The MacBook Neo Is Terrible Value
Yesterday, Apple Unveiled the final device in its flurry of announcements. The MacBook Neo, featuring an A18 Pro Chip, 8GB of Ram and a 256GB SSD for £599 or £699 for 512GB SSD and TouchID, the device also sports a 13 inch 2408x1506 display and 2 USB C ports one of which is USB 3 and one is USB 2.
On the surface this laptop seems fine maybe borderline usable but I think 8GB of ram even in these trying times is a tough pill to swallow and even going for a mid way point of 12GB of ram would have turned this from a bad buy to a go right ahead from my perspective.
Here is the thing with this laptop, very soon but certainly by the time the next school year comes around stores will be trying to get the M4 MacBook air stock of their hands and if previous M series mac books are to go by then we will soon see them going for as low as £750 just a smidge more than the "top spec" version of this laptop. Alternatively right now on the used market you can currently find good condition M3 or M4 MacBook Airs with 16GB ram already for the same money or less.
So I beg you, if you or a family member is thinking about buying a MacBook in the near future please consider all the options. Consider how long the neo will last compared to the air because even at full price the MacBook air is the better value when in 8 years its still going strong and the MacBook neo gave up the ghost and needed replacing years ago.
Why Apple even endeavored to make this laptop is clear, for the past few years they have still been selling the original base model M1 Air via Walmart in the US and its been incredibly good seller, even though to me it has the same value issue as this new MacBook Neo, but Apple has run out of M1 chips to put into these things and using valuable fab time to make more would make no sense, so in comes the A18 Pro, essentially a like for like with the M1 on power but with huge scale in manufacturing thanks to the the iPhone 16 Pro, this also undoubtedly helped keep costs down, A18 Pro is also on a much newer fab process compared to the M1 so therefore if more A18 Pro chips can be made they're not using an older more expensive process.
iPhone 16 Pro
The biggest mystery to me is the neo name. iPhone, iPad even AirPods and Apple Pencil follow the trend of iPad, iPad Air, iPad Pro. iPhone, iPhone Air, iPhone Pro ect yes there is no AirPods or Pencil Air but there is AirPods and AirPods Pro, Pencil and Pencil Pro. So why Macbook Neo as the entry level one, well I think its because the MacBook name with no Moniker has some baggage and this is not the same type of laptop as the previous laptops to simply be called MacBook. The Most notable two are The Polycarbonate MacBook from 2006-2012 and then the Retina MacBook.
Polycarbonate MacBook in White
Neither of these devices where there to target the same audience as the MacBook Neo. The Poly MacBook started at £999 and the Retina MacBook started at £1249. The Poly MacBook sat at the place the Air sits now in that its the MacBook most people should buy with for the time its respectable for the time Core 2 Duo Processor and up to 3GB of ram. The Retina MacBook meanwhile was arguably ahead of its time and was heavily neutered by its intel Y series chip in that tiny thermal envelope, but it was really there to sit along side the air as a statement laptop, a laptop for executives and real estate agents to use on trains and planes.
Retina MacBook
So I think Apple wanted a fresh start which I suppose is heavily implied from neo literately meaning new, this is also the first of the next set of Macs designs with the MacBook Pro due to be redesigned as early as October this year and the MacBook Air in about 1 to 2 years time going by past redesign timelines. This could be a statement of the new design language for macs going forward.
Last Edited: 1 month ago.