New Macbook Neo

[dmj]

I'm having the exact opposite problem. Gaming and hardware support is really good for Linux, but terrible for mac !

[dhicks]

1 hour ago, psydii said:

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

 

We have a suite of iMacs, all with wired network connections (so not quite what you're asking), that are shared user devices, manged with Moysle MDM. We currently have issues with user profiles taking up disk space - with multiple users and multiple user profiles, the disk fills up very quickly. As managed single-user devices, assigned to individual pupils (GCSE / A-level maybe), I would imagine they should work nicely.

[psydii]

On prem AD or Entra/Google Auth?

[dhicks]

19 minutes ago, psydii said:

On prem AD or Entra/Google Auth?

 

Users log in using login-with-Google (OAuth) via Moysle's system ("Moysleauth", I think). The login process doesn't seem to pass browser cookies for Google authentication through to Chrome, so once a user has logged in to a machine they then have to log in to Chrome again separately. Same goes for the Google Drive client, so when a user first logs on to a new workstation there's several minutes of getting logged in / set up to do, which of course most people simply try and skip. At the moment we have a script running to clear out user profiles as the harddrive gets too full otherwise, so pretty much every user logon is like a new logon. I'm hopefully spending some time tomorrow figuring out how to fix this if we can.

[TheHyperTechie]

16 minutes ago, dhicks said:

 

Users log in using login-with-Google (OAuth) via Moysle's system ("Moysleauth", I think). The login process doesn't seem to pass browser cookies for Google authentication through to Chrome, so once a user has logged in to a machine they then have to log in to Chrome again separately. Same goes for the Google Drive client, so when a user first logs on to a new workstation there's several minutes of getting logged in / set up to do, which of course most people simply try and skip. At the moment we have a script running to clear out user profiles as the harddrive gets too full otherwise, so pretty much every user logon is like a new logon. I'm hopefully spending some time tomorrow figuring out how to fix this if we can.

Someone just posted this... looks relevant. Could you not at least automate this with Action1 or something? (That's if you don't already of course)

 

Edited March 5 by TheHyperTechie

[itskdog]

6 hours ago, 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?"

 

A bit of a tangent, but what resellers are you using that £500 is high-end? For a 16GB i5 HP ProBook (typically a teacher's sole PC to save also having desktops in class which is extra expense) we're paying about £600 (plus extra for the 3 year warranty demanded in the DfE standards), though I suppose that does come with a £100 rebate if we have an older device to trade in within 60 days.

[dhicks]

16 minutes ago, TheHyperTechie said:

Could you not at least automate this with Action1 or something? (That's if you don't already of course)

 

Thankyou. Our Macs (a suite of all-in-one iMacs, plus a Macbook used by the marketing department) are managed using Moysle MDM, which gives us the ability to run various startup / login / logout scripts. I think Action1 (which we use for our Windows machines) does now support MacOS, so we could use that as well / instead. We currently have a similar clear-the-profiles script running daily, which clears out the user profiles and stops the drives filling up. The problem with that is that the next time the user logs in, they are effectively logging in to the device for the first time and have to go through a bunch of steps to log in to Chrome / Google Drive Client, etc. It would be okay (if still fiddly) if they just had to do the whole login-and-set-up process once when assigned a device, but currently they wind up doing it each time (or, more likely, not bothering). Probably the solution needed is to modify the clear-the-profiles process to clear just the disk-usage-heavy parts of the profile (probably some cache directories somewhere) and leave the user option settings intact if possible.

 

I guess in answer to the original question: I would guess the new Macbook Neo would be quite a nice device in a managed one-to-one setup for the average GCSE / A-level pupil, but we are currently finding MacOS clunky to manage is a shared user setup (better solutions than ours could be available, though). I would also guess the Neo might be a bit less robust than a tablet like the iPad, just because it has more moving hinges / buttons to get damaged, so I'm guessing not ideal as a shared device lower down the school, either.

