I think this is somewhat ignorant the wide variety of legitimately very decent Windows PC laptops available in the exact same $500-700 price range as the MacBook Neo.
Apple isn’t disrupting the industry here. Don’t buy into early influencer review hype. These reviewers don’t actually look at retail store pricing.
Apple is just making a decision to go downmarket and making many of the same compromises as other cheap laptops, and some odd compromises that are unique to Apple’s machine:
No haptic trackpad, no keyboard backlight, no Touch ID on the cheap model, lower-end screen, very small battery, tiny slow charger included, minimal and performance compromised I/O, below-par RAM, worse speakers/microphones, an old nothing-special processor.
This is the exact same stuff that people have complained about for years with cheap laptops.
The fact that the computer is made of aluminum is really a distraction from these facts.
This idea that it’s Google versus Apple all over again is just not true. Windows is the dominant OS in the laptop space by far. Over 900 billion people in the world play PC games on windows, for example.
If you look at Best Buy street pricing, what Apple has pulled off here is not that impressive.
Let’s say you want the top end Neo model at $699. Spend $100 more at Best Buy and you’ll end up with a Yoga 7 machine with double the RAM, double the storage (1TB), 70Whr battery, and a very capable and efficient AMD Ryzen 7 AI 350 chip that has faster multicore and same or faster graphics performance.
You’ll gain user-replaceable SSD, backlit keyboard, convertible OLED touch screen, digital pen support, more and faster USB ports, microSD slot, HDMI port, fast charger in the box, better speakers, WiFi 7, bigger screen in a more popular 14” size…it’s a better buy that will last years longer for only a slight price increase (or, spend less on the Ryzen 5 AI 340 variant ($680) if you’re okay with compromising GPU performance, which most people in this category are, and you’ll still end up with double the RAM of the Neo and 512GB storage at $20 less than Apple’s non-education store price)
That one has a lower pixel density. 162 ppi for the Yoga vs 219 for the Neo. My MacBook Air M3 is 224 and I can't image going much lower, even for OLED. Maybe if I watched more videos.
In case you need it, this is the next model up with the 350 processor. If you care about graphics performance it has double the cores, and the bigger SSD as I mentioned:
I like the sentiment expressed here, but on this note, I think there are other dangers to consider listening to early reviewers:
- Reviewers do get early access and often are receiving units AND doing their tests, writing their script, recording, and editing their videos before regular users can even possibly get a system shipped in. At best this rushes them where they miss details (e.g., few reviewers noticed that the MacBook Pro 14" M5 keyboard is different hardware then what you got on the M4 Pro because so much content is rushed)
- Reviewers are almost never experts on what street prices look like because they are focused on reviewing, getting content out ASAP. They are not spending time monitoring pricing with only a few exceptional channels doing so.
- The best marketing machine companies like Apple absolutely groom the review ecosystem without even needing to tell reviewers what to do directly. It's a competitive landscape of self-made YouTubers who are susceptible to positive reinforcement from the industry. i.e., companies don't have to tell reviewers to censor themselves, they can instead use positive reinforcement to select which reviewers are getting the best access and privileges.
Now, about the computer itself: related to the way the author of this article talks about the MacBook Neo, about the role of a cheap computer to just try have a working computer that is able to get some stuff done: this is the kind of thing that should likely steer you AWAY from this MacBook Neo that initially looked so exciting.
If you're considering a ~$500-750 computer, well, not only should you be checking the used market, but also, actually look at the competition to this thing.
The reactions I've seen from regular people seems to be, basically, "wow, Apple pulled off an incredible feat, they've disrupted the computer market again!"
Well, let's pump the brakes. First off, realize the Neo is making a lot of the same trade-offs that budget laptops have been doing for years. They aren't even giving you a backlit keyboard! The lower model cuts out biometric auth! There's no haptic trackpad, which used to be a major differentiator for Apple! It comes with a tiny slow charger! The battery life is actually not that good under load/bright screen because the battery is tiny! The CPU is old/slower/low power biased! These are all the classic cheap laptop tradeoffs that give PC manufacturers a LOT of room to actually compete really well against the Neo.
