Why I Returned the MacBook Neo

[raythompsontn]

Knowing it was inferior

This whole "inferior" and "comprised" stuff is just plain silly. The MB Air is inferior to the MBP in that regard. In truth it is not.

The NEO is what it is. Period. Yes, there are higher specification machines. They cost more. That does not make the NEO a compromise or inferior. By everyone's reasoning a Ford Ranger is inferior and a compromise over a F-250. A BMW M3 is inferior and a compromise over a higher level trim.

 

[Abydos]

Even OP didn‘t claim it was „dim“ and it has the same PPI as the Air so how could it possibly be „pixelated“? As for viewing angles, I haven‘t heard anyone else complain about them, so i doubt they’re bad.

All this is basically OP rationalizing buying and returning a device he didn‘t need in the first place. Why we need a thread for this, I don‘t know.

the need to complain, whatever, let the OP gas , the only downside may be economic efficiency but then again that may be a chimera

 

[DeepSix]

The Neo will still sell like crazy to students and seniors. The average consumer and majority of people won't be doing side by side comparisons checking viewing angles, color accuracy, or measuring many nits the screen is. As long as it works and they like the look and feel of it, that's all that matters.

I know a lot of people who are the Neos target customer. These people generally dont upgrade their computers and they only buy a new one when their current laptop or computer breaks. If it aint broke, no need to mess with it.

 

[turbineseaplane]

It makes perfect sense. It has a reduced colour spectrum and its viewing angles are inferior for starters.

It also may have slightly different scaling. Finally, the Neo does not appear to have a fully laminated display unlike the MBA and MBP. That means there is an air gap between the LCD panel and the glass, which lets light in and produces slightly less clear content.

Great call ... I totally forgot about the laminated vs non issue.

That no doubt is playing an issue here.

 

[Happy_John]

I never said that. Did you read my post that started my exchange with @Happy_John for context? I was actually making a point that I think those asking “why didn’t you try it at the store first?” are off-base.

The jumping to conclusions with no evidence is pretty widespread here.

I did not buy this thinking I would return it. I didn’t know if I would keep it though because I had to test it but I did buy it with the intention of wanting to keep it and having it work out. Knowing it was inferior spec wise kept me on the fence as to whether I would keep it.

This is the first time I have ever returned an Apple product in 20 years of using their devices, with the exception of the firsgen MacBook Air that had defects out of the box.

I like a lot about the Neo. The build quality, the trackpad, the keyboard… ultimately it was the screen that killed it. If the screen was laminated and on par with the MBA, I would have kept it.

With all due respect, @Mr_Ed is absolutely right, in that he was responding to my post, and it was my post that was critical of “buying to try with a high probability of returning”, which I’ll stick to.

I wasn’t necessarily singling you out, but, to be fair, there’s a huge amount of comments on this forum from people doing exactly this. When the iPhone Air and the iPhone Pro / Pro Max 17 came out, there was a sizeable number of posts on the lines of “I’ve ordered one of each and I’ll choose which one to keep then.” There were also quite a few comments on the lines of “I’ve ordered one in every colour, I’ll choose when they’ve arrived and I’ve unboxed them”. This does happen.

I don’t like the mentality behind it, but more importantly, it pushes up the price for everyone, as the possibility of returns is factored into the price, which means a buyer pays more for their item, even if they have no intention of returning it. Part of the “Apple tax” is to subsidise the returns policy, and essentially this is why third party sellers can sell Apple products at a discounted price, when Apple does not - they are not as accommodating as Apple are when it comes to returns, even if they are legally obliged to do so, so they can discount that potential returns cost.

I’ve also, at a stage in my life, worked in retail, and returns ( and I’m not talking about returns due to faults ) make life more difficult for the staff and for the accounts dept. It makes life harder for them. And I’m not a fan of things that make life harder for other people.

In short, I wasn’t attacking you, I was criticising a general attitude of “I’ve had MY fun, and that’s all that matters”.

 

[Paradoxally]

No it’s not. That’s not even close to being an appropriate analogy. OLED and cheap LCD are completely differently technologies.

Here we are comparing Retina IPS vs Retina IPS.

