I've purchased from the Apple refurbished site and would do it again but anyone who says they will buy refurbished instead of a Neo could wait a long time. The refurbished inventory changes by the hour. The Neo will wait for you.
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The MacRumors Show: MacBook Neo First Impressions
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Tagbert
macrumors 604
Dan and Hartley,
Thanks for another good episode. Always nice to hear your information and commentary.
I do think you may be mistaking the purpose of possibly adding touch to a MacBook. Doing so does not mean that you need the device to fold so you can draw on it. Touch has other uses than drawing. That may be one feature of iPads but not everyone with an iPad gets it to do drawing or thinks it is a failure if they aren’t drawing on it. Even iPhones have touch but you really can’t draw much on them either.
On a Mac, touch would be an additional way to interact with the device but never the primary. It becomes one more option along with the trackpad and keyboard. For people who grow up with touch devices, it is perfectly natural and expected that they can reach out and pinch to zoom, swipe to scroll, or tab a button, or push a slider. When the screen doesn’t react, it feels broken.
This doesn’t mean that you would only use touch for those or for other actions. It just becomes one option when you are interacting. It also means that the OS doesn’t need to be fully redesigned to accommodate just touch. It can be expected that some actions are better done with a trackpad or keyboard and that’s OK.
I remember when mice started to be available and lots of people said that mice were not needed and less efficient because they could do everything they needed with the keyboard. It turn out that people like the more direct interaction of a mouse pointer but people still used keyboards where appropriate. Touch is even more direct interaction but you don’t need to use it all the time. I use an iPad Pro with Magic Keyboard quite a lot. I do use touch for some things, but I also use the trackpad and I use the keyboard. It’s good to have options.
Thanks for another good episode. Always nice to hear your information and commentary.
I do think you may be mistaking the purpose of possibly adding touch to a MacBook. Doing so does not mean that you need the device to fold so you can draw on it. Touch has other uses than drawing. That may be one feature of iPads but not everyone with an iPad gets it to do drawing or thinks it is a failure if they aren’t drawing on it. Even iPhones have touch but you really can’t draw much on them either.
On a Mac, touch would be an additional way to interact with the device but never the primary. It becomes one more option along with the trackpad and keyboard. For people who grow up with touch devices, it is perfectly natural and expected that they can reach out and pinch to zoom, swipe to scroll, or tab a button, or push a slider. When the screen doesn’t react, it feels broken.
This doesn’t mean that you would only use touch for those or for other actions. It just becomes one option when you are interacting. It also means that the OS doesn’t need to be fully redesigned to accommodate just touch. It can be expected that some actions are better done with a trackpad or keyboard and that’s OK.
I remember when mice started to be available and lots of people said that mice were not needed and less efficient because they could do everything they needed with the keyboard. It turn out that people like the more direct interaction of a mouse pointer but people still used keyboards where appropriate. Touch is even more direct interaction but you don’t need to use it all the time. I use an iPad Pro with Magic Keyboard quite a lot. I do use touch for some things, but I also use the trackpad and I use the keyboard. It’s good to have options.
Why don’t they make iPhone this cheap? This is outrageous iPhone costs more than the wole laptop
snipr125
macrumors 68030
It can do some professional workflows for sure, but it is completely outclassed in performance by the MBA M5. It might be £500 more but provides minimum twice the speed in every performance vector, sometimes x3/4. Maxtech said he has never seen such a performance disparity of Macbooks released at the same time and you can see that in the results.
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I7guy
macrumors Westmere
That’s not a sale, that diving into quicksand. We just bought and wanted to try something other than windows. Then the Neo came along.
And no, we didn’t want the Air. Didn’t need anything more capable for its intended uses.
AppleWes
macrumors 6502a
As it should be. I guess I'm missing the point but why do people seemingly demand Neo match (or compare) to Pro level performance at over half the cost less?
All these "vs" YouTube videos comparing apples to oranges. Click bate for some I'm sure.
I understand trying things out to see what maximum performance is, however everyone should keep realistic expectations.
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The release of this product confirms that the A18 Pro chip possesses the raw power necessary to handle a full desktop version of macOS.
Given that iPads are equipped with even more powerful M-series silicon—the exact same hardware found in MacBooks—it raises a frustrating question: why are iPad users still restricted to a mobile interface instead of a desktop operating system?
Given that iPads are equipped with even more powerful M-series silicon—the exact same hardware found in MacBooks—it raises a frustrating question: why are iPad users still restricted to a mobile interface instead of a desktop operating system?
sparkie7
macrumors 68030
Jackson Lawton
macrumors member
While many who have personally experienced the MacBook Neo say the compromises were worth it, I'm not fully sold. The 8GB RAM cap is a bitter pill, though I get it — this is a budget device, and Apple needs the A19 Pro chips for the iPhone 17 Pro lineup. What I can't get behind, however, is the slower SSD speeds. As an IT tech, I know there's no good reason Apple couldn't have matched the M1 MacBook Air's SSD performance and still landed at $599. That cut feels less like a necessary tradeoff and more like a deliberate downgrade.
Jackson Lawton
macrumors member
My only hope is that Apple doesn't do something shortsighted like introducing a "Mac Neo" — a concept that's been floating around in some circles — and use it as an excuse to push the Mac Mini's price up. I just bought my parents a new Mac Mini on Amazon for $479 this past Christmas, and at that price, it's an outstanding value. Messing with that would be a mistake.
Tagbert
macrumors 604
The reason is that the whole chipset is taken from the iPhone 16 and that defines the limits of the SSD spreed. Just as we saw with the MBA M2 with slower SSD speeds, that mostly only matters when you are really pushing the performance. For the normal day to day usage, most people won’t notice any difference. Clearly if you will notice the phrase “this one isn’t for you” applies.