Parallels confirms MacBook Neo can run Windows in a virtual machine

Post by mikkupikku » Fri, Mar 13, 2026, 11:29 PM UTC

zitterbewegung wrote: post #65

Someone1234 wrote: post #44

If Apple continues with the budget Neo brand into a 12 GB iteration, I can see this becoming more realistic (rather than a novelty). That being said, Parallels may need to review its licensing with a budget tier in mind. Few will buy a cheap computer and then pay what Parallels charges for a license (regardless if one-time or subscription). They need to introduce something below the Standard license targeting the Neo…

This isn't a novelty it will crush the low end of the PC market. No one cares if the next iteration will be better with 12GB of ram. The workloads that people say that 8GB can't handle will be ones that the actual users will either wait or tolerate. I've been noticing that people who review the Macbook Neo basically don't get the point [1] and just the headline of this article matters that VMs work and thats a big wi…

Post by colechristensen » Fri, Mar 13, 2026, 11:31 PM UTC

wolpoli wrote: post #191

roody15 wrote: post #131

MacBook Neo is going to sell like crazy. In the education market, educators, students, aides... nothing close at this price point. With memory and SSD prices so high I don't see how Dell, Asus and others are going to be able to compete. Unless the build quality is significantly worse than a M1 macbook air not sure budget PC makers will be able to compete.

PC makers are going to stop some of the artificial segmentation they used on the lower price devices, and that is going to hurt the sales of their higher-end lines. There is no reason they kept pushing 70 percent srgb panels on even the mid tier Thinkpads when the Neo has a good display.

Post by colechristensen » Fri, Mar 13, 2026, 11:34 PM UTC

mylies43 wrote: post #182

nar001 wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RAM has no bearing on repairability? And yes, sure stuff is soldered to the motherboard, but everything is basically modular outside of it, you can replace every big part pretty easily, and no glue, even for the battery

The RAM being soldered is a hit against repair ability, you can't expand it or if the ram has issues you can't replace it, you will just be forced to throw out the entire machine. What else is modular here anyways? Can I swap out the CPU, the screen, the keyboard, ports...anything?

Post by spullara » Fri, Mar 13, 2026, 11:35 PM UTC

LoganDark wrote: post #91

spullara wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can also use UTM to run Windows for free and it is open source. https://mac.getutm.app

Last I checked UTM doesn't have GPU acceleration. Parallels' proprietary GPU driver is the only reason to pay for it.

Post by bitwize » Fri, Mar 13, 2026, 11:39 PM UTC

johnebgd wrote: post #116

bitwize wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows doesn't run "just fine" on 4 GiB of RAM. I had a laptop with 6; Windows 10 became barely usable. If you want to run one, small, program at a time I think you'll be ok. Forget about web browsing; you'll get one tab and it'll be slow.

Agreed. Windows 10/11 can run just fine on 4GB of RAM. You just can't run anything inside of Windows 10/11 with 4GB of RAM. The last version of Windows that felt like 4GB of RAM was performant for me with applications was Windows XP. Not that every computer running the 32-bit edition of Windows XP could even see/utilize a full 4GB of RAM properly, but at least it was fast.