After a week of product announcements—starting with the iPhone 17e, a refreshed iPad Air, and more powerful MacBook Pro models—Apple has unveiled a new category in its laptop lineup for the first time in a while: the “MacBook Neo.”
Positioned below the MacBook Air as an entry-level machine, this new MacBook is the most affordable laptop the company has ever made, with a starting price of $599. While it’s been possible to buy a new MacBook Air at lower prices—like the 2020 M1 MacBook Air Apple sold for several years for $699 exclusively through Walmart—this is officially the cheapest MacBook out the gate.
Aside from the price, its approach to color also makes it unique among the other MacBooks in Apple’s lineup. You have several color options, including Silver, Indigo, Blush, and Citrus. The colors hearken back a bit to the iBook G3 of yesteryear and are akin to the current iMac design. In person, the colors aren’t a bright and bold as expected, still exhibiting a more subtle hue. Apple says the aluminum device weighs 2.7 pounds and is 0.50 inches thick. That’s 0.06 inches thicker than the MacBook Air, while the two laptops weigh the exact same amount.
Despite its price, Apple doesn’t appear to be cutting corners on the quality of the 12.9-inch screen. With a resolution of 2408 by 1506 and up to 500 nits of brightness, Apple boasts that it is “both brighter and higher in resolution than most PC laptops in this price range.” The display doesn’t use a notch for the webcam like the MacBook Air or MacBook Pro. There’s a 1080p camera, a Touch ID sensor, and side-firing speakers with Dolby Atmos. Unfortunately, the Touch ID sensor is only available on the $699 model, which comes with 512 GB of storage.
The MacBook Neo does make plenty of other concessions to hit its aggressive price though. It’s powered by the A18 Pro chip—the same processor inside the iPhone 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max. Yup—you read that right. iPads have used Mac chips for years, but now a MacBook is using an iPhone chip. Still, this processor should deliver more power than the original M1 chip in the MacBook Air. Apple claims the chip gives the MacBook Neo up to 16 hours of battery life. That’s less than the MacBook Air or MacBook Pro. Apple also says the chip is up to 50 percent faster in daily tasks like web browsing than “the best-selling PC with the latest chipping Intel Core Ultra 5.” According to the liner notes, this was based on a Speedometer test, a popular browser-based benchmark.
Other compromises to the device are the use of a mechanical multi-touch trackpad (rather than one that uses haptic feedback), a non-backlit keyboard, and the more limited port selection. The use of the iPhone chip means this MacBook only supports one external monitor through one if its two USB-C ports. Either port can be used for charging. There’s also a headphone jack, located in an odd position next to the side-firing speakers near the front of the device. While technically this is the same amount of USB-C ports as the MacBook Air, it’s missing the magnetic MagSafe 3 charging port, which frees up one of the USB-C ports.
