You make some great points here. Here’s one of the places I’m coming from that seems to be aligned with the author of this.

I find macOS to be a superior OS for doing computer work to all the alternatives. It still sucks for a lot of reasons, but to my taste it generally sucks less. I’m a web dev, so I host a lot of crap in Linux, and I’m pretty confident in using it as a desktop. But the general day to day experience I find macOS superior.

There’s plenty of people in similar boats, and this is the most affordable machine (new, not used) that lets someone get to use macOS.

For a lot of people with budget limits I’d point them to used MacBook Air models rather than the Neo, but having this as a new model is a really nice option for some people.

Also you can call the Neo CPU slow but its benchmarks run circles around anything you find at its price range. Those machines have more RAM and storage, but the Neo will likely provide a more responsive experience than anything in its price range.

I do agree on refurb/used rather than the Neo. The best low-ish cost computer Apple is selling right now is probably their refurbished $750 MacBook Air M4 with 16GB RAM/256GB storage.

The only way I'll push back on this is the Ryzen 5 AI 340 is faster at multicore than the A18 Pro. Slower single core by a slight amount, and much slower iGPU.

However, that means to compete with the MacBook Neo more completely including integrated GPU, all you have to do is go up one CPU SKU to the Ryzen 7 AI 350 and you're further increasing your multi-core performance lead as well as completely closing the iGPU gap by doubling your GPU performance.

That same Yoga laptop is offered in this configuration including extra storage (16GB RAM/1TB SSD/Ryzen 5 AI 350) for $800

That...really is only $100 more than the 512GB configuration of the MacBook Neo if we aren't tossing in the education store pricing.

Perhaps it's more of a MacBook Air competitor at that price range. Stretching up to $800 is a lot...but you do also get a lot for that stretch.