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MacBook Neo vs. MacBook Air Buyer's Guide: 40 Differences Compared

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The MacBook Neo is now Apple's entry-level MacBook, undercutting the MacBook Air by $500. To deliver such a dramatically lower price, the MacBook Neo has a significant number of tradeoffs. Here's everything that's different between the two devices.


Apple's introduction of the MacBook Neo expands the company's laptop lineup with a far more affordable entry point, sitting well below the MacBook Air in both price and capability. While the two machines share a similar size and lightweight design, they are aimed at very different types of users. The MacBook Neo focuses on delivering the essentials of the Mac experience at the lowest possible cost, while the MacBook Air offers significantly more performance, features, and flexibility.

Design

The MacBook Neo and the 13-inch MacBook Air have similar dimensions. The MacBook Air remains thinner, but the MacBook Neo has a slightly smaller overall footprint owing to its smaller display. Both machines weigh 2.7 pounds (1.23 kg).

MacBook NeoMacBook Air
Height0.50 inch (1.27 cm)0.44 inch (1.13 cm)
Width11.71 inches (29.75 cm)11.97 inches (30.41 cm)
Depth8.12 inches (20.64 cm)8.46 inches (21.5 cm)


There are still some notable design differences. The MacBook Neo does not have a backlit keyboard or a haptic trackpad, and only has Touch ID when configured with 512GB of storage for an extra $100. They are also available in different selections of color options, with the MacBook Neo's color extending to the Magic Keyboard in a lighter shade.

MacBook NeoMacBook Air
Available in Silver, Blush, Indigo, and CitrusAvailable in Silver, Sky Blue, Midnight, and Starlight
Touch ID on 512GB models onlyTouch ID
Magic Keyboard or Magic Keyboard with Touch IDBacklit Magic Keyboard with Touch ID
Color-matched Magic KeyboardBlack Magic Keyboard
Mechanical Multi-Touch trackpadHaptic Force Touch trackpad with pressure-sensing capabilities
Display "notch"


Display

The MacBook Air's display is slightly larger and supports True Tone and P3 wide color. Both are Liquid Retina displays with 500 nits of brightness.

MacBook NeoMacBook Air
13-inch Liquid Retina display13.6-inch Liquid Retina display
(15-inch model also available)
2408 by 1506 pixel resolution2560 by 1664 pixel resolution
sRGBWide color (P3)
True Tone technology
Thicker display bordersSlimmer display borders


Performance

The MacBook Neo is Apple's first Mac to contain an iPhone chip. The A18 Pro is still a capable chip, but the M5 is around 20% faster for single-core tasks and 80% faster for multi-core tasks. The M5 chip also has more than double the GPU throughput of the A18 Pro and features Neural Accelerators.

MacBook NeoMacBook Air
Apple A18 Pro chipApple M5 chip
Made with TSMC's second-generation 3nm process (N3E)Made with TSMC's third-generation 3nm process (N3P)
6-core CPU10-core CPU
5-core GPU8-core GPU
Neural Accelerators
8GB unified memory16GB, 24GB, or 32GB unified memory
60GB/s memory bandwidth153GB/s memory bandwidth


Battery and Charging

The MacBook Air has up to two hours of extra battery life over the MacBook Neo, along with support for charging via MagSafe 3 and fast charging.

MacBook NeoMacBook Air
Integrated 36.5-watt-hour lithium-ion batteryIntegrated 53.8-watt-hour lithium-polymer battery
16-hour battery life18-hour battery life
MagSafe 3 charging
Fast-charge capable with 70W USB-C Power Adapter or higher
Comes with 20W USB-C Power AdapterComes with 40W Dynamic Power Adapter with 60W Max


Cameras, Speakers, and Microphones

The MacBook Air has a superior array of camera and audio hardware, resulting in a slightly better experience with video calls, listening to music, and recording audio.

MacBook NeoMacBook Air
1080p FaceTime HD camera12MP Center Stage camera
LED webcam indicator light
Desk View support
Dual-speaker sound systemFour-speaker sound system
Spatial Audio with dynamic head tracking when using supported AirPods
Dual-mic array with directional beamformingThree-mic array with directional beamforming


Connectivity

The MacBook Neo's connectivity is more limited than that of the MacBook Air. While both have two USB-C ports, the MacBook Air's are considerably more capable in terms of data transfer and... Click here to read rest of article

Article Link: MacBook Neo vs. MacBook Air Buyer's Guide: 40 Differences Compared
 
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The only thing I need to know is whether or not this has dithering. Otherwise, just as all other current MBs, this will be unusable for me. A positive is that the specs list color gamut as sRGB instead of P3, but that by itself doesn't say anything--they could still be shooting for billions of colors instead of millions.

Aside from that I fully expect this to be a slow-as-sludge machine because of the small amount of slow RAM and what will be discovered as a super slow SSD.
 
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Lady Hamsa currently has a very outdated MacBook and iPad (both essentially beyond EOL support). I'm thinking this would be a good replacement option for her - her laptop needs are generally low-end (web, video, Zoom/equivalents, Google docs) but I'm wondering how good of an iPad replacement this would be. Anyone with good intel on this?
 
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