Apple didn’t just launch a new PC. He launched awhole new market strategy. On March 4, Cupertino unveiled with one Special Event his MacBook Neoa 13-inch aluminum laptop with a starting price of 699 euros. Even a little less: with the Education program it reaches 599 euros. Just to clarify the jump. Looking only at new devices, to get a MacBook Air you start from 1,249 euros. Of course, if you want a desktop you can also opt for a Mac mini 729 euros but it’s not portable and you should add anyway all peripherals: screen, mouse and keyboard.
699 euros is a price that brings Apple to the top mid-range PC. A risky move for competitors who until now had never dealt with the Cupertin giantor on these prices. Certain: MacBook Neo it is not MacBook Air. The differences between the two are several, starting with chip.
Who is the Macbook Neo for: what can you do?
Let’s start with the target. MacBook Neo is designed for an audience that uses PCs in a way very light. Students or professionals who use it to surf the web, read emails and shop online. It’s not meant for everyone else. To be clear: it is not useful for those who deal with do video or photo editing and it is not useful for those who use programs that need a lot of RAM to function.
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Marques Brownlee he is one of the most important tech YouTubers in the world, if not perhaps the most authoritative. His review of the MacBook Neo scored beyond 3.5 million views in less than 24 hoursAnd. He clarified the meaning of this PC with a joke: if you are asking yourself too many questions about what you can do with this PC, then It’s not the right PC for you.
What does the Macbook Neo have less than other Apple Macs
From a technical point of view, one of the most interesting things is the chip that manages the entire PC. Apple just introduced the M5the new chips dedicated to computers. They are part of a production started by Apple with M1: Having chips produced in-house instead of relying on external manufacturers has helped Cupertino better manage and optimize its devices.
Apple didn’t use these chips for Macbook Neo. He preferred to focus on A18 Proalmost the same ones launched in 2024 with the iPhone 16 Pro. It has some different features. A chip that used to manage a smartphone is now needed to manage everything pc. MacBook Neo also works with less RAM: it starts from 8GB. In the new MacBook Air with M5 chip the Ram instead starts from 16 GB.
It also shrinks compared to the base MacBook Air models autonomy. The Neo arrives at 16 hourswhile the Air leaves from 18 hours. Also missing from the Neo, at least in the basic version, is the Touch IDthat button that allows you to unlock your PC by directly recognizing your fingerprint. Even the basic memory is actually a bit low compared to other devices: starts at 256GB.
Certain. You can spend more and improve the features but the price goes up, even if there is a constraint. At the moment, we don’t know in the future, in the Apple store it is only possible to intervene with an upgrade: you can increase the memory to 512 GB by adding Touch ID. Cost: 100 euros more.
