MacBook Neo Deep Dive: Benchmarks, Wafer Economics, and the 8GB Gamble

Post by HDBaseT » Wed, May 13, 2026, 11:44 PM UTC

storus wrote: post #78

wlesieutre wrote: post #37

> The I/O is also a genuine limitation: one USB 2.0 port is functionally useless for data transfer, no Thunderbolt means no fast external storage, and charging occupies your only USB 3 port. You're supposed to use the USB-2 port for charging and save the USB-3 port for external accessories, not the other way around It only supports 10Gb/s compared to 40 that USB-4 is theoretically capable of, but that's more than eno…

Both 10Gb/s and 8GB RAM limit come from iPhone 16 Pro chip limitations used in Neo. Next year's should have 12GB of RAM.

Post by kalleboo » Wed, May 13, 2026, 11:48 PM UTC

larkost wrote: post #97

Havoc wrote: post #85

Recently dived into mac world (air) too after decades of win/linux. Pleasant experience and very impressed by hardware and polish except wow the keyboard/shortcut situation is absolutely cursed. Not different...actually cursed. Who decided that sometimes its cmd+Q to close a window while other times its cmd+W and some apps support both but with different behaviours and knowing which of the three it is depends on know…

The cmd+q is the "quit" command. And the convention in single-window apps (or ones that have a single unambiguous main window) is that the window only closes when the app is quit. So this is command you have to give. For "document-based" apps (think almost anything where you open multiple files), the application can stay running even if there are no open windows. So you have both cmd+q and cmd+w available to you. You…

Post by wlesieutre » Wed, May 13, 2026, 11:49 PM UTC

coder543 wrote: post #114

washingupliquid wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows has been showing popup USB speed warnings since at least Windows XP.... so 25 years? Let's not use this cope to mislead anyone into thinking this is a unique Mac innovation (it isn't) that trumps this abomination of human factors (it doesn't).

I have never ever seen Windows provide this warning even once just because there is a faster port on the machine and the user plugged the device into the wrong one. Please provide a source for this claim that you are making. Citation absolutely needed. In the unlikely case that this feature exists thanks to Microsoft, I would like to say that is great, because it is much more user friendly than only having tiny label…

Post by SecretDreams » Wed, May 13, 2026, 11:52 PM UTC

QuadmasterXLII wrote: post #49

adastra22 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Idk, I think they are regretting the unit economics of the Neo, and it is likely cannibalizing the Air sales.

intentionally cannibalizing their own sales is iirc the official apple policy: iphone destroyed ipod and was one of the best business mives of all time

Post by locusofself » Thu, May 14, 2026, 12:00 AM UTC

rootnod3 wrote: post #120

darkteflon wrote: post #38

I bought an 8gb M1 Air in 2020 (for what now feels like an absurdly small sum of money) as an experiment in how-cheap-is-too-cheap / chuckable travel laptop. I ended up using it as my main laptop for 2 years without regret, then handed it to my son for school. It remains in perfect condition and as delightful to use as the day I bought it (Apple software snafus notwithstanding). I fully expect to get at least 10 year…

Same. Recently bought myself a M2 Air as a birthday gift for myself. 8GB, chucked OpenBSD on it and couldn't be happier. It does what I need, battery lasts long and easy to chuck around.