An affordable entry-level MacBook has been making its rounds through the rumor mill for a long time. In fact, it launched in March 2026 under the name MacBook Neo and, as is typical for Apple, was available for delivery within a week. Since then, the industry has been in complete disarray: Asus’s chief financial officer was persuaded to say to analysts that the Neo was a shock, but the tenor was also the same for many other manufacturers – albeit behind closed doors.
The shock lies in the extremely attractive overall package that Apple has put together with an official recommended price of 700 euros. There is a high-quality full metal housing and a good display. Although the A18 Pro processor comes from the smartphone world, it has enough oomph for everyday tasks. What’s more: it makes the x86 competition in the important discipline of single-threaded performance look old. Not even the fastest and newest x86 processors from AMD and Intel can come close.
We are comparing the MacBook Neo with four Windows 11 notebooks that were available at the beginning of April for 650 to 700 euros. Some had recently experienced a price drop: when they were new in 2025, they still had four-digit price tags. The Acer Aspire 14, the HP OmniBook 5 14, the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5x and the Medion Signium 14 S1 took part.
That was the reading sample of our heise Plus article “Comparison test: Four 700 euro notebooks against the MacBook Neo”. With a heise Plus subscription you can read the entire article.
