> Apple pulled off what I thought wasn't possible. The MacBook Neo is poised to set the budget-laptop world on fire as a $599 system that's better-built and sharper than anything else at or below its price.
https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/apple-macbook-neo
Similar to the Verge:
> even the cheapest MacBook Neo is good enough to be the go-to Apple laptop for a lot of people. Actually, not just the go-to Apple laptop; the Neo’s hardware simultaneously embarrasses an entire class of affordable (and even far pricier) Windows laptops, as well as just about any Chromebook. And the thing runs on an iPhone chip.
https://www.theverge.com/tech/891741/apple-macbook-neo-a18-p...
> PC Magazine came to the same conclusion:
> Similar to the Verge:
Apple pays well. Budget laptop at 600 Euros ? And can't compete having a tablet processor, 8 MB RAM, 256 MB SSD. 2 USB ports (one i presume used for charging) ? Yeah. It really can't compete with better options.
If quality and in-hand feel matters to you at all, you’ll be hard pressed to find a more well rounded laptop than a MacBook at any price point.
600 might seem budget, but it's out of budget for most people. And my guess is PC manufacturers will retaliate against this by cutting prices just a little to drop under that 600 price point for mid range ryzens, with more ram and space.
Any family members I've helped shop for computers only care about how much space it has, how cheap it is, and will it struggle to run things like the last one. As it sits the MacBook is more money for less gigabytes
Out of budget for my parents but I'll pay the difference myself. It's just painful to see them use their pile of shit $300 laptop that can barely open a text editor, sounds like a jet engine and has about 45 minutes of battery life.
The only haptic feedback they get if the entire fucking thing creaking as soon as you lightly touch it.
They've been through at least 5 of them since I bought my 2015 mbp, which is still working fine in every aspects
I work professionally on a Macbook Air 16GB now and I have quite a few docker images and services running bare metal, + browser, vscode etc. on top. Not a problem until I start loading up some LLMs.
The paging works wonderfully well; an advantage of everything being fused.
If anything, I'm much more bound by the CPU limitations and the eco-cores than the memory.
On a PC, I wouldn't think about less than 32GB for a dev pc.
If I had a fulltime gig programming C, I'd even say I could work on this A14 8GB device. Why not? It's as powerful as a 10 year old powerful machine; probably. Or in that ballpark.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255765423?sortBy=rank
Why on Earth do I need a 32 GB PC?!?
Turbo C also worked just fine with 640 KB in MS-DOS, but then again MS-DOS wasn't full of Electron crap.
I’m not the target market since I require Linux compatibility but I realize that is not a necessity in the market.
Fortunately/unfortunately for Apple, the M1 MacBook Air from 2020 is still a great laptop.
The form factor is the defining characteristic, because that informs how people use it. The CPU does not.
“MacBook Neo is built on an iPhone chip—the A18 Pro. It’s far less capable of running intensive tasks than any of Apple’s M‑series chips or any moderately powered Intel or AMD processor.”
and that:
“It’s merely the right kind of performance for anybody who wants to browse the internet or stream video.”
...at this price point there are plenty of alternatives for laptops with better performance and specs.
For example, you can get a 15.6" Ryzen 7 5700U laptop with 32GB RAM and a 1TB SSD for less than the “unbeatable” price of the Neo:
https://www.amazon.com/NIAKUN-Computer-Processor-Graphics-Ke...
Or a 15.6" Intel Core i7‑1255U/12650H laptop with 16GB RAM and a 1TB SSD in a similar price range:
https://www.amazon.com/HP-Laptop-High-Performance-i7-1255U-4...
Both of these offer:
* A more traditional laptop CPU
* 2–4× the memory
* 2-4× the storage (1TB vs 256GB base on the Neo)
Standard HDMI/USB‑C video out for external displays
So I can definitely see the appeal of the Neo for people who just want an inexpensive way into macOS, but the claim that “no other budget laptop can compete.” doesn't track.
Maybe it should have been "The least expensive Macbook yet, but that comes with significant downsides."
As for your comparisons: My aunt doesn't need a terabyte of storage or a Ryzen 7 5700U, she needs 15+ hours of battery life because the laptop is going to live next to her spot on the couch and she most likely can't remember to plug it in every night.
Also the first laptop is from a reputable brand called NIAKUN. They must have amazing customer service and unbeatable warranties, right? =) And they certainly will exist in 12 months when you go look for the brand on Amazon and won't be replaced by another random set of letters in all caps selling the exact same product?
The HP is on sale, it's MSRP is $699 and for some weird fucking reason has the numpad on it, making the whole keyboard wonky. Who wants that on a laptop?
And the final thing, as with all price-forward comparisons: build quality. We need an objective standard measurement for chassis and keyboard flex, the ability to open the lid with one finger, the amount of creaking and squeaking said laptop will do in normal use and how hot and loud it gets in your lap when doing light browsing.
But they're clearly not the majority of the people - the rest of us have to live with a lopsided keyboard because a few people for some reason do data entry on a laptop keyboard.
The latest reviews are showing that's not really the case
Now the color options, that's a tragedy.
Thanks. Fixed.
>This isn't for people that really even care about performance. It's for people that want a laptop that works with their iPhone
That was my conclusion to my comment in my original. The title of "no other budget laptop can compete" is not just sensationalized, it is factually wrong. It should have been "the least expensive macbook yet comes with a catch"
Maybe they need to bring back psychedelic iMacs.
https://www.slashgear.com/1706745/rare-apple-imac-designs-fl...
In terms of performance the raw compute people have in their pockets nowadays surpasses what they typically need by magnitudes for a while now. Granted: programmers and tech companies find new ways of wasting that compute on features that people ultimately do not need, so they may need that the compute so things feel snappy, but if I think about what my parents do on their devices you could easily enable them to do theirs tasks with far less. They are essentially doing the same as ca. 2006 with pictures and videos being higher fidelity & resolution and websites running hundred thousand lines of javascript being the main difference.
Laughable. Seriously, how long has it been since the M1 Air dropped? And we're still this clueless?
> For example, you can get a 15.6" Ryzen 7 5700U laptop with 32GB RAM and a 1TB SSD for less than the “unbeatable” price of the Neo:
Awesome spec dump. Now, what's the real life usage battery life of that laptop like? Oh? Yeah, thought so.
Nobody buys a list of specs, they buy a set of capabilities. And the Neo is capable of supporting normal usage for 12h+ on battery. Go ahead and link me some alternative laptops that can do that, with comparable performance of course — which is on par or better than the original M1 Air mind you.
Killer move by Apple, and I'm shocked there's still so much ignorance around.