This laptop competes against M2/M3 MacBook Airs. Going to be hard to justify a Neo when the others are so much more powerful.
Where can I get a new M2/M3 MacBook Air for $599?
MacBook Neo
831–840 of 1001 posts
Re: MacBook Neo
#832List 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…
Center stage is dumb anyway
Re: MacBook Neo
#833I can't believe how fast the chip is. It is comparable to my top of the line gaming laptop from 6 years ago.
Re: MacBook Neo
#834List 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…
No one has commented on the charger this thing comes with: It’s 20W! The sort of thing you’d plug a phone or iPad into, which seems crazy. I kind of wonder whether you could charge it with the built-in USB ports that are in newer wall sockets.
Re: MacBook Neo
#835List 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…
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Re: MacBook Neo
#836List 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…
> One of the two USB-C ports is limited to USB 2.0 speeds of just 480 Mb/s
This is one of the things I never really expected Apple to do, since they've somehow managed to avoid the confusing black/blue colouring of USB-A ports, giving every laptop they've ever produced since 2012 USB 3.0 ports.
Seems like they're buying into hardware enshittification too (macOS and iOS 26 being software monstrosities with liquid glAss).
Re: MacBook Neo
#837List 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…
This is a Mac Chromebook. You use it for cloud stuff and every now and then you can run a real application in a pinch.
You can also develop locally which is significant.
Re: MacBook Neo
#838As a Master's student, I didn't have money to afford a MacBook. So, I begrudgingly bought a Dell Vostro 13" at the time. Pretty much all of my friends just got the Dell/Sony/HP laptops and it's not like those laptops were powerful either. They were just pretty much entry level for a price tag of $600-$750. I got mine for $750. This was back in 2009. I had to remove the selection of a Webcam. These companies would pul…
According to the USA CPI inflation calculator, that $750 would have been $1,137.05 today. That's striking, but also incredible how much computers have progressed at the same time.
Re: MacBook Neo
#839Possibly dumb question: why not just get a previous generation MacBook Air for a similar price? Even a refurb one. I really don't understand who this is for, apart from children perhaps (but still just get a bloody MacBook Air)
Re: MacBook Neo
#840$499 through Apple Edu: https://www.apple.com/us-edu/shop/buy-mac/macbook-neo.