The thing about Apple’s laptops is that the MacBook Air has long been both the best laptop for most people and also a lot more expensive than many of those people were willing (or are able) to spend. If you wanted a Mac laptop, your baseline was $999. And not since Apple stopped selling the 11-inch MacBook Air 10 years ago has the company had a new laptop below $900 (not including educational discounts).
But as Inc. reports, last week, all of that changed when Apple announced the MacBook Neo.
The new 13-inch laptop, powered by the A18 Pro chip, cuts the starting price almost in half. And, when you think about it, that fact alone means that the Neo could turn out to be Apple’s most consequential new product in years. Not because it’s the most powerful Mac or the most technologically advanced, but because it opens a part of the market Apple has largely ignored for more than a decade.
What’s in the MacBook Neo
The MacBook Neo is a 13-inch fanless laptop built from recycled aluminum and designed to sit below the MacBook Air in Apple’s lineup. It includes a Liquid Retina display with a resolution of 2408-by-1506 and up to 500 nits of brightness, along with a 1080p FaceTime camera, side-firing speakers with Spatial Audio support, and two USB-C ports plus a headphone jack. Notably, it does not have MagSafe.
Apple says the laptop delivers up to 16 hours of battery life, thanks largely to the processor inside. That processor is what makes the Neo unusual. Instead of using one of Apple’s M-series chips, the Neo runs on the A18 Pro, the same architecture that powers the iPhone 16 Pro. It’s the first time Apple has used an A-series chip in a Mac.
The laptop comes in four colors—Indigo, Citrus, Blush, and Silver—and ships in two primary configurations. The $599 base model includes 256GB of storage and 8GB of memory, but it does not include Touch ID. The $699 model adds Touch ID and doubles the storage to 512GB. There’s also a $499 education price, making the Neo one of the least expensive computers Apple has sold in modern history.
Even the other “affordable” Mac laptops—the 11-inch MacBook Air and White MacBook—were significantly more expensive than the Neo, both in actual dollars and adjusted for inflation.
What’s Not in the MacBook Neo
Obviously, to reach that price, Apple made a series of decisions that stand out precisely because they’re unusual for the company. For example, the keyboard is not backlit—something Apple hasn’t done on a Mac laptop in years. Also, the trackpad uses a mechanical diving-board design instead of the Force Touch haptic trackpad found on the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro.
The display, while still Retina, lacks several of the features found on higher-end Macs. It’s limited to 60Hz, does not support True Tone, and uses the sRGB color space rather than the wider P3 color gamut.
Then there are the ports. The Neo has two USB-C ports, but only one supports USB 3 speeds and DisplayPort. The other is limited to USB 2 speeds, which Apple expects most users to use primarily for charging.
None of these compromises is random. Apple is carefully designing the Neo to be affordable without undermining the MacBook Air, which is still the laptop most people should buy.
Comparing the New with the Air
According to Inc., by comparison, the MacBook Air now starts at $1,099 and runs on Apple’s M5 chip, which is significantly more powerful than the A18 Pro. It also includes a brighter display, a backlit keyboard, MagSafe charging, faster ports, and support for larger memory configurations. In other words, the Air is still clearly the better computer.
But the Neo isn’t trying to compete with it. Instead, Apple built something it hasn’t offered in years: a Mac designed primarily for entry-level buyers.
If you’re wondering who should buy the Neo, think students, families, or anyone who mostly uses their computer for web browsing, writing, video streaming, and basic productivity. It’s also easy to imagine the Neo becoming a second computer—the laptop you keep in a backpack, bring on trips, or buy for a teenager.
The iPhone Processor is Key to Neo’s Affordability
The key to making that price possible is the processor. Apple’s A-series chips are produced at an enormous scale because they power the iPhone, which ships hundreds of millions of units every year.
At the same time, the choice comes with limitations. The Neo’s memory is fixed at 8GB, with no upgrade options. That reflects the fact that the chip was originally designed with a smartphone’s constraints in mind.
But the MacBook Neo isn’t meant to be Apple’s most powerful computer. It’s meant to be the Mac that gets entirely new customers into the ecosystem—something Apple hasn’t really tried to do in more than a decade. If it works, it could turn out to be Apple’s most consequential new product in a long time.
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