No. Its not.
You are continuing to miss a key distinction.
This is a sub $500 dollar laptop.
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Apple on MacBook Neo Design: 'We're Certainly Not Making Any Compromises'
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No. Its not.
You are continuing to miss a key distinction.
This is a sub $500 dollar laptop.
This is the first criticism I've seen that's actually relevant to the article.
Although it's arguable that it's a compromise since some think the notch is a compromise and prefer the bezel.
Mrkevinfinnerty
macrumors 68040
How times change eh?
Here is the forums foremost USB 2.0 evangelist in 2018 explaining how audio jacks are going the way of Betamax!
Macbook Neo Usb 2.0 and the Betamax jack in the big 2026.
No, she isn't claiming that. As I've said to others in this thread, you can't pull things out of context. You have to understand statements in the context they were made. She's a design person, and this is a design conversation. The whole conversation springs from one of her first statements:
"Absolutely central to the work that we did was asking how do you distill the essence of a Mac? And I think that comes through in the materiality and the quality of it." So all the context clues should make it obvious she's not talking about things like the A18 Pro chip or USB2. Those are completely outside her wheelhouse and the sphere of the conversation. When she says "older technology" it's in the context of design, material, build, manufacturing--things of that nature. What it means more specifically than that, who knows--I don't think she went into it. It's likely at worst just a uninformative phrase, not a filthy lie that she decided to throw in to try to trick people into buying the Neo.
I know people online love to pick apart things big companies (or any public target) say looking for some technicality as a grounds to prove they are evil, but the problem is that approach easily and often does lead to misinterpreting words and statements out of context (sometimes intentionally, sometimes unintentionally, sometimes a mix), as some in this thread have done. It's the exact same thing that happens in gotcha journalism all the time (but that's usually very intentional). These types of people point fingers and make a lot of noise and try to get everyone riled up (for clicks, hate, and who knows what other motivations). But in the end it's just noise, because even the times they don't misinterpret, it usually amounts to a huge nothing burger that affects no one.
You shouldn't get blasted for recommending against the Neo for some people. The problem is when it's a blanket recommendation based on the belief that everyone values everything the same. But in reality $100 (or $10 or $1000) is not the same to everyone. 8 more GB of ram, Touch ID, etc does not make the same difference to everyone. If you steer everyone away from the Neo to, say, an MBA, you'd almost surely be upselling some people to their detriment.
Again, the A18 Pro chip only supports one single USB 3 port. How Apple got a working USB 2 for tin addition to the USB 3 is a good thing. Apple could have just went with a single USB 3 port the is fully supported by the CPU.
People complaining about the USB ports and the amount of RAM are overlooking the physical limits of the A18 Pro chip. Going with the A19 Pro chip would have support for 12 GB of RAM but it too is limited to supporting one USB 3 port. This is a limit of the A Series chips.
Mrkevinfinnerty
macrumors 68040
Oh come on , reaching hard here.
Its made of of aluminium, glass and plastic not fairy dust from Mars. What would constitute older technology on that basis, stone?
eltoslightfoot
macrumors 68040
Maybe, but I have been there too many times when I make recommendations that start out as overkill and end up just right as the "tech guy." My father-in-law used the Dell 15 XPS laptop I recommended for 10 years. It was overkill when he started using the thing, but a decade later it was still hanging on. That laptop ended up costing him $120 a year. What a bargain!
I recommend this thing (the Neo) to someone, it has a shelf life of like 4 years tops--maybe 5 years. Not good. It just isn't a good deal. Same in the Windows world. My dad buys a $400 piece of junk every year. If he would pay twice as much, it would last SO much longer.
So maybe what you are saying is true, but then again, maybe not. A previous generation Macbook Air is going to last FAR longer than this Neo for what a $100 more? And I just can't bring myself to recommend it, that's okay that you can.
eltoslightfoot
macrumors 68040
Or they could have given it an actual mac system-on-a-chip with an actual motherboard on it...you know allowing things like multiple high speed usb-c ports. Instead of a phone board.
If this is "progress" I must really not fit in here in the Apple side of things anymore.
iTangerine
macrumors newbie
This will make an excellent second, third, or fourth laptop for folks, and an excellent first laptop for the 11-18s.