On top of that, almost every cheapo Windows laptop on the market is going to deliver to you a computer with at least a replaceable SSD. Usually RAM is soldered but it's not impossible to find that as something you can upgrade as well even on consumer-ish stuff that isn't just an old ThinkPad.
Actually spend the time to jump on some retailer websites like Best Buy and take a look at what the street prices look like.
There are multiple computers on there that make way more sense for someone budget constrained than a MacBook Neo.
My two favorites, one at a lower price and one at a higher price:
Lenovo Yoga 7 2-in-1 2K OLED Touchscreen Laptop, AMD Ryzen AI 5 340 2025 - 16GB memory, 512GB SSD, $679. This is a proper mid-range laptop and not just some cheap bottom of the barrel model in the lineup. To gain an OLED touchscreen, double the RAM, and the same storage as the highest Neo model at the same price, this is just great all around. I'm pretty sure these get very respectable battery life as well.
Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3x 15.3" touchscreen snapdragon X, 16GB memory, 256GB storage, $549. With this model, you get a lot of the same ARM benefits that Apple is giving you. Sure, Windows on ARM is not the kind of polished native experience as a Mac, but we are just talking about a cheap laptop that works and, generally, everything you want to do in Windows will work on an ARM system. Once again, you're getting doubled RAM, which is important, and you're going to gain a touch screen, numpad, and possibly even beat out the Neo's battery life.
Another option is the HP OmniBook X Flip 2-in-1, a little less of a good value than the above, but it's another 16GB/512GB option that slides under $700.
You make some great points here. Here’s one of the places I’m coming from that seems to be aligned with the author of this.
I find macOS to be a superior OS for doing computer work to all the alternatives. It still sucks for a lot of reasons, but to my taste it generally sucks less. I’m a web dev, so I host a lot of crap in Linux, and I’m pretty confident in using it as a desktop. But the general day to day experience I find macOS superior.
There’s plenty of people in similar boats, and this is the
most affordable machine (new, not used) that lets someone get to use macOS.
For a lot of people with budget limits I’d point them to used MacBook Air models rather than the Neo, but having this as a new model is a really nice option for some people.
Also you can call the Neo CPU slow but its benchmarks run circles around anything you find at its price range. Those machines have more RAM and storage, but the Neo will likely provide a more responsive experience than anything in its price range.
I do agree on refurb/used rather than the Neo. The best low-ish cost computer Apple is selling right now is probably their refurbished $750 MacBook Air M4 with 16GB RAM/256GB storage.
The only way I'll push back on this is the Ryzen 5 AI 340 is faster at multicore than the A18 Pro. Slower single core by a slight amount, and much slower iGPU.
However, that means to compete with the MacBook Neo more completely including integrated GPU, all you have to do is go up one CPU SKU to the Ryzen 7 AI 350 and you're further increasing your multi-core performance lead as well as completely closing the iGPU gap by doubling your GPU performance.
That same Yoga laptop is offered in this configuration including extra storage (16GB RAM/1TB SSD/Ryzen 5 AI 350) for $800
That...really is only $100 more than the 512GB configuration of the MacBook Neo if we aren't tossing in the education store pricing.
Perhaps it's more of a MacBook Air competitor at that price range. Stretching up to $800 is a lot...but you do also get a lot for that stretch.
All of the computers you listed have an inferior CPU, inferior battery life, inferior performance, inferior build quality, and inferior software for most peoples usecases. I know we all love linux here, but a lot of creative (or school, or work) apps that people use don't support Linux, so people must choose between MacOS and Windows.
All of the "cons" you list for the Neo apply doubly if not more for the alternatives you provided. Not to mention the cheap plastic build quality, poor OEM support, horrible screens, etc.
Ryzen 5 AI 340 has a higher multicore benchmark score than the A18 Pro. If you go up to $800 you get the Ryzen 7 AI 350 which matches or beats the A18 Pro in graphics, gets pretty much on par in single core performance, and that SKU has 16GB/1TB in its configuration. If you spend $100 less on the high end Neo with 512GB you get half the storage and lose a lot of I/O and get a worse screen and no replaceable SSD.
