> The I/O is also a genuine limitation: one USB 2.0 port is functionally useless for data transfer, no Thunderbolt means no fast external storage, and charging occupies your only USB 3 port.
You're supposed to use the USB-2 port for charging and save the USB-3 port for external accessories, not the other way around
It only supports 10Gb/s compared to 40 that USB-4 is theoretically capable of, but that's more than enough for anyone in the $600 laptop market.
Yeah, but that USB 3 port has to do a lot of heavy lifting. It 's also the only video out port making decent dongles a necessity. On a $600 PC it's not uncommon to have USB A (at 3.0 speeds), HDMI in addition to USB C and maybe even Ethernet.
Apple should appoint you as PR chief so you can explain to users that the two visually identical and unlabeled ports next to each other are different, because labeling is ugly and only for PCs, and they're stupid for not realizing it.
The computer pops up a warning if you plug a fast device into the slow port, which is a lot more informative for the average user than a tiny label that most users wouldn’t even read.
Labels would be nice, I guess, but their absence is hardly a dealbreaker.
You get a message on screen that you should be using the other port.
But yes, labeling should have been better. One of the USPs of MacBooks is that all USB ports are the same. Unlike other computers where you have to look where you are plugging it in. The Neo breaks that tradition.
I don't know the details of Apple's silicon designs, but I assume the USB port bandwidth is because this is using the chip from iPhone 16 Pro, a phone which of course had a single USB-3 port. They've done what they can with it to hit the price point.
The alternative was to not include a second USB port for charging, in which case people would be bitching about it not being able to use peripherals while charging like the last time they made a single port laptop.
Do you think those same users know the difference between usb3, usb4, and thunderbolt (or even that all three exist)? More over, do you think they know how to tell cables apart for the three?
I legitimately have no idea what "SS" means next to a port, and I've seen it plenty of times. Labeling doesn't solve everything. The message on screen that you get when you plug something into the wrong port on the Neo is, obviously, much better because it assumes nothing about the user's knowledge except for the ability to read.
I feel confident in saying that I am better at computers than 99.99% of the general population and I have no clue what “SS” or blue USB ports are supposed to indicate.
It’s not functionally useless, it supports a mouse, keyboard, printer or even an iPhone (non pro) perfectly fine at full speed. It also probably has enough speed for the average cheap terrible quality USB drive that the buyer of a $600 PC might have.
This is a Silicon Valley tech geek take not a real world one.
I bought an 8gb M1 Air in 2020 (for what now feels like an absurdly small sum of money) as an experiment in how-cheap-is-too-cheap / chuckable travel laptop. I ended up using it as my main laptop for 2 years without regret, then handed it to my son for school.
It remains in perfect condition and as delightful to use as the day I bought it (Apple software snafus notwithstanding). I fully expect to get at least 10 years use out of it. Honestly, I feel like it could probably carry him all the way through school - but I’d be embarrassed to say that out loud since that’s another 9 years.
I've been on my M1 Air, 16GB, since a few weeks after launch, more than six years now. I still use it daily with lots of Docker containers, VS Code, tons of Electron apps, a small macOS arm VM, and lots of browser tabs simultaneously. Recently, Claude's VM environment is getting exercised simultaneously. Usually the memory pressure is into yellow, but responsiveness is still far higher than any Mac from the Intel days, and far more usable than any Windows laptop that I have the misfortune to experience when borrowing somebody else's computer. And despite all that memory pressure, my SSD isn't getting worn out by swapping, I'm at only "3%" of SSD wear, if those stats on the CLI are to be trusted.
I'm not sure I'll need another computer anytime soon. Even though the kids jumped on it once when I left it on the couch for a few minutes, bending the case on one side of the keyboard. It bent back mostly flat. Gives it a bit of personality.
Never before has $1099 (or whatever) of hardware gone so far for me.
a bit of an aside but what's amazing is that Docker's recent beta VM for Mac (I think released a couple of months ago now) has dramatically improved the performance you get out of your CPU.
Using a macbook air, even a recent one, before this Docker was definitely usable but noticably slower. Probably still worth it but a noticable tradeoff using it as a dev machine Vs a pro. Now that's another tradeoff has basically gone away for practical purposes.
