In my opinion, although it seems to be a good value product, the hype for it is overblown and exaggerated. But this is just my opinion, and I will try to justify it, taking into account both the good and the not-so-good.

Firstly, the iPhone chip. A binned iPhone chip, actually, since it has one less GPU core than the one in the iPhone it came from. It is kind of ridiculous that running a desktop OS on a binned smartphone chip is even possible (seriously, it’s crazy how good smartphone chips have become!), but there are many limitations of this. Most obviously, the performance. It has pretty competitive performance, appearing to sometimes match the original M1, and exceeding it in single-core tests, but it looks like it struggles with sustained performance and thermally throttles quite a bit. All in all, I don’t think this is the biggest downside of the Neo, but it may be a concern, especially with future software upgrades. It does make the over-specced iPad Pro (and to an extent the iPad Air) feel even more out of place.

Additionally, they didn’t put in an HDMI port on the side, likely due to a limitation of the chip. This means that a dongle is required, especially troubling given that HDMI displays are ubiquitous in education.

The iPhone chip does mean that it’s quite efficient, which looks to be good for battery life. If you look at similarly priced laptops, you have less power efficient chips and worse battery life from Intel and AMD but with better cooling and usually less thermal throttling, as well as much better port selection. Tradeoffs.

But then you have the 8GB of non-upgradeable RAM. It might be fine for light web browsing and the sort, but given that MacOS will already eat up at least 2-3 GB, it means that it will age poorly, especially with later software revisions that I am sure will cripple performance, intentionally or unintentionally, encouraging upgrades to Apple’s more expensive models sooner rather than later.

I believe that this is Apple’s business strategy. Take over the educational market by providing high-end-feeling products in the budget segment that have the bare minimum to meet the current needs of students, and once those needs grow, push an update that makes the 8GB ram hit hard, and suddenly you have a new generation of Apple users that buy into the ecosystem as they have become tied into Apple’s subscriptions and software. I think the reasoning of the lack of a backlit keyboard plays into this as well.

On the positive side, the build quality of the Neo is a highlight, and for good reason. A majority of laptops in its price segment use plastic construction, poor quality hinges, and have low resolution displays. I do think that many tech reviewers are overblowing it a bit, but it’s important for a device to be durable, and the Neo is durable. I also love that they introduced such fun colours!

But I think the main selling feature of the MacBook Neo is the fact that it doesn’t run Windows. Win11 has become so awful, introducing more and more advertisements, bloatware, and privacy-invasive CoPilot “features”. Nobody likes Windows, no one likes using it, so when something that ships with not-Windows out of the box is introduced into the affordable price segment the Neo sits in, everybody loves it, even with its limitations. MacOS is still not great, I hate that it’s such a closed system, but Windows has become the biggest downside of most laptops, and unfortunately, and I say this as someone running EndeavourOS and actively encouraging friends and family to switch to Fedora and Mint, the majority of people purchasing their first laptop will not have a clue about what a Linux distro is. I hope that more people switch to Linux, either on traditional hardware or on Apple Silicon with Asahi Linux, but most people won’t be looking at that.

TLDR: The performance of the Neo is currently enough for the workloads of the average student, but as needs change and adapt, non-upgradeable memory and the inherently weak performance of the (binned) iPhone chip pushes people to upgrade sooner rather than later. This is a hook for Apple to capture new users into their services and software experience. Build quality, display, and efficiency look very good though, and I like the fun colours. Not shipping with Windows is also a plus for many people.

But what do you think of the Macbook Neo?

Please don’t parrot “people who buy the Macbook Neo don’t care about performance”, we’ve seen enough of that the comments of every post, article, and video about it. It’s partially true, I think, but needs will change that the hardware will not be able to adapt, given that it’s non-upgradeable.

I will also say that “people who buy the Macbook Neo are idiots” or “the Neo suuuucks” is incredibly unhelpful. If you aren’t going to add anything to the discussion, just don’t. Thanks.

I will also add that, in many regions, you can get an older Macbook Air (M2 or M1) refurbished for the same price as the Neo, sometimes less! If you are able to score one of those, then the Neo should be out of the question for you.