It's a perfect analogy. We are comparing what a regular user would notice - which is the target market. You seem hellbent on technicalities, that is not what I want to discuss.

You think a regular user cares if they are different display technologies? They will say "yeah that one [OLED] looks better but oh wow its way more expensive". They don't care about the tech, they care about what they can buy and if it meets their needs.

If you buy a budget laptop, don't expect state of the art tech. You and OP do not seem to grasp this concept.

The Neo will still sell like crazy to students and seniors. The average consumer and majority of people won't be doing side by side comparisons checking viewing angles, color accuracy, or measuring many nits the screen is. As long as it works and they like the look and feel of it, that's all that matters.

Precisely. Many people here are technical and love to compare with their more expensive devices, which completely defeats the main point of this device. Of course a budget laptop is inferior, the prices reflect that!

 

[PBG4 Dude]

Yeah, making “just buy it because I can return it” the default way we buy lots of things is not good. Hell, I look at it as a “my time is valuable” issue, so packing up and returning something is a last resort for that reason. Like you, I tend to research a lot in advance, especially if it’s a sizable$ purchase. As an example, I guarantee you when I’m buying a new car, I know more about the vehicle than the salesman at the dealership, but that only covers what’s “on paper”, so I’m still going to test drive it.

I probably miss Radio Shack more than most. It was a decent part time job while in college, but I was into electronics since I was a teenager. There was no “Amazon” or anything of consequence online so if I was looking for a transistor, resistor, IC, cables/wires, boards, project cases of anything of the sort, “Dad, can you give me a ride to Radio Shack?”😁 There were other places you could get that stuff, but it was usually mail order from a printed catalog. Getting parts from Radio Shack cost more but, you know, “instant gratification.”

Radio Shack used to be my first stop after paying my paper route bill on saturdays. Taught myself BASIC playing on the TRS-80 Model I. Still remember my first program (paraphrased)
10 PRINT “PBG4 Dude is awesome!!!”;
20 GOTO 10

(The semicolon in line 10 kept the Next print command from forcing a new line.)

 

[mk313]

It’s a CPU from the 70s. It was used in the Apple ][.

interesting

 

[mk313]

Even OP didn‘t claim it was „dim“ and it has the same PPI as the Air so how could it possibly be „pixelated“? As for viewing angles, I haven‘t heard anyone else complain about them, so i doubt they’re bad.

All this is basically OP rationalizing buying and returning a device he didn‘t need in the first place. Why we need a thread for this, I don‘t know.

If I had to guess, I'd put my money on the OP got a bad display. With it being a brand-new product, with lots of new parts, it's not out of the realm of possibility that the OP happened to get one where something wasn't right. Either a bad display or a bad cable or something like that. My Neo, to my eye, is indistinguishable from my Air, and even the letters shifting when he moved his eyes doesn't happen on mine. Sucks for him/ her that their first experience with the Neo was poor, but fortunately that does not seem to be the same experience that most people are having.

It also makes sense that Apple wouldn't design a computer with that bad of a display. Like there are a lot of ways to cut corners, or even just stay out of a low-priced segment until they thought they could bring the Apple touch to that market. If they had to put in a display that bad, they would have either waited longer, or else made some other trade off to hit the price point.

 

[Pbwallstreet]

This whole "inferior" and "comprised" stuff is just plain silly. The MB Air is inferior to the MBP in that regard. In truth it is not.

The NEO is what it is. Period. Yes, there are higher specification machines. They cost more. That does not make the NEO a compromise or inferior. By everyone's reasoning a Ford Ranger is inferior and a compromise over a F-250. A BMW M3 is inferior and a compromise over a higher level trim.

It’s inferior. Period. The screen is not objectively good enough for me.

 

[Pbwallstreet]

It's a perfect analogy. We are comparing what a regular user would notice - which is the target market. You seem hellbent on technicalities, that is not what I want to discuss.

You think a regular user cares if they are different display technologies? They will say "yeah that one [OLED] looks better but oh wow its way more expensive". They don't care about the tech, they care about what they can buy and if it meets their needs.

If you buy a budget laptop, don't expect state of the art tech. You and OP do not seem to grasp this concept.



