MacBook Neo review: the Mac for the masses

The MacBook Neo is basically the M1 MacBook Air all over again. That laptop changed the game in 2020, and became the default option for just about anyone who wanted a great all-around thin-and-light laptop and could spend $1,000. The M1 Air was good enough that you could still buy a new one until last month. The Neo takes its place as Apple’s cheapest laptop, with a starting price of $599 and enough power to handle everyday tasks and last all day on a charge. It’s designed to entice students and first-time laptop buyers into Apple’s world. It will.

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The Air is still better than the Neo in pretty much every way, but even the cheapest MacBook Neo is good enough to be the go-to Apple laptop for a lot of people. Actually, not just the go-to Apple laptop; the Neo’s hardware simultaneously embarrasses an entire class of affordable (and even far pricier) Windows laptops, as well as just about any Chromebook. And the thing runs on an iPhone chip.

The Neo is “it just works” at a lower price. The 13-inch screen is vivid, bright, and pleasant to look at. It even gets bright enough to comfortably use outside in all but direct glare. The speakers sound full for their size, and cranking the volume can fill a small room with music. They don’t get as loud or bassy as the four- and six-speaker setups in pricier MacBooks, and by comparison they sound thinner, but for dual side-firing speakers they’re A-OK. And the Neo’s speakers are much better than the average ones found in cheap or even midrange Windows laptops. Just be mindful that you’re likely to muffle them when grabbing the sides of the Neo.

Typing on the Neo feels like other current MacBooks. The key travel isn’t as deep as on some Lenovo and Asus keyboards that I prefer, but it’s not too shallow, like the butterfly switch-era MacBooks were. It’s a bummer there’s no backlight illumination, but at least three of the four color combos have bright, near-white keycaps (which helps just a tiny bit). Another just-fine component of the Neo is its 1080p webcam, which looks sharp and clear, even in low light, but lacks the higher resolution and Center Stage auto-framing of the current MacBook Airs and Pros.

The Neo’s most interesting hardware compromise is its mechanical trackpad. It’s missing Apple’s Force Touch, but who cares? I never use it. You know what’s more important? A mechanical trackpad that clicks anywhere — corner to corner, just like Apple’s haptic trackpads. It even feels similar to the haptic ones, but with a slightly chunkier click sound and smaller surface area. The Neo’s trackpad sets the bar for mechanical trackpads, easily outclassing all the just-okay trackpads out there that have stiff, piano-key-style top hinges where the top third doesn’t even click.

I’ve tested much more expensive Windows laptops that make major compromises on their screen, speaker, keyboard, trackpad or webcam quality — or more than one, so the fact that the Neo has no major flaws is a big deal. I wouldn’t mind if the device were a little bit lighter, though; the Neo is the same solid-feeling 2.7 pounds as the 13-inch MacBook Air. Asus has a 16-inch laptop coming out that weighs less than the Neo. Regardless, Apple is putting on a clinic with this complete package at $599, especially when you also consider its performance.

The MacBook Neo zips through the light workloads it’s designed for. The A18 Pro chip actually outperforms Apple’s M1 MacBook Air (and most Windows laptops) in single-core processing benchmarks, the spec most vital for the everyday productivity stuff the Neo is meant to handle. That’s why this $600 laptop excels at light tasks like web browsing and working on Google Docs. The Neo’s 8GB of RAM and slow 256GB storage are totally adequate for living this life, but the machine does feel a little slower at the fringes if you know where to look — like how clicking the Applications folder on the dock sometimes takes a second for the icons to populate.

The relatively paltry RAM and storage prevent the Neo from performing as well in heavier creative apps as the MacBook Airs and Pros, but that’s fine. Think of the Neo as more Canva and CapCut than Photoshop and Premiere. I pushed the Neo to its limits by opening over 60 Chrome tabs across four desktops, one of which was playing a 1080p YouTube video of The Vergecast, and I kept Slack, Signal, Steam, Messages, and Apple Music all running simultaneously. The Neo slowed to a crawl amid that chaos, especially while swiping between those desktops.

The Neo also struggled with my usual Lightroom Classic editing. I could browse through image previews of around 300 50-megapixel RAW files just fine, but diving into the Develop module for actual processing meant sitting through many turns of the spinning beach ball of death. I managed a full edit of around 55 final images with some batch processing, but it was painful to slog through. It’s also, I repeat, not what the Neo is for.

Apple tempts you to upgrade from the base Neo, and if you can, you should, even though it won’t solve all your problems. The $599 model has 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. But for $699 the storage is doubled and you get a Touch ID sensor in the power button. The upgrade is completely worth it (especially if the $100 student discount makes it effectively free). A fingerprint sensor is much more convenient than typing in your password every time you wake your laptop. And with rising prices from the memory chip shortage, it’s no longer trivial to supplement your laptop’s limited storage with a quality external SSD.

We weren’t able to test the 512GB version of the Neo, but it’s possible that like other MacBooks it could have faster read / write speeds than the base 256GB — which would help. It’s a little disheartening not to have even the option for 16GB of RAM two years after Apple finally made it standard on every other MacBook. But for students making basic class presentations, or folks doing office work, 8GB should be fine.

When I used it for things like web browsing across 20-ish Chrome tabs, Slack / Signal messaging, watching an occasional video or Twitch stream, and listening to music, everything hummed along smoothly. And it managed to last more than a full workday on battery. I got just under nine hours of battery life with the screen mostly kept on at 75 percent brightness. (I had my lockscreen set to a 20-minute time-out.) That workday also encompassed a Google Meet call lasting nearly 40 minutes and nearly two hours of Apple Music streaming at low-to-medium volume. Windows laptops that also do this often have much bigger batteries and cost more than $599.

Apple only includes a 20W USB-C charger, though when I plugged the Neo into a 140W charger, it did charge at up to 30W. That’s not particularly impressive considering the iPhone 17 can charge at 40W. Unlike the Airs and Pros, the MacBook Neo doesn’t have a MagSafe connector, just two USB-C ports — one 10Gbps USB 3 and one USB 2.0, both on the left-hand side, of course. They’re unmarked, which is just silly, but the USB 3 is at the back, closer to the hinge, and if you plug an external monitor into the front port, you’ll get a notification alerting you. Either can be used for charging. Even at 30W, it took around 45 to 50 minutes to charge from zero to 50 percent, and another hour to get it all the way to 100 percent. That’s not outlandish, but you’re not getting any quick top-ups. And the charging cable Apple includes in the box is annoyingly short at five feet / 1.5m (half a meter shorter than the MagSafe cable included with other MacBooks).

There will always be cheaper laptops than the MacBook Neo, but you’d be hard-pressed to find something cheaper and better, or even the same price and better, without a bunch of compromises somewhere. If you need or want more RAM, a better screen, a faster processor, and more, faster ports, the Neo is not for you — that’s what the Air and Pro are for. But the Neo is the new default recommendation for students and laptop newcomers who want something easy to use with minimal fuss.

I wouldn’t expect a Neo to last quite as long as an Air with more RAM, but the more affordable price makes it a more than worthwhile on-ramp — especially because most people don’t want or need to spend $1,000 on a laptop. Apple now has the perfect laptop for that crowd. And a few years down the line when they decide it’s not quite powerful enough, Apple has the perfect laptop for that, too.

Photography by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge