The Apple MacBook Neo’s $599 starting price is a “shock” to the Windows PC industry, according to an Asus executive.
Hsu said he believes all the PC players—including Microsoft, Intel, and AMD—take the MacBook Neo threat seriously. “In fact, in the entire PC ecosystem, there have been a lot of discussions about how to compete with this product,” he added, given that rumors about the MacBook Neo have been making the rounds for at least a year.
Despite the competitive threat, Hsu argued that the MacBook Neo could have limited appeal. He pointed to the laptop’s 8GB of “unified memory,” or what amounts to its RAM, and how customers can’t upgrade it.
The failure rates of these will be the determining factor. The components inside are cheap, all soldered on, and will not be repairable at all (waiting on the iFixIt score).
Its pretty much just their phone platform with a big screen and keyboard, so maybe it’ll be okay. It’s not built like a phone though, so I’m expecting some interesting testing outcomes. It’s either going to be cheap enough that they have a new planned obsolescence hit on their hands, or people are going to be pissed at it sucking so hard.
Every failure I’ve gotten from an Apple product is the inevitable demise of the battery either through degradation to the point of uselessness or expanding and causing something else to come undone. So the components just need to keep outlasting those events.
Your experience is not singular. Looks like we’ve got some haters here.
Always the keyboard for me, for some reason. Almost never battery problems.
Tip to used laptop buyers: avoid the MacBook Pro from 2016 through early 2020. The keyboard design dies early and is expensive to replace.
Factory batteries are top tier and get you around 1000 charges, typically about five years. After that the battery is around 65% health and time to change out.
Apple is no different from other manufacturers in that respect, maybe better quality cells than most. They suck at making those changeable, lately. 2011-2017 Macbook Air is about a 5 minute job. MacBook Pro from certain years you just want to throw it in a lake, or scrape glue for ages.
According to an early reviewer, the Neo is surprisingly good in terms of hardware quality, and it actually handles typical usage just fine, possibly because of the Silicon ecosystem that Apple spent so long refining. That looks promising, but I share much of your skepticism for the reasons you give.
I mean modern smartphone SOC compute power is insane. That wont be a bottleneck for a long time. If i had to make a guess they dont even have to go the hardware failure route for planned obsolescence. That measily 8GB of shared ram for both CPU and GPU will take care of that. Just add a bit more shiny UI bloat with every update and this thing will get slow af at some point in the future. Takes care of all the entry level M1 Airs too…
Mobile chip power is insane AT THAT SCALE though. That’s the key differentiation here. So if you’re running a larger format display with a higher resolution, cut that by quite a bit. Also cut it if you’re running desktop apps that aren’t optimized for mobile, and if this is intended to run MacOS instead of iOS, the mobile optimistic memory scheduling is out the window. I’ll have to see it to say for sure, but I’m guessing the performance for average desktop apps is going to be pretty, but that’s kind of the price point.
This is Apple’s scoop up of the ChromeOS segment.
So if you’re running a larger format display with a higher resolution, cut that by quite a bit.
Funny thing is that the Macbook Neo needs to drive less pixels:
Iphone 16 Pro: 2868 x 1320
Macbook Neo: 2408 x 1506
Also only at 60hz and not 120hz. While having magnitudes more thermal mass to cool with the prolonged high performance bursts. I dont have any worries about its performance in its intented market segment. And yes, its running MacOS which still runs pretty well with a Macbook Air M1-M3 with 8GB of RAM.
Resolution alone isn’t the only factor. It’s a larger display, requiring more power, which is either a PC/PD issue, or a battery issue. The point is that the power draw has to come from somewhere, and nothing this is the same platform as an iPhone (essentially), there’s going to be a trade-off somewhere.
As you noted they’ve reduced the refresh rate, which makes a big impact, but I don’t think it stops there.
The original platform has apps that are optimized for that platform, and now you’re throwing a different OS at it which has more expansive use of resources: CPU, memory, GPU, and power.