Precisely. Many people here are technical and love to compare with their more expensive devices, which completely defeats the main point of this device. Of course a budget laptop is inferior, the prices reflect that!

Yes I grasp the concept. Repeating this several times already: I like the Neo. I was willing to make compromises, like less screen refresh rates, less RAM, smaller screen, worse sound, etc.

What I could not accept was its screen quality. This is the main reason why I returned it. It uses a delaminated screen and it’s like going back in time. When this is combined with less colour spectrum the screen slipped below a threshold of acceptance, FOR ME.

I had to experience it in person in my own environment to know whether it would work for me or not.

 

[DeepSix]

Most people won't care about having the best quality display out there. Most won't even be willing to pay more for one. If it looks good to their eyes, the price is always the more important factor.

Unlike us techies who will check a new laptop for damage, dead pixels, backlight bleed, screen uniformity, panel lottery, scratches. 99.% of society just open the box, immediately power it on and start using it. They will only exchange or return it if it stops working properly.

 

[Pbwallstreet]

If I had to guess, I'd put my money on the OP got a bad display. With it being a brand-new product, with lots of new parts, it's not out of the realm of possibility that the OP happened to get one where something wasn't right. Either a bad display or a bad cable or something like that. My Neo, to my eye, is indistinguishable from my Air, and even the letters shifting when he moved his eyes doesn't happen on mine. Sucks for him/ her that their first experience with the Neo was poor, but fortunately that does not seem to be the same experience that most people are having.

It also makes sense that Apple wouldn't design a computer with that bad of a display. Like there are a lot of ways to cut corners, or even just stay out of a low-priced segment until they thought they could bring the Apple touch to that market. If they had to put in a display that bad, they would have either waited longer, or else made some other trade off to hit the price point.

It is not a bad unit. When I got to the Apple Store I also reviewed their demo units and the screens were the same as my Neo.

It is an objectively inferior screen to the MBA and MBP. It uses a narrower colour spectrum, has a 60 Hz refresh rate… and most importantly, appears to have a delaminated screen. This delamination creates an air gap between the LCD and the front glass. It then traps light and slightly distorts content underneath.

Apple has moved past delaminated screens and when you look at any modern MBA, MBP and iPad Pro, you will see how there is virtually no distortion and the screens are incredibly crisp and clear. This is largely the result of lamination.

I am not saying Neo’s screen is bad, I am saying it is not good enough for me.

 

[conmee]

Radio Shack used to be my first stop after paying my paper route bill on saturdays. Taught myself BASIC playing on the TRS-80 Model I. Still remember my first program (paraphrased)
10 PRINT “PBG4 Dude is awesome!!!”;
20 GOTO 10

(The semicolon in line 10 kept the Next print command from forcing a new line.)

My first “tech” job was at Radio Shack. I still have PTSD from all the customers who took offense at having to provide name, address, and phone number to buy a battery. The Chairman at the time, John Roach, felt it was more personable to hand write purchase orders than to use a POS system (the Shacks I worked out still had wooden cash drawers in the 80s).

Anyhow, as soon as the Chairman passed away, Radio Shack converted to POS systems. And even though I had to hand write each purchase, we had a Xenix system in the back room to connect with corporate mainframe and manage inventory and store data, my first exposure to Unix.

I preferred the TI-99/4a to the TRS-80 at the time. TI-99/4a BASIC was its own quirkiness and I’d always have to modify a handful of commands to run TRS-80 or C64 listings because TI-BASIC veered from standard convention many times.

10 CALL CLEAR
20 PRINT “Conmee is rising up the ranks!”;
30 OPEN #1:"SPEECH",OUTPUT
40 PRINT #1:”#CONMEE IS RISING UP THR RANKS!#”
50 GOTO 20
60 END

The Speech Synthesizer was pretty cool. But needed Extended Basic or Terminal Emulator II (or Assembly) to access.

P.S. I built my first RS-232 interface from circuit board and various capacitors and resistors for the TI using parts from Radio Shack. Good times.

P.P.S. Unlike the current Apple Store experience the OP had, returning something was even more paperwork than buying something. And if you “lost” your paper receipt, forget about it. Talk to my manager…

 

[Happy_John]

I’m curious. Was the display on the Neo better or worse than the display on the Mac in your profile pic?

