New Macbook Neo

[TheHyperTechie]

Interested to hear peoples views on this new release? - https://www.apple.com/macbook-neo/

 

Personally, I think they look really good. I believe they will rock the Chromebook and Windows boat a bit. The specs look good too, and I think they will perform well within the education sector.

[DrCheese]

I think they'll sell like hotcakes to Post 16 (& maybe younger) students, especially if the edu store does them at £499. Just a shame that the touchID version is £100 more.

 

Will be interesting to see what we can source them at as a school - If they reach around £400 then you're in Chromebook terrority. 

 

Management of CB's will be *way* better of course, but competition is very welcomed.

[synaesthesia]

£400? I wince spending more than £200 on a Chromebook

 

I'd like to say that I hope they stay in America where form reigns over function (REALLY hate Apple and their entire ideology) but I'm intrigued as to how that chip performs in reality compared to run of the mill devices at a third of the cost.

[Fazza]

So, what can you do on a 'proper' MacBook that you can't do on a Neo?  I'm assuming from the price it's not just a case of a slower CPU and lower storage but there are other key differences to a standard MacBook - for example the MacBook Air starts at £1,099 so what can the Air do that the Neo can't?

[Norphy]

The main issue that I see with the Neo is the relatively small amount of RAM. They come with 8GB of RAM. It will be fine for internet browsing, basic office work and watching videos and the like. The CPU is also comparativley weak: 2 P cores and 4 E cores, although the single threaded performance is better than the M1 it's replacing. The rest of it is perfectly fine.

 

I expect it will be fine with most of the workloads a basic student will want from it, but once you start getting into more advanced workloads, you'll want to look at the Air series. 

 

It is a shame that Apple don't offer it with larger amounts of RAM.

[PrimaryNetMan]

£415 ex VAT and power adapter sold separately 😂

 

Meanwhile a 14" i5/8GB/512GB Chromebook plus goes for £249

[DrCheese]

4 minutes ago, PrimaryNetMan said:

£415 ex VAT and power adapter sold separately 😂

 

Meanwhile a 14" i5/8GB/512GB Chromebook plus goes for £249

£249 but the build quality, battery life & overall usability won’t be in the same ballpark. 
 

8gb on the Neo is meh, but I guess with memory so tightly built into the phone SOC its not straight forward for them to offer without making multiple SKUs and raising the price 

 

[jthompson]

I see this becoming the new default option for parents buying their sixth formers a laptop. Have seen waves of sixth formers bringing in their entry-level MBAs in recent times, so will expect this new line to become a common sight.

[2ilent8cho]

I was hoping it was going to be a 12", as I loved my 2017 12" MacBook. Hopefully allows more people into macOS at the price point, especially those that want more than an iPad, but without the pain and frustration of modern Windows. 

Edited March 4 by 2ilent8cho

[dhicks]

7 hours ago, TheHyperTechie said:

Interested to hear peoples views on this new release? - https://www.apple.com/macbook-neo/

 

Ah ha - we (home, not work) were just thinking about getting a new laptop for lighting / sound purposes (as well as general use), and this looks like it should do very nicely, so I've ordered one for pickup at the Apple store next Wednesday.

[Zoom7000]

8 hours ago, synaesthesia said:

REALLY hate Apple and their entire ideology

 

Interested to know why you REALLY hate Apple and their entire ideology 🤔

[synaesthesia]

16 minutes ago, Zoom7000 said:

 

Interested to know why you REALLY hate Apple and their entire ideology 🤔

Long story short, I'm firmly in the Louis Rossman camp. Design to fail is understandable to a point at some price levels,but on products aimed at high end markets scammy. Anti consumer, anti repair, form over function etc. I'm a hardware guy and innovation floats my boat, which is something Apple only did for me (retrospectively) in the 80s.

 

As said though I'm still interested in what this is capable of at this price point; it might even make hell a little chillier and make me pay attention

[machy]

is it right to compare this to a £250 Chromebook?

or is it better to compare to a box standard windows laptop

 

at £500 its in the same price range as the i5/8/256 Dell laptops we buy for students

[hailst0rm]

Yeah not really a competitor to cheap Chromebooks.

 

Interested to get one in to test with a teacher. Dell, HP are really jacking up the prices recently. Never thought I would see the day when apple would be the cheaper option!

[synaesthesia]

Depends on what the "target market" (cynically the "shiny happy people" REM always went on about!) thinks as they seem to want to shoehorn things in places Just Because. 

That money is high end staff laptop money for us, and people spending more than that without really good reason would beg the question "what are you doing with public money?"

 

* Also aware that prices are generally a bit skewiff at the moment for obvious reasons which may actually mean that if the price point of the Neo is current and correct, it might be better value for money that it may first appear.

 

 

[Andycat]

Just now, synaesthesia said:

 

That money is high end staff laptop money for us, and people spending more than that without really good reason would beg the question "what are you doing with public money?"

 

* Also aware that prices are generally a bit skewiff at the moment for obvious reasons which may actually mean that if the price point of the Neo is current and correct, it might be better value for money that it may first appear.

