their 2019 Macbook Pro with an i9 and 32GB of ram, and so many of the comments were egging the poster on and saying it was an upgrade. Terrible idea. It's cool that Apple are entering the budget space, but the hype around the Neo is nuts. edit: found it https://old.reddit.com/r/macbookpro/comments/1s2tdrm/is_the_...

Was that the old or new keyboard? If it was the old one, I'd take the downgrade of everything else, to get a keyboard that doesn't jam up if you accidentally breathe on it.

It is the butterlfy I think but they had pretty much fixed it by that point, and OP wasn't complaining about the keyboard

Re: I bought the MacBook Neo and it sucks

#19

Post by fragmede »

Retr0id wrote: post #15

Used hardware is always going to be a better deal than something brand new. You can get a used M1 MacBook Pro for a similar price to a new Neo, and that will blow it out of the water on all axes except bursted single-core CPU perf. And it'll have a much better screen and trackpad than a similarly priced thinkpad. The main place the Neo makes sense is for buying a whole classroom full of machines, or for someone who r…

When framed that way, it makes a lot more sense. Apple got its start in education with the Apple II going to schools and hooking students for life. Looking at market penetration of Chromebooks in education, it makes a lot of sense for Apple to introduce a laptop for that arena to compete there.

Re: I bought the MacBook Neo and it sucks

#20

Post by fragmede »

aksss wrote: post #8

I wonder if the target market for this thing is like my aged parents who basically use their phones for everything, even when it's obviously a painful experience, but they don't want a full-blown computer. Kind of like a more intentional version of an ipad w/keyboard? I'm not sure I fully understand what the diff is between ipad w/keyboard and the Neo.. price, I suppose.

And macOS. The Neo's 8GiB of ram has been talked to death, but at the end of the day, iPadOS isn't macOS, which has a window manager with floating windows vs iPadOS' (hacky) side-by-side mode.
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