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MacBook Neo Deep Dive: Benchmarks, Wafer Economics, and the 8GB Gamble
161–170 of 433 posts
Re: MacBook Neo Deep Dive: Benchmarks, Wafer Economics, and the 8GB Gamble
#162While I got me a 16GB Macbook Air, I appreciate that Apple continues to make 8GB devices. This indicates for me also a commitment for not bloating up the OS (like Windows did) too much and caring about memory efficiency.
Re: MacBook Neo Deep Dive: Benchmarks, Wafer Economics, and the 8GB Gamble
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
And you forgot the best part: it is completely silent.
I did forget, because a silent laptop is now table stakes for me. I can't imagine buying anything with an audible fan again. I'd rather stay on the hardware I have.
I wouldn’t want a fan on a Windows laptop, for sure. On Linux they are fine as long as the lowest speed is “off,” since they’ll only kick on if you explicitly ask the computer to do something crunchy.
Re: MacBook Neo Deep Dive: Benchmarks, Wafer Economics, and the 8GB Gamble
#164The most interesting part of this is the 8GB RAM decision. Soldered 8GB in 2026 is the sort of compromise that looks fine on day one and painful in year three
Re: MacBook Neo Deep Dive: Benchmarks, Wafer Economics, and the 8GB Gamble
#165Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've been on my M1 Air, 16GB, since a few weeks after launch, more than six years now. I still use it daily with lots of Docker containers, VS Code, tons of Electron apps, a small macOS arm VM, and lots of browser tabs simultaneously. Recently, Claude's VM environment is getting exercised simultaneously. Usually the memory pressure is into yellow, but responsiveness is still far higher than any Mac from the Intel day…
And you forgot the best part: it is completely silent.
The quiet isn’t even the best part of passive cooling. It’s that the cooling will never stop working due to dust clogging fans.
Re: MacBook Neo Deep Dive: Benchmarks, Wafer Economics, and the 8GB Gamble
#166I 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…
I think 8GB is harder to defend in 2026 than it was in 2020, but maybe Apple's low-end machines may be staying useful long after the spec sheet says they shouldn't...
Re: MacBook Neo Deep Dive: Benchmarks, Wafer Economics, and the 8GB Gamble
#167I 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…
I've been on my M1 Air, 16GB, since a few weeks after launch, more than six years now. I still use it daily with lots of Docker containers, VS Code, tons of Electron apps, a small macOS arm VM, and lots of browser tabs simultaneously. Recently, Claude's VM environment is getting exercised simultaneously. Usually the memory pressure is into yellow, but responsiveness is still far higher than any Mac from the Intel day…
My concern with the Neo is that it may have the same "feels impossible for the price" quality early on, but the 8GB ceiling gives it much less room to become the kind of absurd long-lived machine your Air turned into
Re: MacBook Neo Deep Dive: Benchmarks, Wafer Economics, and the 8GB Gamble
#168> 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…
I agree that for the actual target market, 10Gb/s is probably not the thing that will make the machine feel limited
Re: MacBook Neo Deep Dive: Benchmarks, Wafer Economics, and the 8GB Gamble
#169I bought a Neo as an out of the house computer and it really is a triumph. If the Air is good enough for 99% of the population, the Neo as is approaches good enough for 90% of the population at half the cost.
As an out-of-the-house computer, or a second/hand-me-down laptop, that tradeoff makes a lot more sense
Re: MacBook Neo Deep Dive: Benchmarks, Wafer Economics, and the 8GB Gamble
#170Id pay an extra $150 for the haptic trackpad tbh
How about $299?