MacBook Neo
The MacBook Neo is Apple's new $599 Mac notebook with A18 Pro chip. Pre-orders available now, launch on March 11.
Should You Buy the MacBook Neo?
Priced at $599, the MacBook Neo is Apple's cheapest laptop, but it is not without compromise. Instead of an M-series Mac chip, it uses the A18 Pro that Apple first introduced in the iPhone 16 Pro, plus it is limited to 8GB RAM.
It performs as well as an iPhone, but it isn't on par with the more expensive MacBook Air or MacBook Pro. Still, if you simply need a Mac for tasks like browsing the web, streaming video, creating documents, and photo editing, the MacBook Neo can do all of that with ease. It also supports Apple Intelligence and can be used for AI tasks.
Apple made the MacBook Neo for those who need a more affordable machine and who otherwise would have opted for a Windows PC or a Chromebook, including students. For EDU customers, the MacBook Neo starts at just $499.
The aluminum MacBook Neo comes in four fun colors, and it has a 13-inch display with a standard keyboard and trackpad. There are built-in speakers and microphones, along with a FaceTime camera, and up to 512GB of storage.
Apple just introduced the MacBook Neo, which means now is a good time to buy. If you want better performance, a slimmer design, more RAM, faster Wi-Fi, and longer battery life, you might want to consider the MacBook Air, which is priced starting at $1,099.
Apple also sells the MacBook Pro, which is its most capable laptop. The MacBook Pro models feature higher-quality mini-LED displays, the fastest performance in a laptop, more RAM, more maximum storage, longer battery life, and several other premium features.
The New MacBook Neo
The MacBook Neo is Apple's newest Mac, and the most affordable notebook that Apple has released to date at $599. Designed from the ground up, the Neo is unique because it features an A-series chip instead of a typical M-series chip. It has lower-end features than the MacBook Pro or the MacBook Air to keep costs low.
Apple designed the MacBook Neo for teachers, students, and anyone who needs a laptop for day-to-day tasks like document editing, web browsing, and watching videos. Apple says that the device is available at a breakthrough price which makes it more accessible to millions of people around the world.
You might mistake the MacBook Neo for a MacBook Air because it is similar in size, shape, and overall look. The Neo has a 13-inch Liquid Retina Display and an aluminum body with soft, rounded corners. It is less than a centimeter smaller than the MacBook Air in length and width, but it is thicker than the MacBook Air. It weighs 2.7 pounds, which is what the MacBook Air weighs.
Apple sells the MacBook Neo in four colors, including Silver, Blush, Citrus, and Indigo. It has dual speakers at the sides of the body with spatial audio support, two microphones with Voice Isolation and Wide Spectrum, a 3.5mm headphone jack, a color-matched Magic Keyboard with no backlight, and a physical trackpad instead of a Force Touch trackpad, but it still supports Multi-Touch gestures. The base model does not have Touch ID, but if you upgrade the storage, you can get a Touch ID power button.
There are thicker bezels all around the display, with a 1080p FaceTime camera at the top. There is no notch, unlike Apple's other MacBooks. The MacBook Neo has a resolution of 2408 x 1506 at 219 pixels per inch with 500 nits brightness and an included anti-reflective coating. There is no support for True Tone, a 120 Hz ProMotion refresh rate, or P3 Wide color, so the display is lower quality than the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro displays.
The MacBook Neo is the first consumer Mac that has an A-series chip, and it is equipped with the A18 Pro chip that Apple first debuted in the iPhone 16 Pro. The A18 Pro that Apple used for the MacBook Neo has a 6-core CPU, a 5-core GPU, and a 16-core Neural Engine. It features 60GB/s memory bandwidth, which is less than half of the bandwidth of the MacBook Air.
Like Apple's other Macs, it has a Media Engine with hardware-accelerated H.264, HEVC, ProRes, and ProRes RAW support, along with video encoding and decoding engines. There is just 8GB RAM in the MacBook Neo, with no option to upgrade to get more. 8GB is sufficient for Apple Intelligence, so the MacBook Neo does support Apple's AI features.
The $599 model comes with 256GB of storage, but there is a 512GB upgrade option for an additional $100. There are no other upgrades for the MacBook Neo. There are two USB-C ports, including one that's USB 2 that supports transfer speeds of up to 480Mb/s, and one that's USB 3 that supports speeds of up to 10Gb/s. The USB 3 port supports DisplayPort 1.4 for connecting a single external display at 4K 60Hz. The MacBook Neo does not support multiple displays, nor does it work with higher-resolution displays like Apple's Studio Display. There are also no Thunderbolt ports.
There is a 36.5-watt-hour lithium battery in the MacBook Neo, and it lasts for up to 11 hours of browsing the web or up to 16 hours of streaming video. The MacBook Neo charges over USB-C with a 20W or higher power adapter, and it does not include a MagSafe charging port. It does not have a fast charge feature. Apple ships the MacBook Neo with a 20W USB-C power adapter in the U.S. and some other countries, but a power adapter is not included in the EU or the UK.
The MacBook Neo supports Wi-Fi 6E so it can connect to 6Hz Wi-Fi networks, and it has Bluetooth 6.
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How to Buy
The MacBook Neo is available for pre-order from the Apple online store, and it is set to launch on Wednesday, March 11. It is priced starting at $599 for 256GB of storage, with 512GB available for $699.
