As someone who bought my first Mac in 2019 as a young student without much money of my own, the MacBook Neo is incredibly inspiring. When the M4 Mac mini came out towards the end of 2024, I had already felt quite strongly about its potential for inspiring young creatives – and the MacBook Neo takes that much further.
MacBook Neo makes creativity affordable
In my case, I bought a 2015 11-inch MacBook Air used for around $450 in 2019. That thing had 4GB of RAM, 128GB of storage, and a dual core 5th generation Intel Core i5. There was nothing marvelous about it, but it did one thing – it ran macOS, and thus, enabled me to start building my first iOS apps.
Was it a great experience? Far from it. I even had to deal with bug-ridden macOS Catalina. That’s beside the point though, because ultimately, the capability is what mattered.
MacBook Neo doesn’t have the same compromise. For all intents and purposes, an A18 Pro is about on par with the original M1 chip in multi-core, and far exceeding the M1 in single-core. The chip is no slouch, despite just being an “iPhone chip”.
Many complain about the fact that the MacBook Neo only has 8GB of memory. And sure, I’m not going to pretend like that’s plentiful. It is a limit. That said, I’m also not going to pretend like that somehow makes it a bad value at $499 for students.
Even if you delve into the used market, you’ll have a hard time finding an M2 or M3 MacBook Air with 16GB for around $500-600. Maybe you can find an M1 MacBook Air, but the M1 MacBook Air is nearly 6 years old at this point, and it probably isn’t a good buy if you care about longevity.
Convenience with no compromise
MacBook Neo costs the same as the M4 Mac mini. $599 retail, and $499 for students.
Sure, a Mac mini will have a much more performant M4 chip, as well as 16GB of memory. The Mac mini has one huge compromise though: it’s a desktop.
Let’s ignore the fact that the Mac mini requires a display, keyboard, and mouse. Those things alone add a few hundred dollars to the total cost, but maybe you already have all of those things.
A desktop just isn’t convenient.
If you’re a student, or just a young aspiring creative, the fact that you can just work from anywhere is incredibly valuable, and that’s what a laptop buys you.
You could be in a park, on a roadtrip in the back of a car, in an airplane, or anywhere else. The point is, creativity can strike anywhere, and that’s the value of having a laptop over a desktop.
MacBook Neo is no flagship device, but it’s no slouch either. I know 14 year old me would’ve loved to own one of these, and I’m incredibly excited about the potential here for future builders and creatives. With Apple Creator Studio making Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, and so on much more accessible – as well as the advent of agentic coding tools, getting your idea out there has never been more accessible.
You can read more of my early MacBook Neo impressions here.
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