I’m a bit confused about who this article is really for. The MacBook Neo starts at $600 so when I read:

“MacBook Neo is built on an iPhone chip—the A18 Pro. It’s far less capable of running intensive tasks than any of Apple’s M‑series chips or any moderately powered Intel or AMD processor.”

and that:

“It’s merely the right kind of performance for anybody who wants to browse the internet or stream video.”

...at this price point there are plenty of alternatives for laptops with better performance and specs.

For example, you can get a 15.6" Ryzen 7 5700U laptop with 32GB RAM and a 1TB SSD for less than the “unbeatable” price of the Neo:

https://www.amazon.com/NIAKUN-Computer-Processor-Graphics-Ke...

Or a 15.6" Intel Core i7‑1255U/12650H laptop with 16GB RAM and a 1TB SSD in a similar price range:

https://www.amazon.com/HP-Laptop-High-Performance-i7-1255U-4...

Both of these offer:

* A more traditional laptop CPU

* 2–4× the memory

* 2-4× the storage (1TB vs 256GB base on the Neo)

Standard HDMI/USB‑C video out for external displays

So I can definitely see the appeal of the Neo for people who just want an inexpensive way into macOS, but the claim that “no other budget laptop can compete.” doesn't track.

Maybe it should have been "The least expensive Macbook yet, but that comes with significant downsides."

MKBHD said it best: If you're looking at the reviews of the product on tech youtube channels or tech news sites - it's not the laptop for you.

As for your comparisons: My aunt doesn't need a terabyte of storage or a Ryzen 7 5700U, she needs 15+ hours of battery life because the laptop is going to live next to her spot on the couch and she most likely can't remember to plug it in every night.

Also the first laptop is from a reputable brand called NIAKUN. They must have amazing customer service and unbeatable warranties, right? =) And they certainly will exist in 12 months when you go look for the brand on Amazon and won't be replaced by another random set of letters in all caps selling the exact same product?

The HP is on sale, it's MSRP is $699 and for some weird fucking reason has the numpad on it, making the whole keyboard wonky. Who wants that on a laptop?

And the final thing, as with all price-forward comparisons: build quality. We need an objective standard measurement for chassis and keyboard flex, the ability to open the lid with one finger, the amount of creaking and squeaking said laptop will do in normal use and how hot and loud it gets in your lap when doing light browsing.

Ah the classic NIAKUN, what we expect from brand name quality: awesome keyboard layout (love a number pad that smashes into the arrow keys), great resolution (1920x1080 so good for 2026!). I'm sure the speakers are state of the art for the form factor, gets amazing battery life (love me max 4-5 hrs on moderate usage), and of course can't forget the plastic body.

I'm sure a similar story can be said about the HP.

If you didn't detect the sarcasm, a laptop is much more than cpu, memory, and storage; it'd be short-sighted to only fixate on this trio. PC laptops compromise on pretty much everything and usually do everything poorly, including CPU (since apple silicon Macs are much better performance per watt).

Then there's the whole aspect of Apple support for both hardware AND software, something no PC vendor can provide.

Single thread performance on the Neo (important to web browsing) is literally 2-3 times faster than those laptops

> It’s far less capable of running intensive tasks

The latest reviews are showing that's not really the case

Your amazon links are broken. But I think you're missing the point of this thing. This isn't for people that really even care about performance. It's for people that want a laptop that works with their iPhone, does all the things their school needs them to do in a browser, and doesn't come with a complete dogsh*t OS, and isn't of dubious quality like an HP or a "NIAKUN", whatever that is.

Now the color options, that's a tragedy.

Total cost of ownership.

I’d give my entire family these ahead of Windows laptops any day.

I would ask the opposite. For years now for most of my family even a Raspberry Pi 3B+ 3ould be enough. 95% of people use their machine to run a web browser, that easily ran on hardware that was old 20 years ago.

> 15.6"

eww

> ...at this price point there are plenty of alternatives for laptops with better performance and specs.

Laughable. Seriously, how long has it been since the M1 Air dropped? And we're still this clueless?

> For example, you can get a 15.6" Ryzen 7 5700U laptop with 32GB RAM and a 1TB SSD for less than the “unbeatable” price of the Neo:

Awesome spec dump. Now, what's the real life usage battery life of that laptop like? Oh? Yeah, thought so.

Nobody buys a list of specs, they buy a set of capabilities. And the Neo is capable of supporting normal usage for 12h+ on battery. Go ahead and link me some alternative laptops that can do that, with comparable performance of course — which is on par or better than the original M1 Air mind you.

Killer move by Apple, and I'm shocked there's still so much ignorance around.

> It’s far less capable of running intensive tasks than any of Apple’s M‑series chips or any moderately powered Intel or AMD processor.”

This is false. The A18 Pro has much better single core performance than the M1 and slightly better multi core performance. Most people would see no noticeable benefit to a faster CPU. Especially with a fanless design, the additional cores of a comparable M-series chip would give you better burst performance for some workloads, but possibly not much improvement in sustained performance.