MacBook Neo
Apple (Hacker News, MacRumors, Slashdot):
MacBook Neo starts with a beautiful Apple design, featuring a durable aluminum enclosure in an array of gorgeous colors — blush, indigo, silver, and a fresh new citrus. Its stunning 13-inch Liquid Retina display brings websites, photos, videos, and apps to life with high resolution and brightness, and support for 1 billion colors. Powered by A18 Pro, MacBook Neo can fly through everyday tasks, from browsing the web and streaming content, to editing photos, exploring creative hobbies, or using AI capabilities across apps. In fact, it’s up to 50 percent faster for everyday tasks like web browsing, and up to 3x faster when running on-device AI workloads like applying advanced effects to photos, compared to the bestselling PC with the latest shipping Intel Core Ultra 5. Providing up to 16 hours of battery life, MacBook Neo allows users to go all day on a single charge. A 1080p FaceTime HD camera and dual mics make it easy to look and sound great, and the dual side-firing speakers with Spatial Audio deliver crisp, immersive sound. MacBook Neo also features Apple’s renowned Magic Keyboard for comfortable and precise typing, and a large Multi-Touch trackpad with support for intuitive gestures, enabling smooth and precise control.
[…]
And starting at just $599 and $499 for education, MacBook Neo is Apple’s most affordable laptop ever, providing an unprecedented combination of quality and value.
The base model has 8 GB of RAM and a 256 GB SSD. For $699 you can get a 512 GB SSD and Touch ID. Both models have one USB 3 port and one USB 2 port (both with the USB-C connector). At 2.7 pounds, it’s the same weight as the MacBook Air.
All in all, this looks like big improvement over the M1 MacBook Air (except that it can’t run Sequoia). It’s the same price as the iPad Air (sans keyboard) and iPhone 17e. I don’t know why this took so many years, but I think it’s going to be a hit.
No $599 Mac laptop is going to exist without compromises, but they’re surprisingly minimal, in my opinion.
[…]
If you’re wondering if an iPhone processor can really drive a Mac, let me reprint this chart that I posted last year[…]
The A18 Pro is faster at single-core than the M3 and slightly faster at multi-core than the M1. The biggest limitation is the 8 GB of RAM, which is fine for many uses, but not for Xcode.
They were so, so close! The Citrus should have been a Key Lime instead. Leave the Indigo as is and boom, you’d have the iBook G3 SE colors from 2000. 😄
Previously:
- MacBook Pro 2026
- MacBook Air 2026
- MacBook Pro (M5, 2025)
- Walmart Selling M1 MacBook Air for $699
- Rumor of Low-Cost MacBook
- Apple Silicon: The Roads Not Taken
Update (2026-03-04): John Siracusa:
The A18 Pro in the MacBook Neo is 19% faster than the M2 Ultra in the Mac Pro in single-core performance (Geekbench 6).
The MacBook Neo starts at $599.
The Mac Pro, which is still for sale, starts at $6,999.
The display has a resolution of 2408x1506. It uses an A18 Pro CPU - same CPU used in the iPhone 16 Pro. The iPhone 16 Pro Max has a 2868× 1320 display.
If a game runs well on an iPhone 16 Pro, it should run well on a MacBook Neo. The display resolutions are nearly the same.
Andrew Cunningham (MacRumors):
The screen is also a bit of a step down from the MacBook Air’s 13.6-inch 2560×1664 screen. Apple says it’s a 13-inch LCD with a 2408×1506 resolution and 500 nits of maximum brightness. It does not support the P3 wide color gamut or Apple’s True Tone technology, unlike the old M1 MacBook Air. It has rounded upper display corners like the current MacBook Airs and Pros, but doesn’t include the notch. The MacBook is also capable of driving a single external display—up to 4K at 60 Hz, disqualifying it from powering Apple’s 5K Studio Displays.
Here’s a list of what separates the MacBook Neo from the $1099 MacBook Air, besides their sizes[…]
I know a bunch of people will disagree, but this is the most relevant Mac announcement in years[…]
[…]
I would swap my iPad Pro for it in a flash (if it had a 12” display, that is). And that is probably exactly why it is that big.
