Apple finally did it: The tech giant revealed its brand-new budget MacBook laptop during this week’s three-day Apple event. The $599 MacBook Neo is the unicorn “cheap MacBook” that Apple fans have been chasing for a decade. It fills the big budget-buyer gap left by the now-discontinued $649 M1 MacBook Air—and to excellent effect, it seems.
The transition to an A-series chip for the MacBook Neo is part of where Apple is cutting costs, but it also makes a big statement. By powering it with the A18 Pro processor, Apple proves its software is truly silicon-agnostic at this point. The Neo also starts off at a price that’s hard to quibble with: $599, with a $699 upgrade option. (Education buyers can snag the base model for $499.) Plus, the fun new color options (Blush, Citrus, and Indigo) are a playful, nostalgic nod to past iBooks in Apple’s line.
(Credit: Brian Westover)
I had some time during Apple’s big launch event to try out the MacBook Neo. My first impressions? Apple nailed it. I’m already bullish on what this laptop will do to the budget-laptop market.
Check Out the MacBook Neo…
Design: The New Smallest MacBook (But Not the Thinnest)
The MacBook Neo is essentially a smaller, lighter MacBook Air in every way you can imagine. Aside from the new chassis colors (silver, dark blue, pink, and light yellow; Apple dubs the last three Indigo, Blush, and Citrus), a smaller 13-inch display (versus the 13.6-incher on the Air), side-firing speakers, and a missing Touch ID power button on the base model, the MacBook Neo adopts the existing MacBook design launched with the M2 MacBook Air laptops back in 2022.
Admittedly, the MacBook Neo is a little thicker than the 0.44-inch-thick MacBook Air models, at exactly half an inch thick. It weighs the same as the 13.6-inch MacBook Air, at 2.7 pounds.
(Credit: Brian Westover)
The Neo also lacks the MagSafe charging port found on the other MacBooks, requiring you to use one of its two left-hand USB Type-C ports for recharges. One port is a 10Gbps USB 3.2 Gen 2 with DisplayPort video-out capability, while the other is on the USB 2 standard. Both can charge the laptop, but I think you’ll want to keep the rear USB 3.2 port open. You’ll also find a headphone jack here, on the same side as the other ports.
(Credit: Brian Westover)
Remembering that this is a $600 MacBook, the keyboard feels just as high-quality as it does on the MacBook Air and Pro laptops, allowing me to type at my top speed. The big difference is immediately noticeable, though: It lacks key backlighting. Likewise, the touchpad is decently sized for the laptop’s chassis size, and it does everything you expect from an Apple trackpad.
One possible swing option is the Touch ID power button. The $599 base version of the Neo has an ordinary power-on press button; a $100 upgrade gets you a Touch ID-enabled one. That same $100 upgrade also gains you twice the storage space, going from the base model’s 256GB to 512GB.
(Credit: Brian Westover)
Apple also includes a 1080p FaceTime webcam for meetings and keeping up with friends and family. In the process, Apple is about to make MacBook Air and MacBook Pro owners a bit jealous, maybe: the MacBook Neo drops the deeply divisive camera notch. In its place is simply a thicker bezel all around, but some Apple watchers might prefer that to how MacBook screens have been “notched” for the past several years.
As for the display, the screen is a 13-inch version of Apple’s Liquid Retina LED IPS panel, coming in at a native resolution of 2,408 by 1,506 pixels. That’s a bit lower than the 13.6-inch Air, but the loss of more than half an inch on the diagonal helps explain that.
(Credit: Brian Westover)
Again, given this MacBook’s place in the market, the Liquid Retina screen supports only the sRGB color gamut and lacks Apple’s True Tone color-matching feature, though it shines with up to 500 nits of brightness. That last stat will be particularly impressive, if it bears out in testing. That could make this screen workable for outdoor use and readable under adverse lighting. It looked good in the demo space.