We’ll have to see how they have made paths through MacOS to account the platform specifically, but I’m betting there are several drawbacks. This was the main complaint of how they dealt with those insanely expensive Mac Pro with M-class chips when they first came out, but in the inverse. High power draw, heat issues…etc.
My guy,
i said mobile compute power is insane. You had a somewhat sensible take why it may not transfer to a laptop. I gave you hard facts why your concerns arent applicable. Instead of just admitting you misjudged the resolution differences you mansplain to me some irrelevant things. Yeah, the power draw is going to be different. Its a laptop, no shit. It also has tons of more space for a battery.
You are just talking out of your ass. Instead of looking up the wikipedia page for 2 minutes.
/Its also a released product. Reviews and benchmarks are readily available… Like what. Just look it up.
I’m also waiting for the full iFixit review, but teardowns from other channels are now being shared and so far it looks like it’s very solidly built and repair-friendly. None of the typical ‘cover everything in excessive glue and tape’ anti-repair shenanigans we’ve come to expect from Apple.
Wow. Modern laptop “repairability” is pretty rough in general, but that does actually seem better than I expected.
Repair friendly means CHEAP components repair, which Apple just does not do.
As an example, in a machine like this if your WiFi module tanks…that’s a full logic board replacement. Might as well buy a new one.
According to this, Apple is basically making an insurance vertical as part of their business, and they are pricing repairs to be exactly 1/3 the retail cost of the machine for pretty much everything except screens.
This is pretty scam my when you consider their past of quoting customers for repairs that are above and beyond the scope of the actual hardware failures, and what maximizes profits for their AppleCare and RMA process. There are dozens of breakdowns in this, so I won’t write a novel, but it’s very obvious they’ve baked in the costs to make it more cost-effective to just keep buying new units as a replacement in the face of simple hardware failures.
Tbh Apple laptops were always easier to deal with than non-pro PC laptops when I worked at a refurb shop.
Professional grade PC laptops (Thinkpad T, X series, Elitebook 700 series and up) were very easy to repair (and had more replaceable components than a Mac), but get your hands on a Pavilion and you’ll want to pull your hair out. Using label remover to remove battery cells after removing an 8-10 screw bottom case on a Mac was quicker than even a simple HDD replacement in some PC laptops.
Of course it helped a LOT that Apple’s lineup is pretty standardized and they don’t change everything around every model year, so a LOT of part reuse happened. Which was the same with e.g Elitebooks and Thinkpads, but again, not Pavilions and Ideapads and such.
Prediction - eWaste in less than 2 years. It will only live through 1, maybe 2 OS updates.
One man’s e-waste is another’s Linux homelab.
There’s lots to criticize Apple for but they do support their hardware for several years, not one or two.
As someone who had an iPod Touch and a Gen 1 iPad ganked by OS updates, I have serious doubts about that.
We will optimistically be just climbing out of the ram shortage in that period, so I doubt this.
Damn man maybe the PC industry should’ve considered making even one single actually good laptop
For Windows if 8 gb of RAM is not enough that’s an own-goal. Because it is. Or it should be. Windows 11 is not so dramatically better than Windows Vista SP3 to require a 10x better computer to use comfortably. Actually, in many ways Windows 11 is a massive downgrade from what came before it.
I’m glad the MacBook neo is only 8gb. That means they have to support it as a usable low-end target. That means we aren’t jumping the gun on saying “actually you need 12 gigs of RAM” as if that should be normal for a usable computer.
XP used to just have ram sitting there empty waiting for something. Then over vista and 8 and 10 they started more and more preloading because hey if the ram is empty it’s wasted. Like database servers, they always suck down all the RAM possible. Problem is windows doesn’t release it when the cache or whatever isn’t useful and something else wants it.
It’s been a while but I think macOS is considerably better at both parts of that equation.
There’s no reason that computers need to be so powerful other than MBAs saying “optimization is too expensive, just push the feature.”
