Apple’s (AAPL) new $599 MacBook Neo, which will be available in stores from Wednesday, saw positive reviews on pricing, design, and performance.
“It’s meant to be a new kind of Mac for a new generation—perhaps an attempt to recapture a generation that’s only been exposed to iPads and Chromebooks,” said Luke Larsen at Wired.
Larsen noted that at $599, the MacBook Neo is Apple’s first budget laptop, adding that for the most part, Apple cut corners in the right places and made a MacBook that its intended buyers will adore.
Last week, Apple unveiled the 13-inch, 2.7-pound MacBook Neo, powered by the A18 Pro processor, which first appeared in the iPhone 16 Pro. It comes in four colors: silver, indigo, blush, and citrus, and contains a 1080p webcam and a headphone jack. The base model does not have a Touch ID, but the higher-end models will have the feature. Neo is aimed at competing with low-cost Google (GOOG) (GOOGL) Chromebooks and the Microsoft (MSFT) Surface.
Neo is a “game changer” for the laptop industry, according to Chris Welch at Bloomberg News.
“The Neo and its A18 Pro are capable enough to edit RAW images in Adobe Inc.’s Lightroom. They can handle cutting short 4K videos in apps like iMovie or CapCut without stumbling,” said Welch.
Welch noted that even for consumers who stick to more casual computing, Neo’s aluminum build, crisp screen, and well-balanced speakers are going to make this a “no-brainer purchase for millions.”
However, Welch said that to reach such a mass-market price, Apple has done a “substantial amount of cost cutting.” These include: the standard $599 MacBook Neo does not have a Touch ID but the higher-tier $699 Neo will; regular trackpad; no backlit keyboard; slow USB-C ports; no MagSafe charging; 60 hertz display; and no anti-reflective display coating.
“The point is that in a pinch, Apple’s low-cost MacBook can handle its share of work without slowing to a crawl or feeling torturous to deal with. How many $600 Windows laptops can you say that about?” Welch added.
Matt Elliott at CNET said that Neo is the perfect first laptop for kids and is by far the most affordable MacBook, yet it still offers the same premium design and durability as Apple’s pricier MacBooks.
“I hope next year’s Neo includes Touch ID in the base model and adds MagSafe charging, but right out of the gate, the first-gen Neo is the most well-rounded $600 laptop around,” said Elliott.
Elliott noted that MacBook Neo drops the entry point of an Apple laptop by $500, as the M5 MacBook Air starts at $1,099.
Students can get Apple’s $100 education discount with the Neo in the U.S., which can further lower the price.
“Like MacBook Air and Pro models, the Neo has a sturdy, all-aluminum body. It feels just as rigid as a MacBook Air or Pro with the same luxurious look. The Neo doesn’t cheapen the MacBook brand,” said Elliott.
“From a hardware perspective, MacBook Neo is rock solid. It has the same build quality you’d expect from an Apple-made laptop. It’s not plastic, but rather the classic Apple aluminum build quality. The only real difference is that the Apple logo on the back isn’t shiny, and there isn’t a notch on the display,” said Chance Miller at 9to5Mac.
Miller noted that one of the demos at Apple’s experience in New York City last week was a direct comparison to an HP (HPQ) laptop in MacBook Neo’s price range. The goal was to compare things such as display quality and speakers to those of a similarly priced PC.
Miller said that he saw a difference in build quality. “As the Apple representative demoed the HP laptop, it creaked and rattled with every press of the trackpad or keyboard. MacBook Neo, meanwhile, was silent,” he added.
Regarding performance, Miller said that there are not “any oddities” that come with using a Mac powered by an iPhone chip from a software perspective. “I’d go as far as to wager that most people who buy a MacBook Neo won’t even realize it’s using an iPhone-class processor. It’s the same macOS experience you’d get if you were using any other Mac.”
In benchmarks, MacBook Neo performs exactly as one would expect an A18 Pro device to perform, according to Miller.
In single-core benchmarking, the MacBook Neo is about 10% faster than the base M3 MacBook Air and 13% slower than the base M5 MacBook Air. Meanwhile, in multi-core performance, the MacBook Neo is around 4% faster than the M1 MacBook Air but 49% slower than the M5 MacBook Air, Miller noted.
“I think even Apple knows that MacBook Neo’s target audience isn’t existing Mac users. Apple’s marketing page for MacBook Neo says “love at first Mac,” for instance, alongside information on using Migration Assistant to move from PC to Mac. Apple even touts that MacBook Neo has “free antivirus protections” built in — a clear acknowledgment of how PC users think,” said Miller.