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Tested: MacBook Neo
Price: €699 (256GB) or €799 (512GB)
Pros: excellent build quality, great keyboard, good screen, affordable price
Cons: less engine power than pricier MacBooks
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After almost a week using Apple’s new MacBook Neo, I’m smitten. It looks, feels and performs like a premium MacBook Air for the vast majority of things anyone is likely to use it for.
Right out of the box, its metal body and stiff hinge make it immediately feel like a much more expensive laptop than its €699 price (of my test model) suggests.
Its keyboard is the same high-end type used in €3,000 MacBook Pro or maxed-out MacBook Air M5 models.
Its 13-inch display is the same quality as some older (but still excellent) MacBook Air models, if a very tiny bit smaller.
Its (1080p) webcam and microphone are good.
And it uses the same MacOS interface, with all of the same benefits, shortcuts and compatibilities with iPhones, AirPods, iPads and external displays as any other Mac or MacBook.
It’s lightning fast at doing normal things, like opening tabs, apps and switching between windows, despite having an iPhone chip under the hood rather than Apple’s usual M-class silicon chip.
There’s almost nothing not to like about it. If I was buying a new laptop tomorrow for work and leisure stuff, I’d honestly probably get one of these.
Up until now, MacBooks have been popular, but pricey. The MacBook Air (from €1,249) has long been the world’s most popular laptop, with the MacBook Pro (from €1,949 up) right behind it.
Now we have a MacBook that does 95pc of what most people need at just over half the price of a MacBook Air.
On top of this, it’s the first MacBook to come in different colours – ‘citrus’ (my test model), ‘indigo’ (blue), ‘blush’ (pink) or silver.
I can’t see how Apple doesn’t sell a gazillion of these, or how it won’t become the default computer for most people under the 30 when they’re given any kind of choice.
There are, obviously, some limitations. It only comes in two configurations and price points – 256GB (€699) and 512GB (€799).
This means that if you need a computer to store thousands of photos and videos, this isn’t really the one to do it.
On my test model (256GB, €699), there is also no Touch ID fingerprint-reader button, which speeds up turning the laptop on and can also be used for logging into things, passwords and payments. You do get that on the more expensive €799 (512GB) variant, though.
The screen, while very good, isn’t quite at the high, 1,000-nits level of brightness that the more expensive MacBook models have. (Its 500 nits was, I found, absolutely fine for any indoor use and some outdoor use.)
The main compromise (on paper, anyway) is engine power.
The MacBook Neo uses the iPhone’s A18 Pro chip instead of Apple’s silicon M-class chips that it usually deploys in Macs and MacBooks. It is also limited to 8GB of Ram, whereas the minimum for other MacBooks is 16GB.
This was the bit I was most curious about. Would it struggle, even slightly, at any of the tasks I threw at it? The answer is a resounding ‘no’. I wrote articles, edited and filed photos, watched Netflix, YouTube, posted to social media and browsed websites, often doing some of those things simultaneously. I switched between tabs and windows frantically, as I’m wont to do when approaching deadlines. There was no lag or delay whatsoever.
In one way, this doesn’t surprise me. I still use a MacBook Air M2 from 2022, which also has 8GB of Ram. I’ve never had any power or speed issues with it.
But what surprised me is how little (zero, even) of a difference the A18 Pro chip is from the M2 chip in terms of day-to-day muscle power for the things I – and, likely, most people – actually do on laptops.
The truth is that for the vast majority of our modern work and leisure tasks, upgrades in our hardware have long surpassed our needs. (My standing advice to most people getting a laptop is that anything over 16GB of Ram is overkill for all but 1pc of users.)
And this A18 Pro chip is easily powerful enough.
Otherwise, some of the MacBook Neo’s limitations, I feel, will barely be noticed by anyone.
For example, it has slightly fewer (and lower-end) ports than senior MacBooks, with just two (one USB 3 and one USB 2). This means no MagSafe charging.
And while you can connect an external display (with either the laptop open or closed), it’s limited to 60Hz rather than the fancier, gaming-friendly 120Hz standard of more expensive devices.
I’d wager that neither of these will register with anyone considering this laptop. It certainly didn’t feel like any real downside to me when I was testing it.
The MacBook Neo’s 1080p webcam and microphone are both decent (better than those on Apple’s MacBook Air M1). Its external speakers surprised me with how good they are.
Battery life was excellent on the Neo. We’ve all become used to a full day’s constant usage from modern M-chip MacBooks and this isn’t really different. Despite having a smaller physical battery, it easily lasted me eight to 10 hours per charge.
Disappointingly, Apple doesn’t include a charger with most of its MacBooks now in the EU, so you’ll need to have your own one handy. (There is a cable included.)
In conclusion, this is an absolute smash hit. It’s likely to be the year’s most impactful new gadget. It’s not just a no-brainer for a teenager or college student, but for anyone.
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