This is interesting. Our current family [1] Mac Pro is from 2015 and its time to replace it, but I'm loath to spend 1000 on a laptop
[1] computer to do personal things i don't want my employer to spy on
MacBook Neo
911–920 of 1001 posts
Re: MacBook Neo
#912A laptop to watch movies and surf web
Re: MacBook Neo
#913Yeah, just rub in the fact that an A series chip is capable of running a real OS.
I also see myself going for one of these instead of an iPad once my current one goes unsupported, just to have a real OS.
Re: MacBook Neo
#914A laptop to watch movies and surf web
If you want your mind blown, think back that in 2015, 8GB RAM was considered a lot of RAM and people would regularly compile linux and freebsd kernels on such systems.
Re: MacBook Neo
#915List 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…
Being limited to 8gb of ram is genuinely the only thing on that list I care about (no backlight and no fast charging are teetering on the edge of me caring, but they aren't worth multiple hundreds of dollars) - Apple silicone is so fast now that (at least for my purposes) the performance segmentation between price points is basically meaningless.
A keyboard backlight is such a cheap and useful addition to a keyboard, it feels insulting not to get it. I cannot believe this is one of the ways they decided to cheap out.
I wouldn’t even care about the 8GB of ram if I could just add some myself.
Re: MacBook Neo
#916I'd like to bring to your attention the 2026 irony of how much things now cost: this thing has nearly the same chip, way bigger display,a keyboard, extra USB port, a touchpad, lots of copper inside and aluminum outside, way bigger battery and yet it is same price as entry level iPhone with same RAM and storage. Go figure! PS. Wonder why they didn't use A19 in this? Imagine they thought "yeah, that A18 will do for an…
The A19 doesn't have USB 3, does it? I suspect Apple didn't want to release a laptop where its only I/O ports are 480Mbps USB 2.
Re: MacBook Neo
#917My wife was just telling me she wanted an updated iBook...
Re: MacBook Neo
#918List 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. I'd be swapping all the time on 8GB of RAM.
Well for starters MacOS version is currently 26.3 (Tahoe).
Apple ecosystem, if you are not using RAM then it is wasted RAM. So it always optimise to use as much as possible.
The main point however is you are not the target audience. Apple realised that the majority of users don't do anything beyond the power of what the phone supplies. That who this is intended for.
Re: MacBook Neo
#919List 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…
Being limited to 8gb of ram is genuinely the only thing on that list I care about (no backlight and no fast charging are teetering on the edge of me caring, but they aren't worth multiple hundreds of dollars) - Apple silicone is so fast now that (at least for my purposes) the performance segmentation between price points is basically meaningless.
It’s basically a web browser machine, that’s fine.
Re: MacBook Neo
#920To me it feels like Netbooks are back on the menu.