Vista called it SuperFetch, and preloading pages into memory is not a bad technique. macOS and Linux do it, too, because it’s a simple technique for speeding up access to data that would otherwise have to be fetched from disk. You can see that Linux does it as you check the output of
freeand read out the buff/cache column. Freeing unused pages from memory is very fast, because you can just overwrite dirty pages.Yeah, conceptually it’s good, but the free up is important and seems to be a secondary concern. Perhaps it’s the third party devs.
Wasn’t super fetch what they called the high speed usb flash drives you could use as swap? That reminds me of a time I was optimistic about technology. Vista RC and Office 2007 on my MacBook Pro.
MacOS is significantly better than windows when using their first party apps, but many third party apps are ram hogs and things get forced to swap more often.
Swap isn’t terrible though, a lot of current gen mac hardware has very fast SSDs and very low latency controllers so it’s pretty transparent in normal use.
I think if you are on a website like this, this computer isn’t for you, but it is for a lot of people who use nothing but a web browser with one tab open 90% of the time.
Swap isn’t terrible though, a lot of current gen mac hardware has very fast SSDs and very low latency controllers so it’s pretty transparent in normal use.
They do typically have good hardware that works well together. It’s a ton of work replicating that level of hardware compatibility. Apple catches a lot of negative feedback and some of it deserved but they won’t be caught dead shipping a wifi chip as shitty as the one in my Surface.
I think if you are on a website like this, this computer isn’t for you
Probably. I’m in the minority on an iPhone.
I’m a die hard Apple apologist in anti-Apple tech spaces because I love playing devil’s advocate.
I’ve more or less never had WiFi issues on Macs. Bluetooth range was a bit shit on a 2011 Air I once had though. In an environment with dozens of other bluetooth devices in the same room. WiFi still worked fine, despite having probably 50-60 laptops using WiFi in the same room at any given time.
I’ve also had one of these famous 8 gig M1 Airs. I managed to hit 20 gigs of swap usage at some point when running several different applications and a lot of docker containers and it still ran just fine.
People often say their devices are shitty, but they’re actually excellent. Their business practices are shitty, but when the M1 came out, it performed better with 8 gigs than any equivalently priced PC laptop with 16, even if it had to swap more often.
I’m glad the MacBook neo is only 8gb. That means they have to support it as a usable low-end target.
This is huge. Apple has traditionally supported its laptops for at least 5 major OS versions and 2 more years of security updates, so they’re essentially telling us that the MacOS version they release in 2034 will not require more than 8GB of RAM to function is gonna be a good thing for all users, who will mostly presumably have much more memory available.
This is as believable as “air pods are for rich people”
reads the title
Well…those certainly are words. They don’t make sense in that order, but they are real words.
This is attractive to me simply because finding a quality 13" laptop is very difficult. 15.6" is huge.
I switched to Macbooks specifically for the 11" Air. I do wish they’d bring that form factor back.
He pointed to the laptop’s 8GB of “unified memory,” or what amounts to its RAM, and how customers can’t upgrade it.
Given the price of RAM, you’d need to sell a kidney to upgrade it in a Windows laptop these days, so that’s not much of a difference, although 8MB is a little skimpy, I’ll give him that one.
or what amounts to its RAM
You can criticize the amount of RAM, but it’s still RAM. Clown.
They’re hinting at the fact that those 8GB are shared between the CPU and GPU. So it’s not dedicated, which you’d expect if someone said “RAM.”
RAM is RAM. If you take issue with it being unified say so, but it’s still RAM.
He sounds like he’s grasping.
The neo is going to eat his lunch, and he knows it.
Sounds more like you’re looking for reasons to hate on the article.
I take issue Hsus statement, but not the article.
This model has absolutely short-circuited the brains of the ardent Apple haters, perhaps including yourself, and I’m here for it.
If you take issue with it being unified say so, but it’s still RAM.
