MacBook Neo: A Software Developer's Perspective

[tutubibi]

Background

I do a lot of C#/.NET (web, Azure, MAUI), Swift/Xcode and C/C++ work and 95% of the work is done on my desktops like M4 MacMini or Dell Workstations, I try to avoid carrying a laptop as much as possible. If I don't have to demo anything or fix/review stuff during travels I will have my iPad Pro with me. On those rare occasions where I have to carry a laptop, I was using a nice light Acer (no Xcode, obviously) or my 2020 MacBook Air (last Intel MBA 😢). Intel MacBook was always slow and painful to use for any demanding work.

Neo Impressions

So I got a basic 8/256 Neo to see if it can become my travel development and demo machine. I assumed it will be fine for basic work but based on my testing so far, it surpassed all my expectations! Performance wise, it is of course slower than my desktops but not slow at all in absolute terms, in fact it is very decent for .NET development (Zed + CLI). Screen is nice (as a bonus, no notch, I hate that thing), keyboard and trackpad are very good.

I never liked new notched Apple laptops, while great inside, IMO design is inferior to old MBA or Retina MBP (pre butterfly keys). But if Apple would put MBA internals to Neo one day, I would gladly pay MBA price for it. Anyway, for me, Neo is the first Apple innovation and the first pleasant surprise in a while (aside from the Apple Silicon advancements). Now I can only hope Apple will start optimizing macOS like they did in the good old days of early OS X releases where every new release (Tiger in particular) made my iBook G4 faster.

 

[chabig]

I think you're saying that you would pay current MBA price for an MBA with the Neo screen. Is that right?

 

[saibalajik]

What about Android studio?

 

[tutubibi]

I think you're saying that you would pay current MBA price for an MBA with the Neo screen. Is that right?

I like Neo's design (size, shape) and would pay for MBA internals, primarily CPU, memory, storage. If it would be include MBA screen, all the better. However, even current Neo screen is perfectly fine for my use case.

 

[tutubibi]

What about Android studio?

Did not install Android Studio, don't use it much and it takes a lot of space. I didn't even install Rider for .NET development as it is a resource hog. It will probably run fine as it was fine on M1 machines with 8GB RAM last time I tested.

 

[4sallypat]

Background

I do a lot of C#/.NET (web, Azure, MAUI), Swift/Xcode and C/C++ work and 95% of the work is done on my desktops like M4 MacMini or Dell Workstations, I try to avoid carrying a laptop as much as possible. If I don't have to demo anything or fix/review stuff during travels I will have my iPad Pro with me. On those rare occasions where I have to carry a laptop, I was using a nice light Acer (no Xcode, obviously) or my 2020 MacBook Air (last Intel MBA 😢). Intel MacBook was always slow and painful to use for any demanding work.

Neo Impressions

So I got a basic 8/256 Neo to see if it can become my travel development and demo machine. I assumed it will be fine for basic work but based on my testing so far, it surpassed all my expectations! Performance wise, it is of course slower than my desktops but not slow at all in absolute terms, in fact it is very decent for .NET development (Zed + CLI). Screen is nice (as a bonus, no notch, I hate that thing), keyboard and trackpad are very good.

I never liked new notched Apple laptops, while great inside, IMO design is inferior to old MBA or Retina MBP (pre butterfly keys). But if Apple would put MBA internals to Neo one day, I would gladly pay MBA price for it. Anyway, for me, Neo is the first Apple innovation and the first pleasant surprise in a while (aside from the Apple Silicon advancements). Now I can only hope Apple will start optimizing macOS like they did in the good old days of early OS X releases where every new release (Tiger in particular) made my iBook G4 faster.

Thanks from the coding / programming side of the world.

You obviously know your past PowerPC days that Apple did indeed have a very efficient and fast RISC processor (32 bit) before Intel ruined it for everyone with 64 bit CPUs.

I think those that enjoy the new Apple Silicon technology (64 bit processors) should know that going back to RISC programming days made this possible (8GB RAM) in 2026.

From a 4 decade Mac user - very happy with the new Neo!

 

[hans1972]

You can effectively hide the notch on a MBA. I never see it or notice it.