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(Credit: Brian Westover)
I am quite impressed by this panel at first glance; it looks deeply colorful (Apple claims 1 billion colors) and ready for all sorts of work and leisure content. A new game, Oceanhorn 3, was being showcased on the MacBook Neo, and it looks stellar on the screen, particularly the water effects.
All told, this just might be the highest-quality budget laptop ever produced, with its full-aluminum build and high-resolution screen.
Spec Check: It Looks Like iPhone Chips Work in Macs, Too
The MacBook Neo’s spec sheet lines up almost exactly with the rumors we’ve heard over the past year. The laptop runs on Apple’s A18 Pro processor, first seen in its iPhone 16 Pro phones, paired with 8GB of unified memory that’s embedded in the CPU package and not upgradable.
This memory situation might seem a bit weak by today’s laptop standards, and it is for many situations, but the MacBook Neo is designed for use that demands no more power than an iPhone or iPad would. That means you should go into buying a MacBook Neo full well knowing its target audience: mainstream budget buyers, and students.
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(Credit: Brian Westover)
In that context, the MacBook Neo is well-positioned to compete with the Chromebooks and budget Snapdragon PC laptops of the world. Late last year, we already did a bit of research on what the A18 Pro might look like in a laptop, compared with existing MacBooks, and Apple’s chip-design dynamic still applies here. The A18 Pro outpaces competitors on single-threaded tasks, but it lags a little on multi-threaded ones. We’ll see soon how that holds up.
As for graphics, that’s much more dependent on the comparison, though the A18 Pro can definitely run any iOS game, many of which are compatible with macOS on Apple silicon. I was frankly surprised to see a game of any kind running on the Neo, but it makes sense considering how far iPhone and iPad gaming have come.
(Credit: Brian Westover)
Apple projects that the MacBook Neo’s battery will last up to 16 hours for video streaming and 11 hours for web browsing on a charge, which is slightly shorter than the current MacBook Air’s 18-hour promise. That’s likely because the smaller size limits battery capacity versus what’s in the MacBook Air. Again, we’ll be testing that out soon.
For wireless connections, the Neo has Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 6 radios inside. While the wireless internet isn’t as current as Wi-Fi 7, the laptop has the latest Bluetooth generation.
(Credit: Brian Westover)
Early Takeaway: Apple Stuck to Its Guns on Price, So I’m Happy
While the MacBook Neo’s starting price has long been a subject of rumor, I fully expected any such Apple laptop to start well above $600, given the ongoing memory shortage that’s boosting PC prices willy-nilly. Sure, it has only 8GB of memory and 256GB of storage to start, but with RAM and flash-storage prices skyrocketing, that’s a perfectly reasonable pairing at this price. I’ll leave the economics to the experts at the $4 trillion company, but I imagine Apple is either enjoying lower profit margins here or has made a preemptive, wise deal with a memory supplier.
Regardless of how Apple got a $599 MacBook in front of us, it’s here, and I’m highly impressed at first glance. The recently evaporated 2020-era M1 MacBook Air was already one of the best deals in budget computing, and now its disappearance makes sense. The MacBook Neo looks to be picking up its torch and running with it.
Check Out the MacBook Neo…
I’m excited to put the MacBook Neo through its paces to see whether it’s truly the budget laptop to beat this year. You can preorder the MacBook Neo right now, and it goes on sale starting March 11.
About Our Expert
Joe Osborne
Deputy Managing Editor, Hardware
Experience
After starting my career at PCMag as an intern more than a decade ago, I’m back as one of its editors, focused on managing laptops, desktops, and components coverage. With 15 years of experience, I have been on staff and published in technology review publications, including PCMag (of course!), Laptop Magazine, Tom’s Guide, TechRadar, and IGN. Along the way, I’ve tested and reviewed hundreds of laptops and helped develop testing protocols. I have expertise in testing all forms of laptops and desktops using the latest tools. I’m also well-versed in video game hardware and software coverage.
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