He did say so. 8GB unified when a Linux laptop has 8GB of ram and an Nvidia 5050 with 8 GB of VRAM is 16GB of Ram despite not being marketed as a 16 GB laptop.
Don’t most integrated graphics setups use system RAM for graphics?
My phone has more RAM than that. I can’t imagine running a computer with that little memory considering how poorly optimized software tends to be at this point.
I’m not sure what the overhead for Mac OS is, but that has to be basically rock bottom to be even considered functional unless you’re running one of the lighter Linux builds.
What the fuck are you doing on a phone that you need 8 GIGABYTES of RAM? Damn son!
It’s great for multitasking. I’ve seen phones boot and already consume 3-4GB of RAM. Alas, that’s how much some of this software uses now, depending on your needs.
I mean, at its heart, Mac OS is a heavily re-tooled fork of the BSD platform, so it’s not inconceivable that it’s light enough to run on 8G. I doubt it would run well on 8G, but it could do it.
My M1 MacBook Air idles at 1.03GB, my XPS 13 running Gnome on Vanilla OS idles at 2.4GB
GNOME on immutable distros = very bloated. Try antiX instead, as it uses a lighter DE.
I’m not looking for anything lighter
Even a bloated GNOME runs with much less ram than Windows
I’d be curious to see what Gnome looks like on Debian stable or the like
I know it was lighter than windows the last time I used Mac, but that has been quite a few years now. Hopefully it is a decent machine. Computing just keeps getting more expensive, so having more budget options is definitely good as long as they are reasonably functional.
It runs fine, unless you load up on chrome tabs, or try to run pro apps. Itdoes basic photo editing and admin apps and phone holiday video editing just fine for average users. I have a lot of clients with 8GB M1 machines.
MacOS’ kernel is derived from Mach, though with with some BSD code, and is Apple’s own work since then. Its API is compatible with FreeBSD, but it’s not FreeBSD. And the FreeBSD userland tools don’t have effect on systemwide memory management.
I got a free, going to be recycled, dell with 8gb of ram from work. I threw in an nvme and installed Linux. It’s not the lightest Linux install, but it is Arch, so definitely on the lighter side. I idle at under 1gb and under normal use don’t break 2. I do some coding which uses more but nothing super crazy. MacOS probably uses a little more ram, but it’s not Windows. I’d wager than the vast majority of people don’t come close to using all of that RAM, and power users are going to get hardware for the task, and this isn’t it.
Under 1GB on a modern build is pretty light. I run CachyOS and I’m pretty sure I idle at significantly more than that. Though I honestly haven’t checked, and don’t really want to close everything out to find out haha. I do know I’m currently using more than 8GB and not doing anything super heavy, but I do have multiple programs running. And multitasking is always going to be a killer for a system with low RAM limits. There is a reason my laptop has 32 and my desktop has 64.
I did just check and I was wrong. I idle at 1.6GB. I may have been thinking of a single app I had open when I looked the other day. I did just open Firefox and it took about a gig. Opening about 20 tabs and navigating to different sites did Bum it up to about 5gb. So yea, 8 is on the lower end, but it’s usable and I’d bet most people would be fine. Throw in things like swap and high speed storage, I feel most people wouldn’t notice. Definitely not enough for high usage though.
I miss when 4gb was good enough.
I run CachyOS with Gnome and it idles at just under 2GB
I have a 2013 MBP that shipped with 8GB, the minimum amount they came with.
Of course it also is upgradable. Which I did, to 16GB. A decade ago.
My 2013 MBP is still at 8GB. With memory compression, I rarely run into issues unless I’m doing VMs/Docker or something really heavy.
Just to play devil’s advocate: a smartphone is definitely a computer and has no trouble competing with older laptop CPUs in benchmarks. I see this as a difference without a distinction beyond form factor.
8GB is 💯 barely serviceable. I see this is a product for a casual user only, with excellent build quality. I don’t think it ages well when pushed.