USB 3 5Gbps and USB 2 as your only ports are pathetic. Competing systems have more throughput and other conveniences like microSD readers, HDMI, and USB-A.
Inferior battery life, care to send me test data to back that up? Because the Neo is not a star at battery life for medium intensity tasks. It has the smallest battery of any Mac. Early reviews note that screen brightness and higher intensity workloads quickly deplete the battery. It comes with a very slow charging power brick. I guarantee you the physical size of the battery in that Yoga is much larger than what you get in the Neo.
Inferior software: highly subjective. There are over 900 million PC gamers on this planet who can’t play PC games on their MacBook Neo. Windows objectively runs more applications than Mac. Plenty of people I know prefer Windows over Mac.
Cheap build quality: again, Neo has no haptic trackpad, so it’s not that different than a typical windows PC.
Poor OEM support: Lenovo sells parts, Apple doesn’t.
Horrible screens: the Neo has the worst screen in any Mac, the Yoga laptop has a touchscreen OLED. Have you seen the Neo screen in person?
Drive to the bank, wait in line, talk to someone who misunderstands me, fill out a deposit/withdrawal slip, and also if it’s not 9AM - 5PM I just can’t do this at all.
> For something to be deserved, it must be earned.
Eeeeeerrrr, wrong! This is garbage hypercapitalist/libertarian ideology.
Did you earn your public school education? Did you earn your use of the sidewalk or the public parks and playgrounds? Did you earn your library card? Did you earn your citizenship or right to vote? Did you earn the state benefits you get when you are born disabled? Did you earn your mother’s love?
No, these are what we call public services, unalienable rights, and/or unconditional humanity. We don’t revolve the entire world and our entire selves solely around profit because it’s not practical and it’s empty at its core.
Arguably we still do too much profit-based society stuff in the US where things like healthcare and higher education should be guaranteed entitlements that have no need to be earned. Many other countries see these aspects of society as non-negotiable communal benefits that all should enjoy.
In this hypothetical society with The Engineer, it’s likely that The Engineer would want or need to win over the minds of their society in some way to prevent their own demise and ensure they weren’t overthrown, enslaved, or even just thought of as an evil person.
Many of my examples above like public libraries came about because gilded age titans didn’t want to die with the reputation of robber barons. Instead, they did something anti-profit and created institutions like libraries and museums to boost the reputation of their name.
It’s the same reason why your local university has family names on its buildings. The wealthiest people in society often want to leave a positive legacy where the alternative without philanthropy and, essentially, wealth redistribution, is that they are seen as horrible people or not remembered at all.
> This is garbage hypercapitalist/libertarian ideology.
Go on then, how do you decide what people deserve? How do you negotiate with others who disagree with you?
> examples above like public libraries
I agree! The nice part about all these mechanisms is that they’re voluntary.
If you’re suggesting that The Engineer’s actions should be constrained entirely by his own conscience and social pressure, then we agree. No laws or compulsion required.
You sure seem to know a lot about what people 'deserve' so I'm not sure I can hope to crack the rind of that particular coconut but I will leave you with this: Humans, by virtue of being living, thinking beings deserve lives of fulfillment, dignity, and security. The fact that we have, up until present, been unable (or perhaps unwilling) to achieve this does not mean it's not possible or desirable, only that we have failed in that goal.
Everything else, all the 'isims' and ideologies are abstractions.
> Humans, by virtue of being living, thinking beings deserve lives of fulfillment, dignity, and security.
You wanting people to have that doesn't mean that people deserve to have that. Fundamentally, no one deserves anything. We, as a species, lived for a hundred thousand years with absolutely nothing except what we could carve off the world by ourselves or with the help of small groups that chose to work with us. Everything else since then is a bonus (or sometimes a malus, but on average a bonus).
Also, as much as it sounds nice to declare such things as goals, deserved or not, it is indeed impossible, and probably not desirable, since, for starters, you can't even define what those things would be like. Those aren't actionable, they're at most occasional consequences of a system that is working to alleviate scarcity of resources.
Unfortunately, we're nowhere near that replicator.
These examples aren’t generally voluntary once implemented. I can’t get a refund from my public library or parks department if I decide not to use it.
