At What Cost
New MacBook came out. And its fine.
It has the A18 chip, which is Apple’s incredible silicon chip, but it’s made for the iPhone 17. It has 256 GB of storage and 8GB of memory, which isn’t good at all compared to Apple’s lineup. It has a 13-inch liquid retina display (which seems to just be LED not OLED). 20W charging, which is truly difficult to have work if you plan on doing anything crazy at all, but with a battery up to 16-hours of video streaming. As far as ports go, it only has 2 USB-C ports (not Thunderbolt USB-C ports, to be clear) and a headphone jack. The Neo comes with Bluetooth and WiFi 6 respectively, and dual stereo speakers on either edge of the MacBook, where the ports are.
So, I mean, spec wise, this computer is really bad. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone who tracked anything I said in the last paragraph, because, let’s be honest, if you know what a Thunderbolt USB-C port is, the MacBook Neo simply isn’t for you. Especially if you are doing any type of complex task, because that A18 will not be incredible ay high-demand tasks, although it still is a fantastic chip that I have no doubt will be incredible for just relaxed web browsing, docs editing, and maybe a little Canva-ing. But if this computer isn’t good in professional terms at all, who is this for?
It’s for the people who like the sound of $599.
Genuinely, this is the best deal Apple has made in a long time. For what this computer is, this is not the price we expected. Yes, the computer is quite weak as a device in context of all devices, but compared to other $600 computers, it blows them all out of the water. You can get a solid computer for that price, but especially if you want something to work with your iPhone, this is truly a great deal.
And bonus: you can get it for $499. Apple has an education store, where the price of Apple products is significantly smaller. If you are a student and you head to the Apple store, they will simply ask for your student ID and you get the meaningful discounts. However, online is a little different… they don’t even ask you for your student ID. Anyone can get the education price. Ethical? Maybe not. Cheaper? Definitely. I don’t encourage unethical behavior, but if you are a student and need a computer, get the MacBook Neo.
Good job Apple. This is actually great.