Apple has previously offered more affordable products, such as the $329 and $349 iPad models as well as the former $429 iPhone SE. However, this marks the first time Apple has applied a similar budget-conscious approach to a portable Mac; one that retains Apple’s famous build quality.
The new MacBook Neo starts at $599 for the base configuration with 256GB of storage (lacking a Touch ID sensor), while the upgraded version with Touch ID and 512GB of storage is priced at $699. Both options are available to education customers at a $100 discount.
Andrew Cunningham for Ars Technica:
We had a chance to poke at a MacBook Neo for a while at Apple’s “special experience” event in New York this morning, and what I can tell you is that this does feel like an Apple laptop despite the lower starting price. It definitely has some spec sheet shortcomings, even compared to older M3 or M4 MacBook Airs that you still might be able to get at a discount from third-party retailers or Apple’s refurbished site… But it’s priced low enough to (1) appeal to people who might not have considered a Mac before, and (2) to make some of its borderline specs feel reasonable, and that’s enough to keep it interesting.
The Neo is a flat rectangular slab of aluminum with softly rounded edges, more like the current Airs and Pros than the wedge-shaped design of the old M1 Air (also like modern Airs, the words “MacBook Neo” appear nowhere on the exterior of the computer—the name only exists in stores and in software)… [H]olding and interacting with the Neo feels substantially the same as interacting with an Air. It is, however, slightly thicker—an even 0.5 inches, up from 0.44 inches for the M4 Air… [T]he typing feel is similar to the Air, and we’re told the scissor switches have the same amount of key travel as the switches in the Air keyboards.
The multi-touch trackpad is a little weirder. It looks a lot like Apple’s other trackpads, but it actually has a physical clicking mechanism rather than the haptic feedback Apple has used in its laptop trackpads and Magic Trackpads for years. That means there’s no Force Click functionality and no controls for adjusting the firmness or noisiness of the clicking sensation… but, aside from the missing haptics, it seems to work just as well as Apple’s other trackpads…
MacDailyNews Take: As Steve Jobs said back in August 200, “We can’t ship junk. There are thresholds we can’t cross because of who we are. The difference is, we don’t offer stripped-down, lousy products.”
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[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
In addition to taking share away from cheap Chrome and Windows laptops, a customer group will be existing Mac customer who use iMac or Mac mini (maybe even the pro desktops). It can be their mobile computing companion IF they don’t want iPad, their iPhone isn’t enough, and other new MacBooks have been too expensive as their casual on-the-go Mac. I don’t need Neo, but I want one 🫐 or 🎾
4 to 5 million Neos, minus MacBook Air sales that were cannibalized by it, minus the lower profits.