I still stand by it: this is the smartest move Apple has made in years.
[…]
I’ve long been baffled by the notion that Apple would cede the education market – one they long dominated when I was a kid – to cheap Windows devices and more recently, Chromebooks. Yes, they clearly thought the iPad could be the answer there. But that always felt a bit off. Sure, the iPad is a brilliant device and great for some things in classrooms. But for a lot of work, including school work, you’re going to want a “real” computer. Try as they might with keyboards and trackpads, Apple has not been able to morph the iPad into that real computer. And they keep insisting they don’t want to! (Even if their constant tweaks suggest otherwise.)
That’s fine. But again, it doesn’t work in the classroom. Even if it works 90% of the time, it needs to work 100% of the time for students. And the MacBook Neo can. Finally.
The Neo no longer includes a physical indicator light. macOS now displays the camera in use indicator in the menu bar whenever the webcam is active.
I’m interested to see what my Apple security researcher friends think about this. Hopefully Apple has implemented protections to properly isolate this new webcam notification.
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They're pretty. I think Linux support on Apple Silicon Macs is generally not that great; otherwise, they would have made for nice Linux laptops.
Not sure I agree these are “surprisingly minimal” compromises for a $600 computer meant to be used every day. The processor, sure. But late-stage MacOS just doesn’t run well on 256 GB/8 GB.
It'll do well for the target market (Chromebook shoppers) and people who prefer a new low-end Mac (which can't run a quality OS like Sequoia) over a used older Mac. Otherwise the Neo is severely handicapped, on purpose or otherwise, to the point where nobody who can buy an Air will be tempted to consider the Neo, to Apple's financial benefit. Image this thing was super thin with nice bright colors (as in the BS "spy" photos), many would consider it for that alone despite some compromises, but these washed out colors, body thicker than an Air and other severe gimpings ensure that won't happen. Market segmentation doesn't happen by itself, you have to work hard on it, you have to beat some products with a stick to make sure they stay in their target customer lane.
In 2026 a hard disk with 2056 GB is utterly useless. I constantly have to remove unused apps and the garbage from Tahoe. And why only 8 GB of RAM?
I don't think this one is for me.
Question about the "it cannot run Sequoia" claim... making a bootable backup on an external SSD (I use SuperDuper! and am o longer sure if CCC works like this anymore) I was able to - last week - revert my M3 MBP from Tahoe to Sequoia. Provided my external SSD is 512G, why won't this work for this MB? The A18Pro chip?
Are we all running the same OS?
iStat Menus shows macOS takes 6.5GB RAM just to boot and show a desktop these days. (and I'm not even running Tahoe, because why would I)
I was considering that this could be a good computer for some of my non-technical family members, but 8 GB of RAM just doesn't sound like it will work very well at all, especially with Tahoe.
Re "Question about the "it cannot run Sequoia" claim..."
Each Mac when it launches runs on the current OS as of the launch date and does not run on earlier OS's. Apple does not provide support (drivers, hardware support etc) for older OS's for newer machines. So M5 will only ever run Tahoe and later OS's, M4 - Sequoia and later OS's etc. You'd need some backporting genius to manage to somehow create the hardware support components for the older OS for the newer machine, without access to Apple's source code i.e. good luck with that.
I don't know about some of these comments. My M1 Air with 8gb RAM and 256gb drive, running Tahoe, works great and does everything I ask it to with no trouble. If you think the Neo is useless, you probably aren't the target market.
@Dave That works because the M3 MacBook Pro didn’t originally ship with Tahoe. I’m not sure what the technical reason is—perhaps just not wanting to add drivers—but historically it hasn’t worked to “revert” a Mac to an older OS than what it came with.
@Mac Folklore Radio I have one of the Walmart M1 MacBook Airs, and it uses just under 5 GB of RAM to boot with Sequoia. It works fine for basic stuff.
Every single person commenting here that it's not fast enough, there's not enough memory, or there's not enough storage is not part of the target demographic. I think it's a great deal for normies who don't need more than the basics.
I am not the target demographic but I am the parent of two kids who are. I got them MacBook Airs last year with twice the memory and storage, and I do not regret that decision at all. Those computers will last for years, whereas I don't think this one would.