I mean… of course it’s for the causal users what kind of observation is that?
What appears to be common sense to you is hardly common sense to the consumer. I choose to be more inclusive thinking of a person who might not necessarily know what 8 GB means. That’s a ton of Apple’s customers.
[…] although 8MB is a little skimpy
Have we already downgraded to this???
/s, and sorry for being pedantic
No one needs more than 640k
The industry problem is mainly that RAM makers do not want to piss off Apple, who has already had long term contracts set prior to rampocalypse. But 8gb linux native is a better product for systems that need to be offered at 8gb for affordability.
They’ve had Mac minis for over a decade.
I find this hard to believe.
Computer people (like me) buy Mac minis, frequently as an extra device. Regular people who don’t care about computers beyond wanting a nice one buy laptops. I believe it completely.
I would assume most computer people would just assemble their own devices…
But that’s the difference between real computer people and you.
Username checks out.
Computer people might own several devices, some of them (particularly laptops) prebuilt, and don’t usually gatekeep.
But that’s the difference between real computer people and you.
Ah yes, tech nerds not at all known to gatekeep lmao
Tbf many of us can be real assholes online but all the fellow nerds I know irl are very inclusive and just excited when someone else shares a hobby
Given the ram apocalypse, I think you’ll see many entry level pcs with 8gb as well.
Apple is either just that good or just that lucky that they are shipping an 8gb machine right after ram prices went parabolic.
At any other time this would be a harder item to sell.
I mean, you already see many entry level PCs with 8GB as well.
But you’re going to continue seeing it, too.
This from the company that started the netbook trend with the $400 eeePC in 2007…
8GB of unupgradable ram is unforgivable in today’s software landscape. Even if the OS is memory efficient, running multiple software still takes ram. I get it’s a $600 laptop, but that’s still an inexcusably low amount of ram for anything but grandma and similar.
100% of my job is word processors, medium sized spreadsheets, and cloud software. This laptop is perfect for me and, I’d argue, 90% of my colleagues, as a work computer.
I have zero issue with soldered on ram for a device used for the above purpose.
My home PC though, not an ideal fit.
It really is not appealing a mac air with 16gb RAM was $999 AUD and the NEO is $899 AUD. It’s a step backwards…
If you know what RAM is, this product isn’t for you. It’s for your kid or grandma
Which Air is that? I just looked at the current m5 Air, entry level everything is $1099 USD, i am guessing the one you saw was an older model.
I said was.
Can I put Linux on it? Because otherwise refurb Thinkpad Carbons are cheaper and better.
Refurb
You can’t really compare refurb to new. If you do, you might as well consider refurb Macbook Pros instead of the Macbook Neo too.
A new X1 Carbon is 1749 EUR starting price near me. The Neo is 719. A 5 year old X1 Carbon, refurbed, is 725. It’s not a bad laptop by any means, but it also has soldered RAM much like the Mac, so at 5 years of age it may not exactly be super reliable past the warranty which isn’t all that long for either case.
I’m sure Asahi support will be available soon. If these had 16gb of memory, I’d seriously consider it as a new Linux laptop. Even with the global AI-fabricated RAM shortage, 8GB hasn’t been a reasonable amount of RAM for over a decade.
Has Asahi matured? Last I heard there were still quite a few unsupported features like touch ID and displayport over usb c
I think TouchID isn’t a priority for them, but looking at the supported M1 and M2 devices and features, it seems like it could be a daily driver. It has things I never got to work on my first Linux laptop (webcam, microphone, speakers, suspend, keyboard backlight, wifi, bluetooth), although it’s 2026 so those are basically all expected. No thunderbolt, touchID, or display port alt mode, though, does make it a step behind MacOS, with some doubts it’ll ever fully catch up even on this 5-6 year old hardware.
Still, these were very popular devices, so I think they’ll stay on the used market for a long time. I might pick one up if it’s cheap enough.