 

 

 

October Stonebook Pro was 479, last month 639. If the Neo is 400-500, it's extremely good value *currently

[Synkrox]

It's quite compelling. I'd be interested to see what ifixit makes of it before considering it as a school purchase.

 

8Gb of RAM doesn't worry me too much, MacOS is much leaner than Windows and I've had an 8Gb M1 Macbook which was absolutely fine.

It's actually slightly cheaper than the thinkpads I currently buy, but those do have touchscreen/pen/flip so not really a fair comparison.

 

Still nice to see Apple have a lower bar to enter their ecosystem, when MS are doing their best to frustrate its desktop users.

[TheHyperTechie]

Interesting points from everyone.

 

Personally, I feel 8gb is enough - MacOS utilises RAM way more efficiently than it's counterparts. I still have a MacBook Air M1 (2020) with 8gb of ram, and it performs exceptionally well. The processor on the Neo can be compared to the M1 which again, is still a very capable chip in 2026.

 

As other have said, a competing Windows laptop for example the Stonebook Pro would be around the same price (currently). If we are comparing to chromebooks, I would say that this is a competitor - https://www.google.com/chromebook/chromebookplus/?modal-id=lenovo-chromebook-plus-14-10-pdp-modal

 

I think it's great to see more somewhat "affordable" device options become available within the education sector. 

[TheHyperTechie]

17 hours ago, Fazza said:

So, what can you do on a 'proper' MacBook that you can't do on a Neo?  I'm assuming from the price it's not just a case of a slower CPU and lower storage but there are other key differences to a standard MacBook - for example the MacBook Air starts at £1,099 so what can the Air do that the Neo can't?

From a quick glance at the specs, main differences include:

 

Neo,

 

Smaller screen

Not configurable e.g. RAM

Lower core CPU & GPU

Slightly less battery life (16 hours)

[DalekSec]

As a daily Mac user at home and at work heres my mine takeaways;

 

£600 is an absolute steal, reminder this is not a budget device but it is the cheapest ever MacBook, the Entry level Pro is over 1k more expensive!

The specs are lacking a bit, would of liked it to keep magsafe, and 2x USB 3, one being USB 2 in 2026 is a bit shameful,

8GB on Mac is fine for Web browsing and light word processing

The build quality looks up to Apple standard, compared with Windows devices of same price its night and day.

 

For me it will come down to the CPU performance alone, if it out preforms i5s then it will easily be a steal 

 

Along side the Mac Mini Apple could have the best Desktop and Laptop in the under £600 budget. 

[jthompson]

Just to dumb this down a bit, I have problems with that name: Neo

 

It's like calling it  "New MacBook". What happens when it's no longer new and there are several generations of it?* It's a bit like (but not as bad as) calling something a "One", and then inevitably having several different flavours of "One" and then a "Plus" offering just to make the word completely meaningless.

 

*Oh wait, I remember. The "New iPad" quietly became the iPad 3 that everyone already knew it as.

[gpjt]

Can see it being a replacement for the iPad roll outs within schools, much more aligned to being a better overall student device with build quality to match. It would be interesting to know more about the management of these devices with whatever MDM you have.

 

Might have to get one in for testing......

[psydii]

How is the "shared-user" experience on wireless macs with sso for google / one drive these days?

Edited March 5 by psydii
a weak attempt to improve grammatical clarity

[dmj]

I've been unfortunate to have been given a macbook pro M4 for work, so it's a bit new to me. (I did buy an M1 air in 2021, but that now runs fedora!).

I can't wait until asahi is ready for M4. I've found macos a much worse user experience than gnome or kde. Honestly don't know what the attraction is. 

• popups all the time "x has been given permission for y"
• USB monitors barely work (on older ones) I need to plug in HDMI and usb for 3 screens!
• half the applications are really out of date (make, sed etc) and it seems a nightmare to replace them
• I just don't seem to be able to delete certain apps! weird!

Not convinced. My 5yr old ubuntu seemed quicker. Still, better than windows.

 

 

[Davit2005]

6 minutes ago, dmj said:

I've been unfortunate to have been given a macbook pro M4 for work, so it's a bit new to me. (I did buy an M1 air in 2021, but that now runs fedora!).

I can't wait until asahi is ready for M4. I've found macos a much worse user experience than gnome or kde. Honestly don't know what the attraction is. 

• popups all the time "x has been given permission for y"
• USB monitors barely work (on older ones) I need to plug in HDMI and usb for 3 screens!
• half the applications are really out of date (make, sed etc) and it seems a nightmare to replace them
• I just don't seem to be able to delete certain apps! weird!

Not convinced. My 5yr old ubuntu seemed quicker. Still, better than windows.

 

 

I fell out with MS Windows, still use a Win11 just for gaming only cause hardware bought has no/limited Linux support. Daily driver is a M2 Mac Mini which I use for work (RDP) and creative stuff. Work VPN does not play nicely on Linux.

 

With certain PC manufacturers pushing Linux as a supplied OS hopefully it will encourage peripheral manufacturers to develop Linux support.