Tbh the M1 sold at Walmart for $699 and BestBuy at $650 before. M1 is about equivalent in benchmarks to the A18. Both 8GB of RAM and similar storage. Only the M1 had a bit better battery life, magsafe and such.

The budget market consists of a lot of scrappy users that are willing to go out of their way and able to find good deals. And I think Apple has in some ways catered to that market by providing excellent mid-priced laptops like the M1 at $999 price points, which end up in new-in-box deals at places like Walmart/BestBuy at $650 price points, as well as similar refurbished and even lower second hand price points.

I bought a new MBA M2 a few months ago at a similarly low price point as this Neo. Apple has been providing fantastic value at budget for a while now through indirect sales channels on older models, though I agree this is another step-up with affordable new direct models.

>M1 is about equivalent in benchmarks to the A18.

MacBook Neo is A18 Pro and if you look at benchmarks, the A18 Pro single core performance is 50% faster than the M1...

https://browser.geekbench.com/v6/cpu/8650702

https://browser.geekbench.com/macs/macbook-air-late-2020