[synaesthesia]

41 minutes ago, itskdog said:

 

A bit of a tangent, but what resellers are you using that £500 is high-end? For a 16GB i5 HP ProBook (typically a teacher's sole PC to save also having desktops in class which is extra expense) we're paying about £600 (plus extra for the 3 year warranty demanded in the DfE standards), though I suppose that does come with a £100 rebate if we have an older device to trade in within 60 days.

Last batch we bought were 14" Ryzen 5 HP Probook 445 G10 with 16GB ram which come to use under £450 a piece with no rebates.  Budgets obviously vary per school so high end to me might be fossilized to someone else! They rip through everything required of them and there's not much these days which actually needs much oomph - only exception for us is Photoshop and they eat that up. With so much else being cloud based, it's easy to ask "why do we need a grands worth of kit to run a browser?"

(And likewise, knowing most browsers as we do, 128GB of RAM might be appropriate! And less said about that cost the better.)

 

[itskdog]

Just now, synaesthesia said:

Last batch we bought were 14" Ryzen 5 HP Probook 445 G10 with 16GB ram which come to use under £450 a piece with no rebates.  Budgets obviously vary per school so high end to me might be fossilized to someone else! They rip through everything required of them and there's not much these days which actually needs much oomph - only exception for us is Photoshop and they eat that up. With so much else being cloud based, it's easy to ask "why do we need a grands worth of kit to run a browser?"

(And likewise, knowing most browsers as we do, 128GB of RAM might be appropriate! And less said about that cost the better.)

 

 

Ah, AMD. The IT manager here is wary of buying AMD as he's had issues in past workplaces where software was only tested on Intel machines and had issues on AMD and they got caught out, and is willing to pay a little bit extra for the bigger name. G10 I think is only one generation ago (as they've reset back to G1 now along with Intel & AMD doing the same)

 

That makes sense for the cheaper cost there.

[machy]

7 minutes ago, synaesthesia said:

Last batch we bought were 14" Ryzen 5 HP Probook 445 G10 with 16GB ram which come to use under £450 a piece with no rebates.  Budgets obviously vary per school so high end to me might be fossilized to someone else! They rip through everything required of them and there's not much these days which actually needs much oomph - only exception for us is Photoshop and they eat that up. With so much else being cloud based, it's easy to ask "why do we need a grands worth of kit to run a browser?"

(And likewise, knowing most browsers as we do, 128GB of RAM might be appropriate! And less said about that cost the better.)

 

The Dell Equivalent has gone up by >£150 since sept 

i'd imagine you'd cry if you asked HP For a fresh quote for the same thing 
 

 A Quick google puts the Retail price of that HP Device at £800 exvat

Edited March 5 by machy

[DalekSec]

3 minutes ago, itskdog said:

 

Ah, AMD. The IT manager here is wary of buying AMD as he's had issues in past workplaces where software was only tested on Intel machines and had issues on AMD and they got caught out, and is willing to pay a little bit extra for the bigger name. G10 I think is only one generation ago (as they've reset back to G1 now along with Intel & AMD doing the same)

 

That makes sense for the cheaper cost there.

 

I wasnt wary of being Ryzen, brought it for one of our teams, they've had nothing but issues so went back to Intel and all fine again...

 

Same make and model of Lenovo ThinkPads but one diffrent CPU... Ryzen one on paper looked better but the CPU was very very slugish and rubbish battery life. 

[synaesthesia]

I would suspect your IT manager has a grudge based on a past issue which could easily be countered by countless similar issues Intel have caused over the years - part of our job is helping ensuring value for money. None of our Ryzens have caused any issues - had them in Lenovo (cheap and cheerful) flavours and HPs and they've been popular and rapid. The i5's we had in our last batch of Lenovos however were bloody awful  Not exactly apples to apples comparisons but I'd absolutely be buying Ryzen's again if the price was right.

