Summary
- The MacBook Neo pairs a premium aluminum build and bold colors with a $599 price ($499 for students).
- Battery life is its strong suit, with Apple estimating a whopping 16 hours — significantly more than the competition at this price point.
- The A18 Pro brings outstanding single-core performance and efficiency, but 8 GB of RAM may hurt multitasking.
On March 4, Apple announced its long-awaited budget laptop, the MacBook Neo. The machine continues Apple’s long tradition of education-focused computers, though it’s likely to be a big hit among more casual home users, as well, thanks to its price.
Apple describes the MacBook Neo as having an “unprecedented combination of quality and value.” Normally, I’d roll my eyes at a statement like that, but in this case, that actually seems like an accurate description. Priced at $599 (only $499 with an education discount!), this machine could cause a major shift in the budget and mid-range laptop market, thanks to outstanding build quality and battery life.
How the MacBook Neo stacks up
The budget laptop market is historically a saturated one, but Apple’s latest MacBook looks poised to shake things up.
Build quality
The MacBook Neo does not feel like the typical budget laptop. It’s made out of aluminum, which gives it a solid, premium feel. Many similarly-priced laptops are made of plastic, so this is a pretty big departure. The color choice is also really nice — I like indigo, personally. Regardless of which color you go with, this laptop just looks so much nicer than most competitors. It doesn’t look or feel like a budget machine at all.
Battery life
In day-to-day usage, battery life is likely going to be the biggest advantage of the MacBook Neo. Apple is advertising 16 hours of battery life on this laptop (Apple’s estimates are usually pretty accurate). I don’t think it would be an exaggeration to say that the MacBook Neo is likely to get double the real-world battery life of a similarly-priced Windows laptop, which is huge for students. It’s also likely to beat most Chromebooks by a decent margin.
This difference is largely due to the A18 Pro chip. Since this chip was originally designed for use on the iPhone, it is incredibly efficient. The laptop is also fanless, which helps with power consumption. Just make sure to avoid charging it to 100% to prolong its life!
Performance
The A18 Pro is an interesting chip for a laptop, and how it’ll handle typical laptop usage is one of the biggest question marks around this machine. This chip excels in single-core performance, benchmarking substantially higher than the chips used in most similarly-priced laptops, like the Intel Core Ultra 5. This should make things like launching apps, web browsing, and using the Mac’s powerful automation tools feel very smooth.
However, the A18 Pro lags slightly behind on multicore performance, and the laptop also lacks a fan. While fanless designs have their advantages, this combination might hurt the MacBook Neo on intensive multithreaded tasks like exporting video. It’s definitely one of the weak spots on this laptop.
Finally, the MacBook Neo is limited to 8 GB of RAM — there’s no option to add more in any configuration. For a while, machines in this price range were moving towards 16 GB of RAM, but the RAM crisis looks to be reversing this trend, so 8 GB may not be the huge disadvantage it otherwise could have been. Still, I’d prefer a 16 GB option for a little more money.
Final thoughts
I think the MacBook Neo is going to be a Big Deal
Ultimately, the MacBook Neo seems geared towards three (sometimes overlapping) groups of people: budget-conscious buyers, casual users who don’t need to do anything fancy but still want a MacBook, and students. And I think this little laptop is positioned to capture a large share of the market across all three categories.
The Neo’s build quality and battery life are significantly better than most Windows machines in this price range, and I have a feeling this laptop will attract many prospective buyers who would normally get a Windows laptop due to cost. PC makers may be forced to up their game significantly if they want to compete.
The MacBook Neo is available for preorder now, with wide release on March 11.
