MacBook Neo • Hacker News Board

Re: MacBook Neo

#121

Post by proxysna » Wed, Mar 04, 2026, 2:39 PM UTC

saejox wrote: post #27

8gb ram is criminal. For $100 more Air is the one to buy.

That's called "Apple price ladder". Basically pushing consumer in small increments up the range of products with " but with just $$amount you can get X product with 2*Y of Z!" until consumer hits their limit instead of buying the cheapest working option.

Re: MacBook Neo

#122

Post by geerlingguy » Wed, Mar 04, 2026, 2:39 PM UTC

wongogue wrote: post #62

Neo will at least help in ensuring that macOS doesn’t become too heavy for a few years.

...hopefully.

That assumes Apple dev teams use one in their test suites.

One downside to the 11" Air when it was still sold is so much software that would be slightly broken on the vertically-constrained display.

Re: MacBook Neo

#123

Post by Nevermark » Wed, Mar 04, 2026, 2:39 PM UTC

syntaxing wrote: post #22

Interesting how it runs on the A18. I wonder if this means they will try to unify macOS and iOS within this decade.

I think the entirety of the A-series, M-series and even S-series lines are essentially one chip product line, with different balances of chip area, cost, compute and energy use.

Other than that, perhaps some small form factor related device support differences.

Never been an OS (iOS, iPad, watchOS vs. Mac) distinction from the hardware standpoint.

The only thing I read from M-series in iPads and A-series in the Neo, is the A chip is better balanced in price and power draw for a low cost laptop with a smaller battery.

The M-chip with that balance is the A-chip.

Re: MacBook Neo

#124

Post by jsheard » Wed, Mar 04, 2026, 2:39 PM UTC

voidUpdate wrote: post #113

Whats "neo" about this compared to the last macbook they put out?

This is the first Mac to use an A-series (i.e. iPhone) processor, so it's a distinct class in their lineup.

Re: MacBook Neo

#125

Post by pjmlp » Wed, Mar 04, 2026, 2:39 PM UTC

lvl155 wrote: post #20

Why don’t they just allow MacOS on iPad Pro. It’s what people want.

Because this way they sell two for the price of two.

Re: MacBook Neo

#126

Post by JBorrow » Wed, Mar 04, 2026, 2:39 PM UTC

jghn wrote: post #94

Anyone know how this would compare to an original M1 Air? Both in terms of performance and also capability. My primary use case for my air is web browsing and similar. But I do use other things at times. I know they're both arm processors, but are there things that ne can do an M1 that won't work on this?

They're pretty much equivalent.

Re: MacBook Neo

#127

Post by jp_nc » Wed, Mar 04, 2026, 2:40 PM UTC

r0fl wrote: post #6

"Education customers can purchase it for $499." That is insane pricing for a brand new apple product. They will sell so many of these!

If they would offer a reasonable replacement program, I bet they could make a strong case to EDU. The nice thing about Chromebooks is when a kid spills something on it, it's cheap to replace and to get back up and running. A tight EDU iCloud restore and reasonable replacement cost could definitely make this an attractive option for some school districts as this will last for a kid's entire school career.

Re: MacBook Neo

#128

Post by jonpalmisc » Wed, Mar 04, 2026, 2:40 PM UTC

syntaxing wrote: post #22

Interesting how it runs on the A18. I wonder if this means they will try to unify macOS and iOS within this decade.

I think it's purely a pricing & supply chain thing. Certain iPads have M-series chips in them, now certain MacBooks have A-series chips in them.

Also, the chip used has no impact on the viability of merging macOS and iOS anyway.

Re: MacBook Neo

#129

Post by lm28469 » Wed, Mar 04, 2026, 2:40 PM UTC

jghn wrote: post #94

Anyone know how this would compare to an original M1 Air? Both in terms of performance and also capability. My primary use case for my air is web browsing and similar. But I do use other things at times. I know they're both arm processors, but are there things that ne can do an M1 that won't work on this?

a18 scores better than m1 in single thread benchmark and about the same in multi thread

https://browser.geekbench.com/ios_devices/iphone-16

https://browser.geekbench.com/macs/macbook-air-late-2020

Re: MacBook Neo

#130

Post by microtonal » Wed, Mar 04, 2026, 2:40 PM UTC

r0fl wrote: post #6

"Education customers can purchase it for $499." That is insane pricing for a brand new apple product. They will sell so many of these!

It must be a shitty day for the Acers of the world. Locally an Acer with 8GB/256GB is about the same price with a much worse display, worse build quality, and no strong iPhone integration.

This MacBook is going to be an absolute hit.