 

Frankly it scares the life out of me that people are accepting that 16GB should be standard for the typical laptop that does little more than open an MIS, run a powerpoint and book a holiday - hands are tied because devs and manufacturers are so ruddy lazy/rushed/pressured/rubbish and we end up footing the bill for it.

[drkmccy]

Don't think Apple is targeting Chromebooks? This is squarely aimed at the budget Windows laptop sector.
From an average consumer POV, why would I buy a cheap plastic laptop now? Specifically Edu, every popular app is available for MacOS: M365 apps, ActivInspire, SMART, etc.
 

There's obviously the group of users who will never buy anything Apple and the ones who cant use anything that isn't Windows -and those 2 groups overlap quite a bit, including a large percentage of network managers.
 

But looking at it pragmatically and if there isn't any Windows only software needed: A £450 laptop that will last twice as long as same priced Windows PC, is more secure and can be easily deployed and managed. That's worth looking at. I would consider it for teachers and 121 student laptops.

As for specs. MacOS is very efficient in resource management. The 8GB of RAM is not gonna feel sluggish like it would on a Windows PC. It will perform closer to a lightweight Linux distro.

[TheHyperTechie]

17 hours ago, dhicks said:

 

Thankyou. Our Macs (a suite of all-in-one iMacs, plus a Macbook used by the marketing department) are managed using Moysle MDM, which gives us the ability to run various startup / login / logout scripts. I think Action1 (which we use for our Windows machines) does now support MacOS, so we could use that as well / instead. We currently have a similar clear-the-profiles script running daily, which clears out the user profiles and stops the drives filling up. The problem with that is that the next time the user logs in, they are effectively logging in to the device for the first time and have to go through a bunch of steps to log in to Chrome / Google Drive Client, etc. It would be okay (if still fiddly) if they just had to do the whole login-and-set-up process once when assigned a device, but currently they wind up doing it each time (or, more likely, not bothering). Probably the solution needed is to modify the clear-the-profiles process to clear just the disk-usage-heavy parts of the profile (probably some cache directories somewhere) and leave the user option settings intact if possible.

 

I guess in answer to the original question: I would guess the new Macbook Neo would be quite a nice device in a managed one-to-one setup for the average GCSE / A-level pupil, but we are currently finding MacOS clunky to manage is a shared user setup (better solutions than ours could be available, though). I would also guess the Neo might be a bit less robust than a tablet like the iPad, just because it has more moving hinges / buttons to get damaged, so I'm guessing not ideal as a shared device lower down the school, either.

Ah ok I see what you mean. I use Mosyle for our iPads (free version). I didn't realise that scripting etc was available for macs through it, useful feature though!

 

Yeah, to be honest I have never really heard of anything apple related and "shared" being very positive. At my last Trust, we tried to look down the shared iPad route, but similar to your issue the 64gb on the 9th generation model just didn't cut it. Worked really well for 1:1 though.

[Andycat]

We generally use iPads as 1:1 yr 7-11, managed by inTune. We're starting a laptop scheme for 6th form and these look very promising, if they can be managed with InTune as well as the iPads can.

 

 

[msi_school]

I have owned a couple of Mac products that have struggled with too little memory or a HDD when it should have had a SSD.

 

Apple designers and engineers are only human and can miss calculate the spec required, add to this that a Apple laptop will be on the market with unchanged spec for longer than a Windows one.

 

 

[TheHyperTechie]

Just now, msi_school said:

I have owned a couple of Mac products that have struggled with too little memory or a HDD when it should have had a SSD.

 

Apple designers and engineers are only human and can miss calculate the spec required, add to this that a Apple laptop will be on the market with unchanged spec for longer than a Windows one.

 

 

Agree, however... This is a tactical move from Apple (of course). If they allowed configurable specs like RAM, SSD etc it would completely wipe out their other product line up, people would just buy the Neo for £500 instead of spending £1000+ on a more expensive model.

[dmj]

19 minutes ago, msi_school said:

I have owned a couple of Mac products that have struggled with too little memory or a HDD when it should have had a SSD.