Perspective.

 

[tomtad]

It is not a bad unit. When I got to the Apple Store I also reviewed their demo units and the screens were the same as my Neo.

It is an objectively inferior screen to the MBA and MBP. It uses a narrower colour spectrum, has a 60 Hz refresh rate… and most importantly, appears to have a delaminated screen. This delamination creates an air gap between the LCD and the front glass. It then traps light and slightly distorts content underneath.

Apple has moved past delaminated screens and when you look at any modern MBA, MBP and iPad Pro, you will see how there is virtually no distortion and the screens are incredibly crisp and clear. This is largely the result of lamination.

I am not saying Neo’s screen is bad, I am saying it is not good enough for me.

I'm pretty sure it has a laminated screen. I'm pretty sensitive to these things, it's one reason why I hate the base iPad (holy reflection) but looking closely at this display I'm convinced it is laminated and reflection levels are good, just tapping the display lightly will cause the display to distort so there is no air gap. Unless there's something I'm missing here?

 

[M4irmidnight]

I would have kept it just for the sole reason the Neo has no notch.

wait for Neo 2... lol

 

[profcutter]

I personally love having to answer "I'm good, thank you" 6 different times as yet another employee rolls by to "check on me".

I wish I'd put a sign on my back that said "not buying, just trying, all goo

If only there was a place where Apple products could be seen and used in person

there are plenty of folks for whom a visit to an Apple Store is a trek, a major time commitment, or impossible. Why shouldn’t they get one delivered, check it out, then return if it doesn’t fit their needs? If they go to the trouble of documenting the process, that’s helpful for readers curious how someone who’s not a paid influencer or motivated by subscribe clicks finds a new piece of tech.

 

[M4irmidnight]

I personally love having to answer "I'm good, thank you" 6 different times as yet another employee rolls by to "check on me".

I wish I'd put a sign on my back that said "not buying, just trying, all good"

OK, may I interest you in an apple one subscription?

 

[profcutter]

Folks, apologies for hijacking this thread, but I have an announcement to make. With this post, I have reached the rank of 6502a on MacRumors. I’d like to thank the admins, moderators, God, family, friends, the #mini4life crew, #MacProMafia, #32bitNinjas, #spacegraycadets, #bezelhaters, #notchfanatics, #headphonejacksters, and finally #thisisnotanairportstans. Look for my next announcement in a few years when I reach 65816 status. 😉

Congratulations! It takes a short while to go from 8 to 16 bit, and I suspect I’ll be at the 68000 level for as long as I actually had an amiga…

 

[profcutter]

MOS 6502 was the CPU which was in computers like Apple II, Commodore 64, Atari 2600 and NES (Nintendo) in the 1980ties.

I think the vic20 had a 6502, but the c64 had another variant, the 6510. The 6502a I don’t think was used in any Apple devices, but the b variant was in the Apple III

 

[salutcemoi]

The laptop cost like half what your iphone 17 pro max did....

Well yeah obviously theu had to cut corners but sometimes the best way to know if you'll like something or not is to use it.

 

[Anappleaday29]

I didn’t buy into any ‘hype’. I knew the specs. But having never seen and used the device in person, it’s not possible to know whether something will be good enough or not. I posted days ago that I expected that I might return it.

Apple stores have display models for this exact reason? what

 

[PBG4 Dude]

I think the vic20 had a 6502, but the c64 had another variant, the 6510. The 6502a I don’t think was used in any Apple devices, but the b variant was in the Apple III

The Commodore 128 had the 6510. It was unique in that it allowed you to page between two sets of 64K RAM (hence the 128 name). The RAM wasn’t contiguous though; you had 64K here, and 64K there and POKEd a memory spot to switch between the two.

 

[conmee]

The Commodore 128 had the 6510. It was unique in that it allowed you to page between two sets of 64K RAM (hence the 128 name). The RAM wasn’t contiguous though; you had 64K here, and 64K there and POKEd a memory spot to switch between the two.

Ah yes, PEEKing and POKEing back in the day.