The MacBook Neo is built down to a price – but is phenomenal value

If there was one product that cemented the myth of the “Apple tax” – the supposedly excessive price premium paid for the logo – it was the MacBook Air. People would point to Apple’s cheapest laptop costing $1,000 and loudly proclaim that you could buy a Windows machine or Chromebook from around $300.

The comparison was of course spurious. The cheap laptops being used to make the argument were ugly plastic things with exceedingly poor specs compared to the MacBook Air. Still, it was undeniable that a four-figure starting price did prove a barrier to a lot of people – but all that has changed with the MacBook Neo …

The pre-MacBook Neo era

Technically, of course, the MacBook Air long started at $999, but there really cannot be anyone left on the planet who falls for that, and I have no idea why companies still do it. The MacBook Air cost a thousand bucks and up.

I’d be preaching to the choir here if I enumerated the many and varied differences between this and budget Windows laptops and Chromebooks. Suffice it to say they weren’t remotely comparable.

You could, however, make the argument that the average undemanding laptop buyer had no need of the higher spec offered by Apple’s machines. If all you’re doing is email, web browsing and writing, then a cheap Windows laptop does get the job done. Some argued that if Apple truly wanted to live up to its values, it should offer something more affordable, even if that meant some compromises.

Until yesterday, the stock answer was that it simply wouldn’t be possible for Apple to make a Mac worthy of the logo at a significantly lower price. The MacBook Neo changed that overnight.

The Neo makes many compromises

Compared to a thousand dollars, $599 (or $499 for students) is a massively different proposition, and we can probably expect to knock $100 off that price at third-party resellers some way down the line. Within a few months, people are likely going to be able to pick this up for half the former price of the MacBook Air.

It goes without saying that it has only been possible to achieve this by making a fairly lengthy list of compromises. We yesterday provided a detailed comparison between the Neo and the Air, but let’s just quickly recap the limitations here:

• 8GB RAM
• Maximum 512GB SSD
• Reduced performance
• Slower charging
• Lower battery life
• Smaller color gamut (sRGB rather than P3)
• No True Tone
• Reduced external display support (1x4K versus 2x6K)
• No Thunderbolt support
• Only one USB 3 port (the other one is USB 2)
• No Touch ID on the base model
• No keyboard backlighting
• Mechanical trackpad instead of Force Touch
• Webcam doesn’t support Center Stage (and no physical indicator light)
• Speaker and microphone compromises

That’s a lot. However …

It’s still phenomenal value

Once again, this machine costs $599, and will likely be widely available for $499 before too long.

Quite a few of the compromises made would be deal-breakers for 9to5Mac readers. Many of you didn’t even get past the first one on the list.

But we’re not the target market for this machine. This is the Mac Apple hopes to sell to many of those who would previously have bought that cheap plastic Windows laptop. The people who only use their machine for email, web browsing and writing.

The target market isn’t using the machine for video editing. They aren’t plugging it into a dock or external monitor. They aren’t connecting it to large external drives. Almost none of the compromises will have any impact on their usage.

So despite that lengthy list of limitations, this is the Mac I’m going to recommend to a lot of people. Sure, when I talk to friends about their needs, I’m sometimes going to end up recommending they buy a MacBook Air instead, or perhaps even a MacBook Pro. But for the vast majority of people, the MacBook Neo will be all that they need.

Did I mention the price? Unless you need to run software that will only run under Windows, you’d have to be pretty crazy to buy a Windows laptop instead of the MacBook Neo. Apple is going to sell a gazillion of these things, and rightfully so.

• Official Apple Store on Amazon
• Apple’s iPhone cases: iPhone 17 | iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max | iPhone Air
• Wireless CarPlay adapter (2026 update)
• AirTag holders and accessories
• Mac Pro-style Mac mini casing
• NordVPN – privacy-first VPN with no logs and independent audits to verify

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