If you are an individual who's birth year starts with a 1, and are planning on raw dogging reality in one these things as your daily driver, then I admire your masochism and would perhaps like to interest you in this nifty little Lament Configuration puzzle box? You clearly are an explorer in the further regions of experience... 🤣
If you are an individual who's birth year starts with a 1, and are planning on raw dogging reality in one these things as your daily driver, then I admire your masochism and would perhaps like to interest you in this nifty little Lament Configuration puzzle box? You clearly are an explorer in the further regions of experience... 🤣
You think all aluminum and glass are the same and no technology goes into materials and design? You're being blatantly willfully obtuse now.
The cost would probably have been too close to the MacBook Air if they did that and it won't sell as well or capture the marketed crown the Neo is designed for.
It's really simple, if the Neo does not meet your needs then buy something else.
Mrkevinfinnerty
macrumors 68040
No. I just think describing it as 'incredible' is hyperbolic in the extreme.
eltoslightfoot
macrumors 68040
Oh that won't be a problem. I definitely bought something else. To be fair, my compromise was battery life, the Neo probably can outlast my gaming laptop. 😉
turbineseaplane
macrumors Penryn
The problem there is it goes against the entire reason they made the Neo..
To have a dumping ground for old & dud iPhone chips they already contracted for.
Please provide evidence that these are dud iphone chips. Because thats a serious accusation that requires hard evidence for you to be taken seriously.
Thats class action/lawuit level. So please show us the proof.
jlc1978
macrumors 604
Depends on the use case. In the Neo'case, the powerplug is likely to be hat is most plugged into the USB-2 port. Given the preponderance of bluetooth, if someone decides to use a mouse it's likely to be a bluetooth version.
As long as it meets the needs of the target audience, then yes, it is OK.
If it works, don;t fix it for no good reason beyond being the new shiny...
I'd say a $600 MacBook that is powerful enough for a large market segment is progress...
Or a good way to use proven technology to bring a more affordable MacBook to market.
jlc1978
macrumors 604
This is MacRumors, home of unfounded accusations, opinions claimed to be facts, arguing over specs that mean nothing to real world users, and thinking everyone's use case is the same as the posters...
I7guy
macrumors Westmere
VHS tapes are not being produced en mass. The tech exists but is no longer an active participant. USB 2.0 is a standard that is still being actively used and supported.
If you want to use ai as your opinion base vs a common sense look at this, your prerogative.
But I disagree.
I7guy
macrumors Westmere
TallManNY
macrumors 601
Hmm, now I'm wondering if I should just pick one up to replace my iPad Pro M1 as my "hang around the dinning room/living room" computer. I could buy it with the education discount, so it would only be $500. I'd use it almost entirely just for web browsing or working through online apps, while I'd go back to my desktop in my home office for anything more serious, so the 8gb of RAM is going to be enough. And the storage won't matter either since I backup to the cloud already so that files are available on multiple devices.
Maybe I should just check the used laptop market. A little side note, I've had terrible success buying used Windows PC laptops. Many have failed me within a year of purchase. Though admittedly I've bought used laptops in the $200 to $250 range.
Maybe I should just check the used laptop market. A little side note, I've had terrible success buying used Windows PC laptops. Many have failed me within a year of purchase. Though admittedly I've bought used laptops in the $200 to $250 range.
They're binned chips, meaning they didn't work fully (hence that user calling them "duds") but do work with one GPU core disabled. That's why the Neo has 5 GPU cores vs 6 in the iPhone using the same A18 Pro.
USB 2.0 can still be useful, but more so in USB-A form. Plugging in a mouse, keyboard, printer, thumb drive / external hard drive, etc.
Of course, while we're now being told USB 2.0 is perfectly adequate to use on a new machine in 2026, many of those same people insisted that USB-A should not be included on the Mac Mini desktop despite having all the space and hardware it needs because it's "obsolete" (pro tip: it still isn't). It's almost like they just support whatever decision Apple makes, tbh.
As for the Neo, I was initially contemplating getting one to replace my old 2013 Air, but the only thing I use that for is backing up my camera cards on the go. The now 13-year old entry level machine has 2x USB 3.0 (plus an SD reader) so I can quickly pull everything from a camera card onto an external SSD, but the Neo can't even do it beyond USB 2.0 speeds.
I suppose I could pull the files onto the internal SSD, then copy them off again onto the external, which takes longer as it's two steps. But 512 GB is just barely enough for that. My old MBA has a 2TB SSD that I installed for like $100.
Also, CAD $1000 for the 512 version isn't actually that inexpensive. Lightly-used M1 Airs start in the CAD $400 range used and there's no sales tax on them. Or there's Windows machines for C$900 that are 1TB with 16 GB RAM.