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Intel launches Macbook Neo killer
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uacd
macrumors 68000
I will wait till they actually make a comparable product. MacBook Neo while is not my favorite Apple product from design standpoint (let’s be honest, it looks like it is from late 2000s), packs a punch, has top build quality, great display and speakers, as well as has actual working OS on board.
Apple has already been crushing PC laptop market since MacBook Air with M chip. Now they are literally dumping it.
I am not an Apple shill of any sort, I use what works best. But PC laptop manufacturers have come way too far with their all-around corner cutting measures. You can buy a powerful machine but utterly bad 250 nits display will make your eyes rain, or you can get a laptop with great display but the build quality will scream “I am falling apart”, or you can get a good machine for this price minus Windows installation and will have to either use Linux (that often doesn’t come preinstalled) or buy Windows/pirate it and be constantly afraid about security of data you put on your device, cause that’s how stolen software often works.
MacBook Neo is an ultimate cheapskate device that anyone can get as an all-rounder that will both pack a punch for something more serious than spreadsheets editing, as well as won’t be spinning fans like it is going to fly to the Moon
Apple has already been crushing PC laptop market since MacBook Air with M chip. Now they are literally dumping it.
I am not an Apple shill of any sort, I use what works best. But PC laptop manufacturers have come way too far with their all-around corner cutting measures. You can buy a powerful machine but utterly bad 250 nits display will make your eyes rain, or you can get a laptop with great display but the build quality will scream “I am falling apart”, or you can get a good machine for this price minus Windows installation and will have to either use Linux (that often doesn’t come preinstalled) or buy Windows/pirate it and be constantly afraid about security of data you put on your device, cause that’s how stolen software often works.
MacBook Neo is an ultimate cheapskate device that anyone can get as an all-rounder that will both pack a punch for something more serious than spreadsheets editing, as well as won’t be spinning fans like it is going to fly to the Moon
Yet it remains crippled by running Windows 11.
XboxEvolved
macrumors 65816
Populus
macrumors 604
It is true that Panther Lake is a big advancement for Intel chips.
However, I wouldn’t get one of this because they include a decent NPU. The same thing that I look forward on a Mac is something to avoid on a Windows platform.
Having a chip with an NPU for a Windows 11 computer means that I should be constantly disabling, and checking it is disabled, every copilot feature after every update. No thanks. I don’t want Copilot on my budget Windows 11 computer.
However, I wouldn’t get one of this because they include a decent NPU. The same thing that I look forward on a Mac is something to avoid on a Windows platform.
Having a chip with an NPU for a Windows 11 computer means that I should be constantly disabling, and checking it is disabled, every copilot feature after every update. No thanks. I don’t want Copilot on my budget Windows 11 computer.
Fascinating. The OP claims that an unreleased chip, that the very link he provides claims has “unpromising pricing”, will somehow beat an entire device? I’m struggling to come up with a metaphor that shows how mindboggling that claim is. Imagine, for a second, that this chip actually can outperform the A18Pro in the MacBook Neo. You still need to build the entire rest of the system around it, not least of which is an aluminum (or equivalent quality material) body, a trackpad that doesn’t suck, and an OS not loaded with bloat and other paraphernalia.
Put differently: the value of the chip in the Neo is the least interesting thing about it. The holistic macOS experience where everything works well right out of the box and that box is built well, for that price? I do expect it to arrive but the shakeup on the way is going to need more than “ooh, new-ish chip!”.
Put differently: the value of the chip in the Neo is the least interesting thing about it. The holistic macOS experience where everything works well right out of the box and that box is built well, for that price? I do expect it to arrive but the shakeup on the way is going to need more than “ooh, new-ish chip!”.
Remember what the Neo is -- a bunch of underwhelming, yesterday parts to save money, put into a pretty aluminum chassis and sold for a price nobody has seen from luxury-brand Apple. NOTHING on the Neo spec sheet including the 8GB RAM, the paltry 256GB SLOW SSD, the single usable USB port (and only USB 3.0), WIFI 6 (not WIFI 7), and lets not forget, all powered by a phone chip, is groundbreaking. It's a great value but please...
It doesn’t matter at all how powerful the processor is supposed to be. It still runs Windows, has ten stickers slapped on it, it’s a market PC. It doesn’t even come close to the MacBook Neo, which is Apple’s MacBook even if it’s cheaper.