 

[tutubibi]

...
You obviously know your past PowerPC days that Apple did indeed have a very efficient and fast RISC processor (32 bit) before Intel ruined it for everyone with 64 bit CPUs.
...

I agree that PowerPC was superior in terms of architecture but unfortunately development stalled as Motorola was focused on industrial market and IBM on server market, Apple did not have much choice but to switch to Intel.

This was before TSMC and other foundries of the world who could make CPUs for likes of Apple and Apple was too small to have its own factory like Intel and IBM had.

 

[4sallypat]

I agree that PowerPC was superior in terms of architecture but unfortunately development stalled as Motorola was focused on industrial market and IBM on server market, Apple did not have much choice but to switch to Intel.

This was before TSMC and other foundries of the world who could make CPUs for likes of Apple and Apple was too small to have its own factory like Intel and IBM had.

Yes, aware of the Motorola processor issues back then, but could Apple have done better with other CPU processors that weren't so awful ?

Maybe AMD or HP/Sun ?

 

[bapegg]

I noticed a big difference going from my 2018 Mac mini to my M4 Mac mini. The 2018 had the I5 with 64 GB of RAM and the M4 has 24 GB of Ram. The M4 just runs faster and cooler than the 2018 under the same exact load.

The M4 Mini is my first M series and I've been impressed with how efficient they are and also how much cooler they run.

 

[tutubibi]

Yes, aware of the Motorola processor issues back then, but could Apple have done better with other CPU processors that weren't so awful ?

Maybe AMD or HP/Sun ?

AMD did not have any viable mobile CPU offerings back then and HP/Sun was a different architecture and workstation/server focused so without a major investment and internal design team it would be a dead end.

Intel was at the top of the game for mobile CPUs then with its Core series.

I wish there were foundries then and that Apple was big enough then to bring CPU design in-house and develop Apple Silicon based on the PowerPC architecture but it was not meant to be for another 15 years and with Arm architecture.

 

[4sallypat]

I noticed a big difference going from my 2018 Mac mini to my M4 Mac mini. The 2018 had the I5 with 64 GB of RAM and the M4 has 24 GB of Ram. The M4 just runs faster and cooler than the 2018 under the same exact load.

The M4 Mini is my first M series and I've been impressed with how efficient they are and also how much cooler they run.

Yes, my last Mini was a CTO i7 with 64GB of RAM and it was so hot and noisy that I ended up putting it into our work's MDF server cabinet to sing the high RPM fan noise together.

Then the M1 Mini came out with 8GB and it was a dream - super quiet, never got warm, and ran everything without a single beach ball.

 

[bapegg]

I don't miss dealing with rack mounted servers or dual CPU workstations. Those always ran hot and the fans were always noisy.

I left my Neo running all day yesterday with apps running and it did fine. I'm sure it will get a bit warm under constant heavy use since it is fan-less. But what laptop doesn't get warm.

 

[4sallypat]

I don't miss dealing with rack mounted servers or dual CPU workstations. Those always ran hot and the fans were always noisy.

I left my Neo running all day yesterday with apps running and it did fine. I'm sure it will get a bit warm under constant heavy use since it is fan-less. But what laptop doesn't get warm.

Oh how I now remember the XSERVE rack mounted servers we had - they were very noisy indeed.

Glad they sat in our server or IDF racks away from me!

 

[!!!]

Yes, my last Mini was a CTO i7 with 64GB of RAM and it was so hot and noisy that I ended up putting it into our work's MDF server cabinet to sing the high RPM fan noise together.

Then the M1 Mini came out with 8GB and it was a dream - super quiet, never got warm, and ran everything without a single beach ball.

The M4 Pro is quite noisy when pushed. I personally find the noise far more irritable than my 2018.

To blame Intel on Apple's poor thermal management is ridiculous, the mini's shtick has always been hand-me-down laptop parts thrown together, even if that means we get an inadequate fan and heat sink. Your experience with the M1 was simply from the fact that they used the existing intel designs for the lower-powered M1. But with the redesign we're back to constant whining from intensive tasks.

 

[raythompsontn]

The M4 Pro is quite noisy when pushed.

