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The week of high-profile Apple announcements continues. We’ve already heard about the new iPhone 17e, the new M5 Pro and M5 Max chips, and the new MacBooks. Before fans could get over the MacBook Pro and MacBook Air updates and get upset about the price increase, the tech giant, apparently for balance, introduced the most affordable MacBook to date. The MacBook Neo model is powered by the A18 Pro chip, which is already familiar to us from the iPhone 16 Pro series, and costs from $599.
For $599, a buyer gets a basic configuration with 256 GB of storage and a keyboard without Touch ID. If you pay an additional $100, the storage capacity doubles to 512 GB, and the keyboard gets Touch ID support. All versions of the Apple MacBook Neo have only 8 GB of RAM. The laptop is powered by the A18 Pro processor, which includes a 6-core processor, 5-core GPU, and 16-core neural processor.
If we compare only the numbers, this configuration is significantly inferior to modern M-series chips. However, for the tasks that this laptop is focused on, i.e. daily work, study, basic office processes or content viewing, the power may be enough.
The body of the device is made of aluminum, so there are no cheap plastic elements in the design. The laptop has a 1080p webcam, two USB-C ports, and an audio headphone jack. One of the USB-C ports will have to be used for charging, as this model does not have MagSafe. The side-facing speakers support Dolby Atmos playback. MacBook Neo is available in four colors: Silver, Indigo, Blush and Citrus, with a keyboard that matches the body.
The device uses a 13-inch Retina LCD panel with a resolution of 2408×1506 and a brightness of up to 500 nits. At the same time, the display does not support True Tone technology, which automatically adjusts the color temperature according to the ambient light. This is the first Apple screen in many years without this feature. There is also no support for the wide P3 color gamut, which is usually present on most of the company’s displays.
Some might take the MacBook Neo as a sign that Apple is running out of new ideas. However, the PC market has a large number of models in the price range from $500 to $1000, so it is logical for the company to offer its own variant in this segment. It is still an open question how long the company will be able to keep the price of MacBook Neo at this level, as the shortage of RAM caused by the rapid development of AI technologies may lead to higher prices for components.
Like other new products presented by Apple this week, MacBook Neo is already available for pre-order, and actual deliveries will start on March 11.
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