What's the problem? By last years lenovo x-series, install linux, takes 10 minutes, done and everything works like a charm. Incomprehensible how much time and effort people spend on something which takes no more than a few minutes.
The MacBook Neo
931–940 of 1001 posts
Re: The MacBook Neo
#932You greatly underestimate the utility used, serviceable laptops have provided to broke students. My first laptop was a decommissioned pos office dell ultrabook. By every metrics it would've been the worst option to choose, but since it had replaceable memory I was able to push it to 16 gigs and get through my computer science degree and many side projects. Computational speed was adequate for me, I ran Linux on it. I…
I think assuming that this is a disposable, non-serviceable machine is a bit premature. Yes the RAM and SSD are soldered to the mainboard, but otherwise it looks like this might be Apple's most serviceable computer in a long time. https://www.macrumors.com/2026/03/12/macbook-neo-six-minute-... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5k7Lv7f-5CQ Non-expandable is a fair criticism. I think 8GB would be a bit constraining for a…
TBF my friends who were getting business degrees struggled with their 8 gigs pc. When they need to run something like SPSS next to a chrome instance, their ram got tight pretty fast.
Re: The MacBook Neo
#933Earlier quoted context omitted.
That sounds interesting, I might give it a go, but how do you rotate the screen, I can't see an option for it for the built in MacBook screen?
It's a setting in Settings: https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/rotate-the-image-on...
I believe that is only applicable for external displays, and I don't see the rotation option on my M1 MacBook Air, even if I Ctrl+Command click
Re: The MacBook Neo
#934Earlier quoted context omitted.
Apple isn’t this bad, of course, but they’re slowly heading in that direction. The number of overlapping iPad models and variants, for example, is getting kind of crazy these days. Now there’s the MacBook Neo and a rumoured new MacBook Ultra in the pipeline. The easy days of “pick standard or pro, select a display size, select RAM & storage” are starting to fade.
The iPad line makes a lot more sense when you’re just shopping and realize you’re just on a price ladder. Start from the bottom and climb up picking up features along the way until you reach the point where you’ve got what you want or you’re not willing to spend more money. The Neo is either easy to recommend or rather easy to not recommend. It has a fixed 8GB of RAM. I think that’s too little for a modern Mac operat…
I wish they would release a Pro version of the iPad Mini. Maybe the iPhone foldable will somewhat be this?
Re: The MacBook Neo
#935Re: The MacBook Neo
#936What's the problem? By last years lenovo x-series, install linux, takes 10 minutes, done and everything works like a charm. Incomprehensible how much time and effort people spend on something which takes no more than a few minutes.
If you ever try a mac laptop - there is simply no way back. I've got top tier Lenovo and Dell - the build quality is just incomparable. And that is sad. They may have edge on separate components - e.g. a gorgeous screen,but not the combination of it all.
Re: The MacBook Neo
#937My daughter just ordered one of these. She’s a student (not stem) and her ancient 8Gb MacBook Air with an intel processor was still serving well but the battery has become unuseable and her keyboard is becoming flaky. The Neo is such a perfect replacement and easier than fixing the Air.
The keyboard issue was probably caused by the battery, which can be replaced, and the keyboard would have likely returned to normal after the battery replacement. In fact, depending on the model, the battery replacement may well have also entailed replacing the whole top cover (including the keyboard).
Why'd the battery be related to the keyboard issue?
Re: The MacBook Neo
#938Earlier quoted context omitted.
The SSD in the Neo only manages around 1,500 MB/s in sequential benchmarks, it's not an impressive drive. > It's shocking but pretty much all laptops from Dell, HP, etc come with some form of eMMC storage. I just went to Dell's website and picked a random $400 laptop and it had an NVME SSD. The $650 Dell 14 Essential also is NVME. Both of which are M.2 so easily upgraded, replaced, or have data recovery done on them.…
> The SSD in the Neo only manages around 1,500 MB/s in sequential benchmarks, it's not an impressive drive. That's sequential, not what you want for swap, but already a good start. I agree that it's not impressive, but already leagues ahead of a SATA SSD. And for swapping a 8GB machine it's more than enough (when the swap pattern is sequential though): you swapped your whole system memory in 3 seconds, which is impre…
> you swapped your whole system memory in 3 seconds, which is impressive.
As a user a 3 second hang is unusable. Also, critically, swap consumes the life of the drive. Since the Neo's isn't user-replaceable, a 3-5 year lifespan before death is actually a non-trivial compromise, although time will tell on that one I suppose.
Re: The MacBook Neo
#939Earlier quoted context omitted.
That is still a blackbox code implementation which could be updated at any time. I trust wires, not programmers.
I mean, we don't really have any indication that the MacBook camera light is hard wired into anything .
For those who are interested, you can disassemble/image the assembly and see there is no funny business. People have done it. If there is something more complex than a power line, something is afoot.
I have no way of interrogating some GPU firmware.
Re: The MacBook Neo
#940This is imho great MB for traveling, you want to edit some pictures, read/write and edit some code without being afraid of you 3K MB Pro getting damaged or stolen? Great!
I want to do more travel and photography, with occasional light work on my own project. And this feels like better option than iPad, because i can use Xcode and android Studio. And for +- the same price.