Top Stories: MacBook Neo, iPhone 17e, Studio Display XDR, and More

[MacRumors]

What a week for Apple news! Across Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of this week, Apple unveiled a total of seven new products, including low-cost iPhone and MacBook options, new displays, and refreshes for the MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and iPad Air.

Check out our recap with links to all of our coverage from the three days, and read on below for details on each of the new products!

Top Stories

Apple Announces $599 'MacBook Neo' With A18 Pro Chip

Apple's budget MacBook is finally here, with Apple itself leaking the computer's "MacBook Neo" name a day ahead of the official announcement.

The ‌MacBook Neo‌ is the first consumer Mac to be powered by an iPhone chip: the A18 Pro that debuted in 2024's iPhone 16 Pro models. Apple says it is up to 50% faster for everyday tasks than the bestselling PC with the latest shipping Intel Core Ultra 5, up to 3× faster for on-device AI workloads, and up to 2× faster for tasks like photo editing.

The ‌MacBook Neo‌ comes in four fun colors and features a 13-inch Liquid Retina display with a 2408-by-1506 resolution, 500 nits of brightness, and an anti-reflective coating. The display does not have a notch, instead featuring uniform, iPad-style bezels.

The $599 price tag does result in some compromises compared to more expensive Mac laptops, but the MacBook Neo is likely to be a hit with students, those new to Mac, and others shopping on a budget who are just looking for basic capabilities.

Apple Announces iPhone 17e With A19 Chip, MagSafe, and More

Apple this week announced the iPhone 17e, featuring the A19 chip, MagSafe connectivity, faster charging, and more.

The ‌iPhone 17e‌ contains the A19 chip introduced in iPhone 17, featuring a 6-core CPU and a 4-core GPU that make it up to 2× faster than the iPhone 11 that many prospective buyers may be upgrading from. The new 16-core Neural Engine is optimized for large generative models, and the ‌iPhone 17e‌ contains Apple's latest-generation C1X modem from the iPhone Air, delivering up to 2× faster cellular performance than the ‌iPhone‌ 16e.

The iPhone 17e starts at $599 and comes in black, white, and a new soft pink color.

Apple Unveils MacBook Pro Featuring M5 Pro and M5 Max Chips With New Fusion Architecture

Turning back to the Mac side of things, this week saw Apple announce new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models featuring M5 Pro and M5 Max chips, both built on a new Fusion Architecture that bonds two third-generation 3nm dies into a single chip using advanced packaging.

The Fusion Architecture is a first for Apple silicon, since previous chips used a single-die design. The two bonded dies house the CPU, GPU, Media Engine, Neural Engine, unified memory controller, and Thunderbolt 5 capabilities together.

The new MacBook Pro models also get memory and storage improvements, Apple's N1 networking chip for Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6 support, and more.

Apple Introduces All-New Studio Display XDR: 120Hz, Mini-LED, and More

Alongside the new Mac laptops, Apple introduced not just one but two new external displays: a minor revision of the Studio Display and a higher-end Studio Display XDR that replaces the Pro Display XDR.

Both new displays measure in at 27 inches and 5K resolution, but the Studio Display XDR features mini-LED backlighting with 120Hz refresh rate and Adaptive Sync, among other upgrades.

The Studio Display is priced starting at $1,599, while the Studio Display XDR starts at $3,299.

Apple Unveils iPad Air With M4 Chip, Increased RAM, Wi-Fi 7, and More

Apple's tablet lineup also got an update this week thanks to a new iPad Air, with key upgrades including Apple's M4 chip for faster performance, an increased 12GB of RAM, Apple's N1 wireless networking chip with Wi-Fi 7 support, and Apple's custom C1X modem in cellular models.

The new iPad Air has the same overall design as the previous-generation model, which was equipped with the M3 chip, 8GB of RAM, and Wi-Fi 6E support.

The new iPad Air is available in the same blue, purple, starlight, and space gray colors as the previous generation, and it still starts at $599 for the 11-inch model and $799 for the 13-inch model.

Apple Announces MacBook Air With M5 Chip and 512GB Base Storage

Last but not least is the MacBook Air, which was refreshed this week with the M5 chip and a higher base SSD capacity.

The M5 chip in the ‌MacBook Air‌ features a 10-core CPU, with what Apple calls the world's fastest CPU cores. It offers configurations with up to 10 GPU cores with Neural Accelerators in each core, delivering up to 4× faster performance for AI tasks than the ‌MacBook Air‌ with the M4 chip.

Starting prices for the MacBook Air‌ have increased by $100 to $1,099 for the 13-inch model and $1,299 for the 15-inch model, but that also gets yo... Click here to read rest of article

Article Link: Top Stories: MacBook Neo, iPhone 17e, Studio Display XDR, and More

 

[Corefile]

Neo will sell like hotcakes. It is the gold standard for crappy notebooks now.

 

[Black.Infinity]

Neo will sell like hotcakes. It is the gold standard for crappy notebooks now.

People pay Chrome Book laptop price but get Apple quality and speed.

To the regular people who get chrome book, MacBook Neo will feel like MacBook Air.

 

[Apollonian]

Nothing to see here IMO.

 

[Spock]

I think the Neo is going to be a success, Apple has needed to start going for this market for a while now.

 

[Spec360]

Neo will sell like hotcakes. It is the gold standard for crappy notebooks now.

Dell is cheaper

 

[MartiNZ]

I think the Neo is going to be a success, Apple has needed to start going for this market for a while now.

Yep incredible. Less than half the price of the new Air, and not giving all of the upgrade options makes it less than 1/3 the price in practice. If you give options it gives fomo, to the tune of thousands, at least in NZD, and especially now it is very hard to understand exactly what impact the upgrades will even have. All I want is a truly affordable way to play in Apple space again and this is a great opportunity. Not to mention many of the "compromises" seem really nice, like no notch and no haptic trackpad - two of the more annoying "features" the rest of the line-up offers. It's kind of a shame they killed the touchbar, or that could be another "compromise" lol. Neo, I was not expecting you, but I'm glad you're here!

 

[Corefile]

Dell is cheaper

But then you own a Dell.

 

[chetzar]

The Studio Display XDR is such a disappointment. Those are updates that should have been made to the standard Studio Display with a modest or no price increase.

The Pro Display XDR going away is just as disappointing. It probably didn’t sell as well as expected, but after having 32”, no way am I downgrading to 27”.
All Apple had to do was add Thunderbolt 5 and 120hz, an extra input, keep the price the same, call it a day.

 

[Mainsail]

I think the trade-offs they made between the MBA and the NEO largely make sense to me.

The base Air is now the perfect business machine, and the recent upgrades to the processor, RAM, and storage will serve it well. The additional $100 is a bit of a bummer, but to be expected with the increase to base specs.

The NEO is now the perfect education and casual use machine. High school and many college students (depending on major) simply won't notice or care about the lower specs compared to an MBA. At $499 with EDU discount, it is a great deal. It will also be very popular with tech minimalists (pretty much not on this Forum) that want to stay in the Apple ecosystem when they purchase a laptop. My guess is that most of these people will find a way to qualify for the Education discount as well.