The social pressure placed on The Engineer is the manifestation of law. That’s all law is: a set of agreed-upon social contracts, enforced by various means.
Obviously, many dictators and governments get away with badly mistreating their subjects, and that’s unfortunate, shouldn’t happen, and shouldn’t be praised as a good system.
I think you may be splitting hairs a little bit here and trying really hard to manufacture…something.
Slavery was (is) also an agreed upon social contract, enforced by various means. What makes it wrong? You clearly have morally prescriptive beliefs. Why are you so sure that your moral prescriptions are the right ones? And that being in the majority gives you the right to impose your beliefs on others?
What if you are in the minority? Do you just accept the hypercapitalist dictates of the majority? Why not?
Law is more than convention. What distinguishes legitimate from illegitimate law?
The only way for people who disagree axiomatically to get along is to impose on each other minimally.
Everything I've heard about NixOS...well, it sucks. Sorry.
The ideas behind it are interesting. The reality of living with it, the benefits are basically minimal/none and you have to learn a whole big thing that isn't applicable anywhere else.
Sounds like you've never used it. I've daily driven it for ~2 years and would never go back
It works great with containers, you can use Nix to build extremely lean OCI images. Mercury uses it this way- the book NixOS in production discusses it
Just seems like it’s a solution for a problem I don’t have.
I have to learn a whole new language that’s only used for NixOS just to do things I already have no difficulty doing with existing tooling.
I enthusiastically say, no, I’ve never used it, because, like I said, having that kind of learning curve just to set up an OS is kind of insane. Doesn’t matter if it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread.
That's dumb. You can hardly even buy a machine with 4GB of memory on sale, at any price.
If you are making products that depend on people spending money on them, you generally don't have to care about broke people with 15 year old computers.
I must say, the irony of this comment in a thread about Apple moving down-market without losing quality is … well, it burns. Along with the arrogance: “Anyone who can’t afford 8GB isn’t worthy of being my customer,” is literally the opposite of what Steve Jobs always said.
I was stuck once in a cabin in the woods with an old Android phone. I’m glad it still worked, and that people curating software experiences for it had more empathy — and more business sense — than this comment displays.
Didn’t Steve Jobs basically say Apple didn’t know how to make a good computer for $500 and used that as a justification to not sell any products to the lowest priced area of the market?
There’s no irony here. The plain fact exists that 8GB of RAM has been considered not an especially exotic amount lot even on cheap on laptops and desktops for about a decade if not longer.
$450 in 2015 would have bought you a Dell laptop with 6GB of upgradable memory:
The point was that Apple has completely been uninterested in the bottom of the laptop market from 1976 to 2026, and there is therefore no irony in my statement that many businesses including Apple will purposefully ignore customers who do not have enough money to buy their stuff.
From the first comment I responded to:
> “Anyone who can’t afford 8GB isn’t worthy of being my customer,” is literally the opposite of what Steve Jobs always said.
This commenter is wrong. This idea that the bottom of the market is below Apple is almost exactly what the quote from the earnings call said. Jobs effectively said “we only make mid to high end computers, someone else can take the serve the budget customers.”
This is why I pointed out that most people employed making commercial software don’t have to concern themselves with the needs and desires of users on desperately outdated hardware, since those users can’t afford your product anyway.
Of course, at the time Jobs was alive that number for RAM was below 8GB, but that specific number is not specifically relevant other than the fact that I brought it up as a general example of the standard of the day from around 10 years ago.
I brought up a bunch of computing examples from the mid-2010s after Jobs’ death because they are about the oldest reasonable hardware you’d find around today, proof that even buyers of low-end hardware 10+ years ago were regularly getting more than 4GB of RAM.
Apple’s base model MacBook Air in 2017 had 8GB of RAM. The 2015 model started with 4GB configurable to 8GB. The 12” MacBook from 2016 had 8GB RAM.
So you literally have to go back a decade to find anything sold by Apple where getting less than 8GB was an option on the lowest possible configuration, never mind PC manufacturers who generally gave better specs per dollar and included socketed memory.
But hey, Apple shills will shout from the rooftops that a 2026 laptop with 8GB of RAM is a good deal just because it’s $500 if you lie about your status as a student and pinky promise with Apple that you’ll never use the computer for commercial usage.