I have maxed my M4 Pro for 10 minutes when importing thousands of images and Lightroom doing thumbnail rendering. The CPU was 100% for the entire time. The fans came on because I could feel the warm air. I could not hear the fans unless I placed my ears close to the machine. Other than those two options, I would not have known the fans were operating.

 

[!!!]

I have maxed my M4 Pro for 10 minutes when importing thousands of images and Lightroom doing thumbnail rendering. The CPU was 100% for the entire time.

By 100% do you mean a single core/thread, or 100% as in all 14 cores were being used?

I can start a compilation or video encode and I will start hearing the whine 45 seconds in, once it reaches its ~3200 rpm it is audible from outside the room it's in, it's very loud and I question anyone who claims otherwise. Either the work you're doing isn't actually saturating the CPU, or you've left it in low power mode.

 

[raythompsontn]

100% as in all 14 cores were being used?

100% on all cores I believe. The activity monitor showed 100% for 10 minutes. Lightroom sucks as much resources as it can get like most Adobe software.

it's very loud and I question anyone who claims otherwise

You can question all your want. The fan noise on my machine is barely audible. At normal typing distance I cannot hear the fans. I don't know the RPM.

you've left it in low power mode.

The machine is not in low power mode as it is connected to power.

You may have something not quite right with one, or both, of your fans.

 

[novagamer]

100% on all cores I believe. The activity monitor showed 100% for 10 minutes. Lightroom sucks as much resources as it can get like most Adobe software.


You can question all your want. The fan noise on my machine is barely audible. At normal typing distance I cannot hear the fans. I don't know the RPM.


The machine is not in low power mode as it is connected to power.

You may have something not quite right with one, or both, of your fans.

Being serious and not snarky, but gently speaking the self-proclaimed "old man" part of your signature may be relevant here. As well as ambient noise etc.

Apple makes very quiet machines but they get quite audible when pushed. It's good that subjectively it doesn't bother you though, but even my 16" which is quieter than the 14" makes itself known when ran very hard for extended periods.

 

[ivnj]

I think you're saying that you would pay current MBA price for an MBA with the Neo screen. Is that right?

No. Screen, look, colors, keyboard (with back lit of course), etc. Everything not just the screen. Besides NEO the others never had any color. Except the clamshells of 1999.

 

[bapegg]

I guess I don't know what I am missing by not having a backlit keyboard. I have a Logitech MX Keys Mini with backlight but I never have it turned on.

I'm still using 24" 1920x1080 ,omits with my Mac mini and W11 computer since they are cheaper and fit my budget. I really don't notice much difference between my 1920x1080 monitors, 2018 iPad Pro, M3 iPad Air, and Neo.

But everyones' eyes are different.

 

[raythompsontn]

Being serious and not snarky, but gently speaking the self-proclaimed "old man" part of your signature may be relevant here. As well as ambient noise etc.

Understand. My basement is very quiet as it is underground. I think I could hear loud fans if that cricket I am hearing, and hunting, is any indication.

 

[novagamer]

Understand. My basement is very quiet as it is underground. I think I could hear loud fans if that cricket I am hearing, and hunting, is any indication.

They are the worst. I wish you all the success in your hunting endeavors.

And it is possible you got an exceptionally thermal paste / perfect contact heat transfer Mac 🙂.

 

[!!!]

100% on all cores I believe. The activity monitor showed 100% for 10 minutes. Lightroom sucks as much resources as it can get like most Adobe software.

If you saw a row in the list saying "Lightroom .... 100%", then that is just telling you lightroom is using 100% of one core/thread. This is the UNIX CPU accounting style, where each core is "100%" and total CPU usage would be corecount * 100%. On Windows, total CPU usage is 100% and 1 core is 100/corecount.

For a 14 core machine, lightroom would need to consume 1400% to use all cores.

The machine is not in low power mode as it is connected to power.

You can manually set it to low power mode whenever you want.

You may have something not quite right with one, or both, of your fans.

The Mac mini only has one fan.

 

[MisterSavage]

So I got a basic 8/256 Neo to see if it can become my travel development and demo machine.

Appreciate this write up. I loathe traveling with my Macbook Pro because it was so ridiculously expensive and I'm always worrying about it. A travel development laptop would be just what I'm interested in.