I bumped up to 16gb ram and more storage... it's still running great for when I use it, which is not much tbf... I mostly use my desktop because my vision has gotten exceedingly bad the past few years and my 45" desktop displays are significantly easier for me to read and use... I can kind of manage with the M1 display set to max size/scale... but many apps and sites are problematic.
I have a 2017 MacBook Air that's still going strong and will certainly hit 10 years. It definitely won't hit another 9 years after that, though... The keyboard doesn't have that much life left in it, and I won't be repairing it.
I bought a Neo as an out of the house computer and it really is a triumph. If the Air is good enough for 99% of the population, the Neo as is approaches good enough for 90% of the population at half the cost.
My wife bought a Neo and has been very happy with it. I was wary of the 8gb memory limit but she is running claude code doing web development with a reasonable number of tabs open and no noticeable lag, so I'd say its definitely getting a lot of mileage out of it.
It honestly seems good enough that it might cannibalize Macbook Air sales.
After years of incremental upgrades to the Airs, a new entry level M5 Air gives you double the RAM, double the storage, and double the CPU and GPU performance of an M1 Air.
Hopefully used Airs will come up for sale more frequently, as they remain a step up from the Neo.
I am running Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Codex and Docker Desktop on a last generation Intel Air, that admittedly has 12 GB RAM. One has to be a bit careful with more apps. But I look forward to an upgrade. Maybe a Neo, but more likely a second hand M.
> Apple has to keep macOS running well within 8GB, which is actually a nice forcing function against bloat and inefficiency. We could all use a little more of that.
Hmm, I have a very different understanding of how Apple uses forcing functions. Prematurely slowing iPhones with older batteries regardless of charge level as a forcing function to upgrade is what I take away. When the 12GB Neo's are out, I expect another bit of bloat in Liquid Glass or other to motivate the upgrade.
Apple's throttling was an undisclosed optimization that was controversial because it was not disclosed. The optimization itself was not controversial. It was not premature either. If the battery's measurable levels (impedance, current, voltage, etc.) were fell out of nominal range, throttling occurred. FWIW I somewhat resent having to 'defend' Apple here, but your narrative frame here has too much speculation for a situation finalized in fact in 2017, almost 10 years ago.
The Neo is pretty great, and the compromises are totally reasonable at the price point. But if they do a second generation with A19 Pro (and thus 12GB RAM) and a slightly better cooling system then it would really be fantastic.
I do this with my old 2017 MacBook Air and while the case gets pretty hot, it reduces throttling on the old Intel processor a lot. It felt like a new computer after replacing the thermal paste and adding that pad.
Maybe some... but they're likely picking up a lot of people that would have gone with a $500-700 windows laptop instead.. and the margins are similar, so they're probably well ahead.
intentionally cannibalizing their own sales is iirc the official apple policy: iphone destroyed ipod and was one of the best business mives of all time
We just bought the Neo for our daughter to use at school. My biggest concern was the trackpad. This is the first MacBook to not use a force touch trackpad since they were introduced. I must say that the new trackpad is really good. It's not quite as good as the force touch one in my MacBook Pro, but it's close. We will see how well the Neo holds up over time, but it's off to a good start.
I never use the physical touch on the MacBook Pro or MacBook Air. It’s one of the first things I configure so that a light tap is a click. It somehow feels “faster” to me.
it also looks really nice. at the Apple Store, the chassis seems well machined. the "cheaper" apple logo insert also clearly also incurred some expense as it fit into the lid perfectly. Hinge, keyboard and trackpad felt good. Design team clearly took time to telegraph craft and quality in their product.
I still have AnandTech in a prime spot on my bookmarks toolbar. I miss the site so much and welcome any reviews like this that attempt to capture their level of detail when reviewing a product.
I think the only gap I’ve come across is that trying to drive two monitors through a display link dock it doesn’t really have the GPU to not have that be laggy.
for vibe coding stuff, especially when you're outside touching grass, I believe MacBook Neo is perfect. it fills the gap between the phone remote control (which is too painful for chatting with ai cli) and, well, not having any dev device.
It's one of the nicest things to do if you love computers, and great for your health compared with staying indoors.