No Steve Jobs said exactly what he said. The technology wasn’t to the point where they could offer products that aren’t junk. An unsubsidized $120 Android phone is “junk”. A $99 iPod Shuffle or a $300 low end iPad isn’t.
The Netbooks available in 2010 were junk even by that days standards.
The MacBook Neo which is fast enough, a better display than low end PCs and a good trackpad is not junk. It can do what most low end consumers care about well.
At least in the US, even during the SJ era you could get a “free” iPhone with a contract that anyone could afford - it was the last years phone
Well, here’s the thing…and, I apologize, this is a bit of a shift from what we were talking about.
The MacBook Neo is getting so much hype for being better than a low end PC, before it’s been put through its paces over the long term.
I had the same initial reaction. Wow, a Mac for $500, how incredible, how disruptive.
But then this morning I decided to look at the actual street pricing of laptops at my local Best Buy.
And here’s the thing: now that Apple has this machine with no haptic trackpad, no backlit keyboard, the worst screen available on any Apple product, very small keyboard, and very basic non-upgradable specs including a generations-old efficiency processor, I think the actual story here is that Apple has changed their mind and is willing to make a product that they would have previously called “junk.”
I’ll list off a couple of systems that I would absolutely buy as better machines over the MacBook Neo:
HP OmniBook X Flip, 16” 2K touch screen, Intel Core Ultra 5 226V, 16GB memory, 512GB storage, $699.
For the same price as the top model Neo you get double the RAM, a bigger and probably better screen, which is convertible and touch enabled. It is not some kind of bargain basement SKU, either, a legitimately well-reviewed laptop.
Right there in the pricing sweet spot you get more memory and basically all the benefits of an ARM architecture in another laptop that is well-regarded. You also get a number pad on the keyboard.
All these laptops have been getting well over 4.5 star reviews, like this one:
> This little guy has been amazing this semester plenty of power while being light and getting good battery life the quick charging feature is particularly impressive from almost dead to full in around half an hour all and all this laptop has met or exceeded all of my school life needs
Finally, this is probably my choice if I was in this segment:
Another great example of a laptop that is costing you less than the Neo’s top model before education discount, has better specs, and is again a legitimately good model of laptop solidly in the mid-range of the lineup, not a bargain basement SKU. I would actually be surprised if the Neo kept up with this particular model in terms of build quality, keyboard, etc.
The Neo’s main advantage is that it’s got a chassis made of aluminum, and that’s really its only differentiator. And I’d say that’s an overrated differentiator (e.g., plastic is lighter and isn’t automatically weaker/worse for long-term ownership).
Just looking at the first one - the screen is worse, it’s heavier and the processor is slower. Of course PC mags always grade crappy intel based PCs on a curve. Actually all of the screens are worse.
The Ryzen AI 340 isn't a bad match against the A18 Pro. It's actually ahead of the A18 Pro on multicore performance, and only 20% behind on single core benchmarks, not enough for anyone to notice. Yeah, it's true you're losing a lot of integrated GPU performance. Integrated GPUs do need more RAM, though, and I doubt the Neo is going to be handle a lot in the realm of "high school kids who want to game on the side" between that and the software compatibility situation.
My main point isn’t about caring or not, the point is that 4GB RAM in a laptop/desktop is incredibly rare for how outdated it is.
The PS4 came out in 2013 and has 8GB of RAM. In case you need help counting, that’s 13 years ago.
And that’s an optimized game console with no general purpose operating system and limited multitasking capability.
10 years ago, Samsung phones were shipping with 6GB of RAM. Not many phones even physically last that long.
My uncle bought a $350 trash Windows PC a couple years ago, literally the cheapest thing I could find on sale at Staples, and it came with 12GB of RAM.
The price of memory is insane, so if anyone wants to increase performance/dollar, they're likely going to have to do it in software. I would suspect 4Gb computers are going to come back if the hungry AI beast doesn't cool it soon.
How much memory does your parents and grandparents computers have? There are a lot of people out there with older computers, probably even some that you know :)
My uncle bought a $350 trash Windows PC a couple years ago, literally the cheapest thing I could find on sale at Staples, and it came with 12GB of RAM.
