Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

MacBook Neo

apple.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

681–690 of 1001 posts

Re: MacBook Neo

#681

Post by joshuat »

sgjohnson wrote: post #664
theopsimist wrote: post #657

List of differences from the MacBook Air: * Only supports 8 GB of unified memory * No MagSafe * One of the two USB-C ports is limited to USB 2.0 speeds of just 480 Mb/s * No Thunderbolt support means the Neo cannot drive either of Apple’s new Studio Displays. However, it can push a 4K display with 60Hz refresh rate over USB-C. * “Just” 16 hours of battery life, compared to the 18 hours quoted for the 13-inch MacBook…

> The Apple on the lid isn’t shiny That’s been the case for 5+ years :)

I think they mean not reflective like current models, not that it isn't illuminated like the MacBooks of yore

Re: MacBook Neo

#682

Post by theopsimist »

theopsimist wrote: post #657

List of differences from the MacBook Air: * Only supports 8 GB of unified memory * No MagSafe * One of the two USB-C ports is limited to USB 2.0 speeds of just 480 Mb/s * No Thunderbolt support means the Neo cannot drive either of Apple’s new Studio Displays. However, it can push a 4K display with 60Hz refresh rate over USB-C. * “Just” 16 hours of battery life, compared to the 18 hours quoted for the 13-inch MacBook…

And of course the screen: 13.0-inch vs 13.6

Weight is the same incidentally.

I think the tradeoff would be worth it for a lot of people but many would be better off buying the apple refurbished 16GB M4 Air ($759 from apple right now)

Re: MacBook Neo

#683

Post by xmodem »

nolist_policy wrote: post #671
theopsimist wrote: post #657

List of differences from the MacBook Air: * Only supports 8 GB of unified memory * No MagSafe * One of the two USB-C ports is limited to USB 2.0 speeds of just 480 Mb/s * No Thunderbolt support means the Neo cannot drive either of Apple’s new Studio Displays. However, it can push a 4K display with 60Hz refresh rate over USB-C. * “Just” 16 hours of battery life, compared to the 18 hours quoted for the 13-inch MacBook…

Do you know if the A series processor supports virtualization?

The A-series has supported virtualization since long before the M-series existed. iOS disables it in early boot, though.

On the other hand, how much virtualization are you really going to be doing with 8GB of RAM?

Re: MacBook Neo

#684

Post by dgan »

Would i get this over my (now half broken) H[inge]P[roblems] that I got for 600€ in 2016, and now run linux on, with 16GB of RAM? Hell no

Re: MacBook Neo

#685

Post by articulatepang »

gandreani wrote: post #674
Shalomboy wrote: post #655

This is such a better deal than I had growing up, Apple has to be taking a bath on these. My high school required students to bring their own laptops to school when I started in 2010. Their shopping list suggested a MacBook Pro 13" with a case - I looked up "MacBook Pro price" for the first time in my life and just about walked into traffic. I didn't have a laptop to bring, I didn't want to bring the wrong kind of la…

Wow props to that sales rep. Not many would pass on the opportunity to sell something more expensive. I'm assuming they make some sort of (paltry) commission

I've had a similar experience with Apple Store employees many, many times: I walk in and vaguely describe what I want, and they steer me to the cheapest item they sell that could possibly meet my stated requirements.

I've also returned Apple products multiple times, once (recently) without the packaging, and once several days past the return window. They refunded me every time, no questions asked.

This makes me wonder if it's part of their training?

Re: MacBook Neo

#686

Post by mtrovo »

The hardware looks fine, but Apple's software vision is so confusing.

MacBook Neo is cheaper and weaker than a MacBook Air, yet shares the same price and single-app mindset as an iPad. It uses a phone chip similar to an iPad Pro, but gets multi-user support and a keyboard.

I struggle to run Tahoe on my 16GB M2 Air and somewhat I have to believe running it on a 8GB phone chip is gonna be alright, which if true have me thinking what exactly is the role of iPadOS anyway.

Ultimately, it feels like iPadOS and Tahoe are on a crash course for a middle ground that nobody asked for.

Re: MacBook Neo

#687

Post by softfalcon »

So... have we now confirmed that the only thing preventing us from running macOS off our iPhones is a software limitation?

(I'm being facetious, if the hardware was open, someone would have already written a custom boot loader for this :P)

Re: MacBook Neo

#688

Post by post-it »

MYEUHD wrote: post #679
theopsimist wrote: post #657

List of differences from the MacBook Air: * Only supports 8 GB of unified memory * No MagSafe * One of the two USB-C ports is limited to USB 2.0 speeds of just 480 Mb/s * No Thunderbolt support means the Neo cannot drive either of Apple’s new Studio Displays. However, it can push a 4K display with 60Hz refresh rate over USB-C. * “Just” 16 hours of battery life, compared to the 18 hours quoted for the 13-inch MacBook…

You forgot an important difference: the macbook neo has the A18 Pro chip (2 performance cores + 4 efficiency cores) whereas the macbook air has the M5 chip (4 performance cores + 6 efficiency cores) Also the A18 Pro chip has a 5-core GPU whereas the M5 chip has 8 or 10. Personally, the only dealbreaker in the list you posted is the amount of RAM. macOS 15 uses ~5GB on startup without any app open. I'd be swapping all…

> macOS 15 uses ~5GB on startup without any app open

Sort of? Mac very aggressively caches things into RAM. It should be using all of your RAM on startup. That's why they've changed the Activity Monitor to say "memory pressure" instead of something like "memory usage."

I'm typing this on an 8 GB MacBook Air and it works just fine. I've got ChatGPT, VSCode, XCode, Blender, and PrusaSlicer minimized and I'm not feeling any lag. If I open any of them it'll take half a second or so as they're loaded from swap, but when they're not in the foreground they're not using up any memory.

Re: MacBook Neo

#689

Post by w10-1 »

This is pitched as entry-level, but it works as N+1, as in: people have beaucoup computers, but they avoid carrying them around (risk loss/destroy). The computer absolutely needs to be a mac for keychain-linked services, etc. For those users, not having TouchID on the base model is a bummer.

Re: MacBook Neo

#690

Post by thatwasunusual »

dgan wrote: post #684

Would i get this over my (now half broken) H[inge]P[roblems] that I got for 600€ in 2016, and now run linux on, with 16GB of RAM? Hell no

Good for you. Not sure how your comment contribute to ... well, anything, but... Good for you!
Post reply on HN