So, and iPad with an attached keyboard.
MacBook Neo
861–870 of 1001 posts
Re: MacBook Neo
#862List 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 camera notch I'd consider this an upgrade. Does this mean we get screen real estate back from an abnormally-thick menu bar? The notch is one of the most bizarre 'innovations' to ever come out of Apple. Like designing a car you steer using your genitals to free up extra dash space then gaslighting everyone into thinking this is somehow better.
The free rectangle area is a 16:10 screen, the space around the notch is a freebie.
Re: MacBook Neo
#863List 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…
Modern pcs use the ram given to them. Its not like a fixed quantity it requires.
Re: MacBook Neo
#864This 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
At some point in the 2000s I was buying a laptop at an Apple retail store, and just before we processed the transaction the salesperson asked if I was a student.
"Umm, I kinda look like a student."
"Good enough for me!"
I got a student discount.
Re: MacBook Neo
#865This is a major challenge to Microsoft. A 13-inch Surface Laptop costs $899 [1], that's 50% more than an equivalent MacBook! And even at that higher price the Surface Laptop doesn't have a good screen: it uses 150% scaling (as opposed to the ideal 200%) which means you have subtle display artifacts. Other than Microsoft nobody even makes decent laptops in the Windows world. I am typing this on an Lenovo Yoga, it has…
I'll just chime in to say that not everyone cares about the features you mentioned that much. Keyboard, touchpad, looks are the last things I think about when comparing laptops. Not to lessen your preferences, just to point out that there's a variety of viewpoints.
To make a different point, a regular consumer does not care about tech specs. They want a laptop that can browse the web, stream Netflix, and maybe open a Word doc. They will be more sensitive to hardware problems in my opinion. A janky touchpad is going to be annoying no matter what computer task you're doing. A wobbly keyboard will be the same. To me an average consumer is more interested in the "feel" of the computer rather than what it can do.
Re: MacBook Neo
#866List 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…
Looks like a bunch of great trade-offs to give value to customers in this economy.
Re: MacBook Neo
#867List 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…
My only real issue with this design is as far as I can tell there is no markings on exterior explaining which USB-C port is "the good one" - an important point given one port is dramatically slower than the other. I suspect many users will probably accidentally plug stuff like external SSDs into the slow port without realizing. It's maybe too much to hope for at this price point, but would have been nice for a machin…
From Daring Fireball:
It was, I am reliably informed by Apple product marketing folks, a significant engineering achievement to get a second USB port at all on the MacBook Neo while basing it on the A18 Pro SoC.
But yes, even just two dots above the USB3 and two dots above the USB2 wouldn't be rude.
Re: MacBook Neo
#868A perfectly performant, luxury-feeling laptop with a secure OS for under $500? This thing is going to eat Chromebooks and budget HP shitboxes for lunch. Sure a lot of niceties are missing but compared to the experience most people have with their $500 laptops, this is going to be night and day.
> Sure a lot of niceties are missing but compared to the experience most people have with their $500 laptops, this is going to be night and day.
In September I picked up a laptop for $575.
Its specs are 15.6" 1080p IPS display, AMD Ryzen 7 6800H (8 cores, 16 threads) CPU, 32 GB of DDR5 memory, Radeon 680M iGPU that can allocate 8 GB of GPU memory, 1 TB SSD with a backlight keyboard. Weighs about 3.5 pounds and has (5) USB ports plus HDMI port. It comes with a 2 year warranty as well.
Running Arch Linux on it with niri and it's really nice for what it is.
There are decent laptops out there at affordable prices.
Re: MacBook Neo
#869Fantastic value proposition.
For most of the non-tech people in my life, I'd now recommend a base MacBook Neo + base iPhone 17 + AirPods Pro 3. Students may want to throw in a base iPad and an Apple Pencil. Splurge on the higher end versions if you like nice things, but that combo will pretty much cover the tech needs of most non-tech people.
Apple is crushing it with their entry products.
Re: MacBook Neo
#870If this makes people develop stuff under the assumption that the user only has 8 GB of memory, I am happy for where we are going :-)
I'm afraid it doesn't. People most everywhere in the world don't buy these overpriced machines. And you can get a new budget laptop with 16 GB of RAM for well under 200 USD. However - I would love it if people developed software under the assumption they couldn't just splurge on RAM. And 8 GB is still much too much for that...
Curious where can I find new budget laptop with 16g under 200? N100 mini pc’s sold for 350 at Amazon.