While the impact of the MacBook Neo is huge, this type of review is really screaming of an inexperienced reviewer who can't actually make good purchase recommendations to average people.
It's really cool that this device is cheap but 8GB of RAM is the elephant in the room. Even non-technical web browsing users will notice the sluggishness coming from that spec.
The moment they upgrade it to the next iPhone processor, it'll get 12GB of RAM, and it will need it.
And the other elephant in the room that John doesn't bring up is the fact that you can definitely find in-warranty MacBook Air options for ~$700 and they'll be much better buys.
You'll get more RAM, keep your Touch ID, better trackpad, better screen, better battery life, better speakers, better mics, I think even a better webcam? Maybe.
That reminds me: the small battery in the Neo means that high screen brightness or more than light usage will more quickly deplete it compared to other Mac systems.
Here is a video of a user who opens up every single program on the Mac, including a video editor and edits 4k video at full resolution with no sluggishness. Care to reevaluate your opinion?
Looks pretty sluggish at 5:00, not that I'd even expect this class of system to handle that kind of video project all that well regardless of RAM pressure.
6:49 to 7:00 is how long Photoshop takes to go from the preview to the viewing the original resolution image zoomed in. Quite sluggish.
Dumping a bunch of out-of-focus idle apps into swap not only isn't the best test, but also isn't a magical solution that has no downsides even if it stays responsive a lot of the time.
There are all kinds of ways relying on swap can quickly turn your system into having a storage/memory bottleneck rather than a CPU bottleneck and they have very little to do with having a ton of backgrounded idle apps open.
He even mentioned one of them, which was screen recording, since that's adding write cycles to the disk while your system is also competing for disk writes for swap memory.
For example, let's say I'm downloading/extracting a large file (e.g., a game on Steam) while I have a lot of Chrome tabs and programs open with a good amount of RAM pressure. Now I might see more sluggishness than if I had a larger amount of RAM and the exact same system specs since my swap is competing with file write activity.
This isn't some kind of exotic uncommon activity.
A YouTuber doing a quick "open a bunch of apps and play around with them" doesn't necessarily test the kind of specific actions that would deal the most damage to a RAM-starved system.
> Even non-technical web browsing users will notice the sluggishness coming from that spec.
I'm sorry but this line invalidates most of your comment, to the point of looking like satire.
We have reviews and videos of people editing 4k videos with glee, launching and switching between all apps at once, and stuff like that.
I used the base M1 as a power user/developer for years when it came out, and the only reason I had to switch was the storage. Sluggishness wasn't on the top 10 issues I had with that device.
Be careful of the MacBook Neo reviews that have hit so early. Many of these reviewers are happy to sing praises of Apple for views, clicks, and early access to review units, etc. It is not a device that anyone has had on their desk able to test extensively, write review scripts, record and edit video, etc, yet without having special access.
Dave2D had his MacBook Neo on his desk with an edited video completed on the day the computer was announced. That's the special access I'm talking about. And you'll be lucky if you watched an early video like that from someone like him who is willing to be reasonably critical and risk losing that special level of access.
This segment of the Just Josh Tech podcast talks a lot about the caution you need to take with Apple reviewers who are just rushing review content out there: https://youtu.be/kSwXyxAA9XY?t=2406
I think it's very interesting how they note that someone they know who is very non-technical noticed the sluggishness of web browsing with an 8GB M1 MacBook Air. I noticed that when I owned mine as well. I bought into the hype surrounding the faster RAM and was happy to save some money at the time. I wouldn't say I regret it but I would say it made the system last much less time.
Yes, you can edit 4K videos, but not all 4K video editing workflows are created equally. You can't just jump into Final Cut Pro with complex timelines and lots of plugins and expect a good time. But of course if you're editing 4K videos in CapCut, that's no problem.
For more casual users, this same concept applies: a Safari user who has 3 tabs open is having a much different experience than a Chrome user with 40 tabs open and a simultaneous big file download competing for swap disk writes, even though both of those users are "casual" and "non-technical" computer users.
