By Gadjo C. Sevilla
Apple’s MacBook Neo opens up a new segment for premium-built, performant, and generally attainable laptops not just for students, but for entire markets where new Apple devices have been priced out of people’s budgets.
Out of the box, the Neo provides the complete premium Apple unboxing experience. No expense was spared in the presentation and the unboxing experience. A tiny ‘hello’ tab greets new users before they unwrap the laptop, and in certain markets you get a 20W USB-C charger and a braided cable.
I chose the Indigo colour because I’m partial to blues. The bright citrus colour was enticing, as was the classic silver, but blue looks the most suitable for business and personal settings.
I love how the Neo looks like other Mac notebooks, but is slightly rounded around the corners and even the colour coordinated rubber feet are smooth and free of hard edges. You can tell a lot of thought and consideration went into the design and you never feel like you’ve been shortchanged as a result.
The MacBook Neo looks and feels like a smaller (not lighter) MacBook AIr. I like that it has a full sized keyboard, with just enough travel and good feedback. Yes, the keyboard is not backlit, which is likely one of the biggest cost cutting measures that’s clearly evident.
Lack of backlighting isn’t as uncommon as you think. A lot of enterprise ThinkPads ship without backlights, and the Surface Laptop Go also shipped without a keyboard that lights up. Oddly, my Ice Blue Surface Laptop Go looks like an alternative universe version of the Neo (although the surface has a touchscreen, and a pokier processor).
The MacBook Neo is as small a footprint you can expect for a 13-inch display. Next to the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Nano Gen 3, their dimensions are very similar (the ThinkPad is notably lighter, it’s made of carbon fiber and magnesium, after all).
Travel Companion
The MacBook Neo will be at home in tight airplane fold-down tables, on your lap in cramped spaces and on any coffee shop table.
The Neo, however, feels as robust as its larger siblings. The 13-inch display is clear and bright and more than ample for most computing needs. Not having a notch is actually refreshin—I never understood the need for a notch when Apple’s laptops don’t have face ID or a Dynamic Island.
The two USB-C ports are standard for this segment (better than the single one in the 12-inch MacBook and some Chromebooks). While only one of those ports can drive an external monitor and take the charger, I don’t really mind since I considered the Neo for use as a portable and not as a docked Mac.
Audio is ample and not tinny, but there’s a lack of bass compared to the MacBook Pro and MacBook Air models. It’s perfectly fine for music, videos, and podcasts.
Performance
The MacBook Neo’s performance is surprisingly quick. If you didn’t know that it was powered by an A18 Pro iPhone system-on-a-chip (S0C), you probably wouldn't know the difference. Complex webpages load as quickly as an M4 MacBook Air, and the ThinkPad’s Nano's Intel i7 (both running 16GB of RAM).
Opening apps is similarly fast, even non-Apple apps like Excel, Word, and Photomator run as if optimized for the Neo.
I’ve seen videos of Neo running Final Cut Pro effortlessly and I’m not at all surprised. Earlier iPad Pros could do the same on less performant Apple A-series chips, the Neo is three to four generations faster than those early iPad Pros.
I have the model with 512GB SSD and the Touch ID sensor, I figured Touch ID is a must have for security and two-factor authentication and the extra storage future proofs the Neo a bit longer.
After around a week of use, the Neo has become my favorite laptop to use. Its portability cannot be understated, and the lag-free nature of Apple Silicon means you can start using it without waiting for it to wake up, it’s basically always-on.
The big draw for iPhone users buying the Neo as a first Mac is that it unlocks so many niceties of the Apple ecosystem. AirDrop files back-and-forth, mirror your iPhone, unify your messaging, calendar, Notes, and notifications. These are small but critical connections that become indispensable once you get used to them.
I see the MacBook Neo as the distillation of Apple’s most popular laptops in a size, and price point, that makes it more attainable to a wider audience. It’s the spiritual successor to the polycarbonate iBook and it is also a timely contender for users transitioning away from Windows 10 or Chromebooks.
The Apple ecosystem has many advantages over their rivals. Having Apple Retail Stores or dealers ensures service and support is available. AppleCare leads the industry in customer satisfaction. The MacBook Neo’s repairability (easy to replace the battery, possible to repair the keyboard) makes this laptop feel more like an appliance than a complicated technology device.
And I believe that is where we’re headed for consumer MacBooks. Apple has refined and shrunk the CPU, GPU, RAM and storage to such a high degree that these devices have a more modular construction, making repair more affordable in the long run.
Conclusion
The MacBook Neo represents the halo product for the non-professional segment of the market. The A18 Pro, despite its 8GB of RAM ceiling, is more than capable of handling basic and even intermediate computing tasks. Using the A18 Pro to powe MacOS Tahoe does bring up some uncomfortable questions.
Does this mean iPads, which run more powerful processors and have more RAM, can run MacOS as well? Can iPhones? I think the answer is yes, they can but It's unlikely Apple will upend its product lines which are clearly segmented. MacBook Neo does speak to how performant iPhones have become.
Battery life under normal use (YouTube videos, surfing the web, and using productivity apps), should be good for 8-10 hours, enough for a full work or school day. IF you run out of juice, plug in a powerbank and you should get a few hours out of that.
While a lot of the narrative surrounding MacBook Neo is that it is for students, I think it is more than that. I expect this to be the best selling laptop in emerging markets which could unlock a bevy of new users for Apple and its ecosystem.