The Neo's value prop is great for many people. I keep needing to remind myself that most computer users can get by fine with 8GB or RAM, and that the I'm not the target market for products like the Neo. I do get nervous with how future proof 8GB of RAM will be in terms of total usable lifespan for the Neo. Maybe the idea is shortened timeline to obsolescence means more sales. Not digging on the build quality, but just if 8GB or RAM will still be fine 5 years from now.
MacBook Neo is so popular that Apple doubled production
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Re: MacBook Neo is so popular that Apple doubled production
#62I’m not shocked in the slightest. Great price point for younger folks to buy or be given as a gift, the build quality is good for what it is and it is snappy for most uses. It’s many years too late IMO but I suppose the economics only made sense once they controlled their own chipset. I imagine doing this in the intel days would have been a far worse choice
Seems to be right on time. Hard to justify putting a mobile chip in your laptop until performance has reached a certain threshold.
Re: MacBook Neo is so popular that Apple doubled production
#63I would rather own a used MacBook AIR than a new MacBook Neo. I usually don't like used computers but I just can't stand the anxiety of having to only have 8Gb RAM. Sure, it swaps, it compresses memory etc.. but still.
Re: MacBook Neo is so popular that Apple doubled production
#64I don't doubt the Neo is a quality product, but I'm curious whether cheap MacBooks are going to sabotage Apple's cachet as a luxury brand. It's my personal experience that iOS users tend to look down on "green bubbles" in a way that can only be explained as some sort of brand superiority complex. I'm sure millionaires wouldn't appreciate it if Lamborghini sold a $25K model...
They make the best-selling phone model in the world. Best-selling smart watch, etc. Apple is not a luxury brand.
Re: MacBook Neo is so popular that Apple doubled production
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
Every school I know of is deep in the Chromebook pot. These are fairly bad computers, Neo would be a big upgrade. But I suspect it would be years for school systems to even evaluate this.
It's no accident that they are bad computers. They aren't "fit for purpose" unless they are too weak to play Krunker.
Kids also destroy them every year. They need to be bad, and the absolute cheap pieces of crap possible because kids will throw them against walls and destroy them on purpose.
"Can it run google classroom, can we lock it down, and is it $300 or less" are the only things that matter.
Re: MacBook Neo is so popular that Apple doubled production
#66It's amazing you can get an iPad for $349 and a Macbook for $599. Even the plastic 2009 macbook alone was $999 at the lowest. Very strange to see a company do this when everything else just seems to have gone up and up.
I think the craziest thing is that a macbook for $599 that's more powerful than nearly anything they had offered a decade ago (except probably ram amount), and even after adjusting for inflation (which is like 35% from 10 years ago) means the price dropped at least $1500 for a comparable. (People may correct me if I'm wrong)
>a decade ago
It's more powerful than my $4000 M1 Max until it heat soaks.
Re: MacBook Neo is so popular that Apple doubled production
#67I ended up getting two (one for each of my daughters). The thing about Apple is that as the "IT" guy for my family, its ecosystem is the one which needs the least attention from me. It really just works. They have used Windows and Linux before (my kids and wife, that is), but something is always not quite right and needs my involvement. These days gone 100% Mac, my interventions are usually initial setup and whenever…
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Re: MacBook Neo is so popular that Apple doubled production
#68It's always surprising when companies don't understand that people what inexpensive, quality goods. The original Ford Maverick retailed for $19,995, Ford absolutely could not keep up with production. Ultimately, they raised prices both because they could and in order to reduce demand because they could not actually product enough units.
I would happily buy a laptop with medium specs but apple build quality. I don't know if the Neo's build quality is on par with their other laptops but if it is it's probably my next laptop.
From the reviews, my impression is that the Neo has Apple's build quality, but they cut some costs to save on machining the chassis, and the trackpad doesn't have the haptic motor.
Re: MacBook Neo is so popular that Apple doubled production
#69I don't doubt the Neo is a quality product, but I'm curious whether cheap MacBooks are going to sabotage Apple's cachet as a luxury brand. It's my personal experience that iOS users tend to look down on "green bubbles" in a way that can only be explained as some sort of brand superiority complex. I'm sure millionaires wouldn't appreciate it if Lamborghini sold a $25K model...
I haven't had the chance to touch one yet. But the reviews seem to suggest the hardware doesn't "feel" cheap in the way a lot of low priced computers can.
I can't vouch on whether it's true, but that's the brand question here in my opinion. If the hinge was crappy and it felt like it was going to break any second and the keyboard was a return to the butterfly and it was slow and so on, because they wanted to make it cheap, then yeah I think that'd hurt their brand overall.
Re: MacBook Neo is so popular that Apple doubled production
#70I don't doubt the Neo is a quality product, but I'm curious whether cheap MacBooks are going to sabotage Apple's cachet as a luxury brand. It's my personal experience that iOS users tend to look down on "green bubbles" in a way that can only be explained as some sort of brand superiority complex. I'm sure millionaires wouldn't appreciate it if Lamborghini sold a $25K model...
I don't think it'll dilute the brand at all. The neo still feels like a premium product. Other laptop OEMs are now starting to come out with their competitors, and they are putting 1080p crap display panels on them like they always do. A $599 laptop with a 1080p screen from Dell is going to feel like a cheap piece of junk next to a Neo.