And here's the other thing, which Dave2D also mentioned: If you're locked in at the level where you just cannot spend more than $499 on a laptop, the Neo is a good deal. But if you actually have some willingness to spend just a little bit more, you'll almost certainly find some kind of M2/M3 MacBook Air, often brand new discounted at a retailer like Walmart or Best Buy where you end up 16GB of RAM and a ton of additional niceties over the Neo (Haptic trackpad, backlit keyboard, larger battery, better screen, speakers, microphones, etc). That system is a system that will ultimately last you longer than a Neo and only a small additional cost gets you there.
The notch has aged poorly. Seeing the MacBook Neo launch without a notch has been interesting.
A notch with facial recognition would have been maybe worth that use of space, but it’s just an average webcam and nothing special ever arrived.
I also think that the MacBook Pro models are a little heavy and maybe even a little thick for what they are. There’s probably innovation to be had in some kind of update to the thermal management system.
I see systems like the ASUS Zephyrus G14/G16 doing some amazing work on fitting crazy high power draw hardware into a compact and light form factor, and while I know Apple would never optimize that far in the direction of additional noise, it’s still something I think about.
The MacBook Pro having no innovation in thermal management in 5 years has been fine because they make some of the most efficient chips on the market, but it also means that Apple has been under-optimizing for the golden silicon they have on their hands.
Over time, I have come to appreciate the apps that actually take advantage of it (like dictation indicator). It would be better if the menu bar was aware of it and handled hiding icons correctly, thought. I guess it might evolve into a Dynamic Island someday.
I don’t necessarily want the laptops to go back to the overly thin form factors they used to have.
It would be cool if some manufacturers would come up with a self cleaning screen, though. Like ultra sonic micro vibrations while you lift the lid open or something (this might be part of the realm of magic right now, I know).
Yeah, the Intel Macs, despite using CPUs with worse power usage and thermal profiles than the AS chips, were thinner and lighter. The current machines are at least as heavy and bulky as 2010-era Macs.
Even the Air, whose whole selling point was supposed to be “thin and light”, now weighs over 3lbs. Far cry from the <1.5lb 11” Air — anyone remember that one? Amazing portable computer.
The most recent Just Josh Tech podcast episode mentioned this: the longer this chassis has been around, the more PC manufacturers have started closing the gaps.
I really like how that podcast talked about the MacBook Neo as well. Some very non-technical users really do hit the 8GB memory wall and notice sluggishness just doing modern web browsing. A lot of early YouTubers have been doing reviews as quickly as possible (almost certainly being directly supplied by Apple with review units) singing the praises of the machine, but it's not that hard to find a 16GB-equipped Macbook Air for not much more money and that's a much better buy.
The MacBook Pro is essentially a really conservative packaging choice for people who buy the plain M5 chip. They are buying the size/weight/thickness that's required to support the M5 Max, and Apple could probably even get an M5 Max into a thinner/lighter system.
The lineup is a little bit odd because of this, and I bring up the Zephyrus as something of a demonstration of the idea. When you by a MacBook Pro 14" M5, you buy an integrated graphics-class system and essentially you're getting a laptop that's the exact same size as a laptop you can get packed with a 100 watt RTX 5070Ti. Your CPU doesn't even really need a cooling fan and yet the computer it's inside of is the same size as a gaming machine with a dedicated GPU.
Obviously I don't mean to say that Apple should make a laptop that sacrifices fan noise to that degree, but the same idea is happening in their lineup:
You buy a M5 MacBook Pro, you're getting a laptop thick and heavy enough to thermally support a much higher tier system that isn't even on the same planet in terms of performance (an M5 Pro or Max system).
Here's how I would change the lineup:
MacBook Neo is your entry level, stays the same.
MacBook Air 13" and 15" handle your everyday computing very well, they stay the same.
MacBook Pro 14" and 16" with the M5 chip gets a thinner and lighter chassis, closer in size/weight to the MacBook Air. These systems are there to give you the extra I/O and better quality screen/other additional "pro" features that you get with the Pro lineup but for someone who is only doing medium-intensity tasks.
MacBook Pro 14" and 16" with Pro/Max chips remain roughly the same.