> Could one actually work like this, typing and everything? After my “heart-rate discovery” I decided I had to try it. I thought I’d have to build something myself, but actually one can just buy “walking desks”, and so I did. And after minor modifications, I discovered that I could walk and type perfectly well with it, even for a couple of hours. I was embarrassed I hadn’t figured out such a simple solution 20 years ago. But starting last fall—whenever the weather’s been good—I’ve tried to spend a couple of hours of each day walking outside like this
You get an Apple product. At least, for me it was that simple. The ThinkPad I had was pretty high end, and I was using polarized glasses and even a sun shade to work at the park while the girls played. Bought a MacBook and the screen seems to crisply outshine even the sunniest days -- I haven't had to worry about outdoor use since, to my recollection.
IDE written in Java indexing 10K files, compiling + running spring boot apps that take 30 seconds to start on the M4, or C++ compilation, or rust compilation.. Or maybe you were sarcastic?
You're supposed to use the USB-2 port for charging and save the USB-3 port for external accessories, not the other way around
It only supports 10Gb/s compared to 40 that USB-4 is theoretically capable of, but that's more than enough for anyone in the $600 laptop market.
Labels would be nice, I guess, but their absence is hardly a dealbreaker.
But yes, labeling should have been better. One of the USPs of MacBooks is that all USB ports are the same. Unlike other computers where you have to look where you are plugging it in. The Neo breaks that tradition.
Oh wait https://i.imgur.com/7HWgxZ1.png
I don't know the details of Apple's silicon designs, but I assume the USB port bandwidth is because this is using the chip from iPhone 16 Pro, a phone which of course had a single USB-3 port. They've done what they can with it to hit the price point.
The alternative was to not include a second USB port for charging, in which case people would be bitching about it not being able to use peripherals while charging like the last time they made a single port laptop.
The "SS" and blue connector inserts are recommended in the spec to denote 3.0-capable ports.
Apple never followed the spec recommendation because colors and labeling are ugly and for dumb PC users.
Maybe you should reassess your confidence.
It’s not functionally useless, it supports a mouse, keyboard, printer or even an iPhone (non pro) perfectly fine at full speed. It also probably has enough speed for the average cheap terrible quality USB drive that the buyer of a $600 PC might have.
This is a Silicon Valley tech geek take not a real world one.
It remains in perfect condition and as delightful to use as the day I bought it (Apple software snafus notwithstanding). I fully expect to get at least 10 years use out of it. Honestly, I feel like it could probably carry him all the way through school - but I’d be embarrassed to say that out loud since that’s another 9 years.
I'm not sure I'll need another computer anytime soon. Even though the kids jumped on it once when I left it on the couch for a few minutes, bending the case on one side of the keyboard. It bent back mostly flat. Gives it a bit of personality.
Never before has $1099 (or whatever) of hardware gone so far for me.
Using a macbook air, even a recent one, before this Docker was definitely usable but noticably slower. Probably still worth it but a noticable tradeoff using it as a dev machine Vs a pro. Now that's another tradeoff has basically gone away for practical purposes.
It honestly seems good enough that it might cannibalize Macbook Air sales.
Hopefully used Airs will come up for sale more frequently, as they remain a step up from the Neo.
Used M1 Airs are selling for roughly half the price of a new Neo.
https://www.apple.com/shop/refurbished/mac
Hmm, I have a very different understanding of how Apple uses forcing functions. Prematurely slowing iPhones with older batteries regardless of charge level as a forcing function to upgrade is what I take away. When the 12GB Neo's are out, I expect another bit of bloat in Liquid Glass or other to motivate the upgrade.
I'm pretty sure it's a "when", not "if".
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/03/apple-macbook-neo-re...
The review is very fair - it’s an amazing bit of kit for the money.
> Could one actually work like this, typing and everything? After my “heart-rate discovery” I decided I had to try it. I thought I’d have to build something myself, but actually one can just buy “walking desks”, and so I did. And after minor modifications, I discovered that I could walk and type perfectly well with it, even for a couple of hours. I was embarrassed I hadn’t figured out such a simple solution 20 years ago. But starting last fall—whenever the weather’s been good—I’ve tried to spend a couple of hours of each day walking outside like this
https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2019/02/seeking-the-prod...
https://quantifiedself.com/blog/stephen-wolfram-finds-workin...
> tl;dw Copper shim mod (using laptop bottom as heatsink) leads to 2x performance over stock.
We'll be able to have six browser tabs open instead of four?