 

Apple designers and engineers are only human and can miss calculate the spec required, add to this that a Apple laptop will be on the market with unchanged spec for longer than a Windows one.

 

 

How old is that? I'm sure they've not made a laptop with a HDD since about 2018

[DalekSec]

Early Benchmarks for Neo are out: https://www.macrumors.com/2026/03/05/macbook-neo-first-benchmarks/

Lot faster than i thought it was going to be, better than the M1 which is still a decent CPU. 

 

Graphics isnt great but that is to be expected. 

[TheHyperTechie]

18 minutes ago, DalekSec said:

Early Benchmarks for Neo are out: https://www.macrumors.com/2026/03/05/macbook-neo-first-benchmarks/

Lot faster than i thought it was going to be, better than the M1 which is still a decent CPU. 

 

Graphics isnt great but that is to be expected. 

Yep, I think performance wise it will sit at around the M2 level.

[Roberto]

24 minutes ago, DalekSec said:

Early Benchmarks for Neo are out: https://www.macrumors.com/2026/03/05/macbook-neo-first-benchmarks/

Lot faster than i thought it was going to be, better than the M1 which is still a decent CPU. 

 

Graphics isnt great but that is to be expected. 

I suspect that it's going to be a perfectly fine device, provided your use stays within its "lane", so to speak. 

This is Apple's attempt at a budget laptop, comparable in market position to the lower-end Microsoft Windows laptops. 

With regards to Chromebooks - and this applies to the Windows laptops at this price too - a lot of the cheap chromebooks strike me as awfully flimsy and not likely to 'age' well, and I'd suggest that a Macbook Neo might last twice as long as a cheap Chromebook, so 2 devices that last 2 years each vs. one device that will last at least 4 years, the Macbook Neo stands its ground there at the very least.

[DrCheese]

21 hours ago, psydii said:

On prem AD or Entra/Google Auth?

 

I only have a single Mac here - But it's Entra auth'd using "Platform SSO" https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/intune/intune-service/configuration/platform-sso-macos

 

Works well, auto signs into Microsoft apps/so on.

 

[Davit2005]

22 hours ago, dmj said:

I'm having the exact opposite problem. Gaming and hardware support is really good for Linux, but terrible for mac !

The games I play work on MAC however my MOZA steering wheel does not work with MAC. That is the only reason I have not gone MAC for gaming too.

 

Tried Linux for about a year on all machines both for creative and general work use, can't say I did not try. Depends how MS goes, already had one update that killed the settings. Think the game I play most (mainly driving) as have a rig setup is compatible with Linux, might try again soon.

[DalekSec]

12 minutes ago, Davit2005 said:

The games I play work on MAC however my MOZA steering wheel does not work with MAC. That is the only reason I have not gone MAC for gaming too.

 

Tried Linux for about a year on all machines both for creative and general work use, can't say I did not try. Depends how MS goes, already had one update that killed the settings. Think the game I play most (mainly driving) as have a rig setup is compatible with Linux, might try again soon.

 

I only really play WoW which runs perfectly on my M4 MBP

[2ilent8cho]

It's good its single core is almost as good as an M4, way better than an M1, think we may use these devices when we refresh our LSA MacBooks. Our Teachers are mainly on 13" MacBook Pro M1's from 2020 still and battery life and performance is still great almost 6 years on and LSA's currently on MacBook Air M1.  Not looking to refresh for a couple of years yet though, but likely now Teachers will go from M1 MacBook Pro to M5 or M6 Air and LSA to this MacBook Neo, likely an A19 or A20 Pro by that point. The Apple Self Repair store has been great too, being able to get manuals and any part we have needed even down to just USB-C ports for a MacBook at £15. Just wish the battery or keyboard were more separate and not just an expensive top plate. Will be interesting to see how much parts cost on there once they show up. 

Edited March 6 by 2ilent8cho