Apple's appeal isn't about having greater technology than anybody else. They tried following the tech industry's relentless drive for "more megabytes and megahertz" in the 1990s, and it nearly bankrupted the company.
Even the technology in the original Macintosh was nothing special. It was a 5-year old CPU running not that fast, even by 1984 standards, and it had too little RAM for most professional work. But that didn't matter, because it was the experience that Apple was promoting. All of the computers before that time required humans to understand how computers worked internally, and to talk to the computers in their own language. With the Macintosh, Apple said, let the humans do the human things, and let the computer do the computer things. The whole was greater than the sum of its parts.
Likewise, the Neo may seem like "a bunch of underwhelming, yesterday parts" to us equipment nerds who spend our time in online computer forums, but it brings the Apple experience down to a price that's accesible to customers for whom any Mac was previously out of reach. Steve Jobs called the Mac "the computer for the rest of us". Once again, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
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I don't disagree at all, and i even supported your last paragraph in my comments, but remember -- I replied to someone who said Intel can never defeat Neo. It certainly can. If we're going to say Neo people don't care about specs, then the same could be true of people buying $600 Windows laptops. They both get the job done for people who don't care about specs.
The Neo is an iPhone with a 13" screen and a keyboard. except it doesn't make cellular calls and runs macOS.
WarmWinterHat
Suspended
Many people want a windows computer for various reason.. matches what they work with and are used to, works with their school, has apps that aren't available on Mac. That was my case in college...we used programs that had no Mac equivalent.
Mac vs Windows is just dogma. People will use what they are used to and what they need and want. I use Windows all-day, everyday at work, and it's fine. I prefer Mac and use it at home, while my wife is 100% Windows and Android (Pixel), and there are no issues.
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That really underscores, not that the Neo is underpowered, but that modern phones have ridiculously powerful processors.
1BadManVan
macrumors 68040
Well M series is just based off the A series architecture so it makes sense. Just a more beefed up version with more cores
1BadManVan
macrumors 68040
Yup, my wife refuses to move off her windows pc's for work, not because mac wouldn't work for her, but she hates change. She hates when i do an update to her phone lol, let alone swapping to a whole new OS. Maybe one day she'll come around, but windows works for her. Of course it doesn't stop me from making comments when she complains a couple times a week of another windows bug that's pissing her off lol
Skwoodge
macrumors member
applebro
macrumors 6502
Name a better click bait title that will provide views and engagement. it's a tried and true recipe
sw1tcher
macrumors 604
🙄 Nowhere in that article does it say this new Intel chip is a MacBook Neo killer. Intel doesn't make that claim anywhere I can see and the word "killer" doesn't appear anywehre in the artlcle either.Intel launches Macbook Neo killer
Intel's new Core Series 3 is its answer to the MacBook Neo
Intel has launched the Core Series 3, a mobile processor arguably designed to provide cheaper consumer laptops. But early pricing from a Chinese vendor, Honor, doesn't look especially promising.www.pcworld.com
Skwoodge
macrumors member
I mean it says it's the "answer to" the Neo ... which is also categorically false. But yes, the headline is clickbait-y.
jido
macrumors 6502
It certainly saves the buyer money.
I don’t find anything underwhelming in my Neo other than the size of the RAM.
I have two usable USB ports why only one?
I don’t expect to have a Wifi 7 router in the near or medium future. The processor is fast. I didn’t know the SSD was slow, as in, I had zero issue with it so far.
Skwoodge
macrumors member
The SSD in the Neo is 1500+ MB/sec. Anyone calling that speed slow is living in another reality. Slower than new Macs? Yes. Slow in any realistic metric where that word can actually be applied? Not even remotely. It's delusion.
One USB port is USB 2.0 which is pretty much useless except as a charge port. The other port is USB 3.0 Gen 2 (10Gbps) which is the only modern port.
The Neo is just for that type of user -- one who can't tell or doesn't care what's in it. I predict, in a couple years, that 8GB RAM is going to start to feel like an Achilles Heel and your SSD will have been written-to-death by macOS using it as a swap drive.
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Most every other laptop sold in the last few years has a faster SSD in it. 1500MB/s is two generations old PCI Express 3.0 speed. That was the point.