Bonus points: Apple could also more enthusiastically enter the PC gaming market (>900 million customers) if they put out something like the MacBook Neo but instead of targeting Chromebooks they would target low to mid range gaming laptops like Lenovo LOQ. Do a lot of the same cost-cutting as the MacBook Neo: no haptic trackpad (gamers don't need it), worse speakers, lower resolution screen (good for games), take the Steam Deck route of using an SD card for expandable storage and keep profit margins by continuing to solder the internal storage in and limit the size to ensure pros only buy the more expensive MacBook Pro lineup. Launch that along with a Steam Deck competitor handheld.
You are basically arguing that Apple should make the laptops thinner at the expense of more fan noise, as the size of the aluminum chassis is directly proportional to the effectiveness of the passive heat dissipation but I suspect that for most people not hearing fan noise is much, much, much more important than a smaller chassis.
What Apple is doing instead is not putting fans on the air and using a small chassis. For the pros there are fans but unless you put the laptop under heavy load they stay off.
If anything I would go the reverse option and choose an even larger chassis for the Max models, but the manufacturing complexity of this may not be worth it given that a small proportion of the models sold will use the max chips.
I am arguing that the base M5 chip-equipped MacBook Pros are heavy and thick laptops and have a lot of thermal headroom, while the M5 Pro and Max chips are being used in the same chassis.
I think the MacBook Pro lineup should essentially be split so that the M5 model is in a thinner chassis while the M5 Pro and Max can continue to make those weight and thickness sacrifices.
The M5 MacBook Pro is basically the same as a MacBook Air but with a fan to get that extra 10% performance boost, and better screen and I/O. It should essentially turn into a MacBook Air Plus or something like that.
I think that the M5 base chip could easily operate in a much thinner/lighter chassis without the throttling of the fanless Air design while maintaining quiet performance.
Also, the edge of the MacBook Pro is sharp and uncomfortable compared to other laptops when you are resting palms/arms on the laptop directly.
If I was to try my hand at predicting the future, Liquid Glass is going to be heavily reworked for next year’s release. Apple seems very obviously and publicly aware that reception has been negative.
I sold my Mac and moved to a Linux laptop over it. I won’t consider coming back until it’s revamped and the notch on the laptops goes away.
They might never get me back, I am liking Linux way too much.
Apple isn’t disrupting the industry here. Don’t buy into early influencer review hype. These reviewers don’t actually look at retail store pricing.
Apple is just making a decision to go downmarket and making many of the same compromises as other cheap laptops, and some odd compromises that are unique to Apple’s machine:
No haptic trackpad, no keyboard backlight, no Touch ID on the cheap model, lower-end screen, very small battery, tiny slow charger included, minimal and performance compromised I/O, below-par RAM, worse speakers/microphones, an old nothing-special processor.
This is the exact same stuff that people have complained about for years with cheap laptops.
The fact that the computer is made of aluminum is really a distraction from these facts.
This idea that it’s Google versus Apple all over again is just not true. Windows is the dominant OS in the laptop space by far. Over 900 billion people in the world play PC games on windows, for example.
If you look at Best Buy street pricing, what Apple has pulled off here is not that impressive.
Let’s say you want the top end Neo model at $699. Spend $100 more at Best Buy and you’ll end up with a Yoga 7 machine with double the RAM, double the storage (1TB), 70Whr battery, and a very capable and efficient AMD Ryzen 7 AI 350 chip that has faster multicore and same or faster graphics performance.
You’ll gain user-replaceable SSD, backlit keyboard, convertible OLED touch screen, digital pen support, more and faster USB ports, microSD slot, HDMI port, fast charger in the box, better speakers, WiFi 7, bigger screen in a more popular 14” size…it’s a better buy that will last years longer for only a slight price increase (or, spend less on the Ryzen 5 AI 340 variant ($680) if you’re okay with compromising GPU performance, which most people in this category are, and you’ll still end up with double the RAM of the Neo and 512GB storage at $20 less than Apple’s non-education store price)
Seriously, give me a good reason to buy a Neo over a machine like this. What is actually better about the Mac objectively? https://www.bestbuy.com/product/lenovo-yoga-7-2-in-1-copilot...
reply