If what you really want to know is whether theres such a thing as a cheap Mac that doesnt feel compromised at every turn, the MacBook Neo answers with an unusual mix: clear compromises in memory and storage, but an overall experience that, after several days of testing, feels far closer to a modern MacBook Air than to those budget laptops that seem built just to get by. In Europe, the entry price starts at 699, and that number alone changes the conversationespecially for anyone coming from Windows, where entry-level often means mediocre displays, trackpads with a mind of their own, and keyboards that merely do the job.
Apple is positioning it as a Mac for everyday tasks, for students, and for anyone who wants a second computer without spending what a well-specced Air costs. The key? Keeping the essentials of the Mac experiencedisplay, trackpad, keyboard, camera, and that sense of a well-made producteven if the internals take a much more pragmatic approach. And yes, the name Neo sounds a bit like something from a generic laptop catalog, but here it works as a sign that this is a different kind of Mac: the first Apple has placed this low in price and, on top of that, with an A-family chip.
Design, display, and what feels premium
The first thing that stands out when you pull it out of a backpack is that it doesnt give off any of that beater laptop vibe typical of the 600 bracket. The chassis is aluminum and visually echoes the current MacBook Air design, in a slightly more compact footprint but with a similar weight of 2.7 pounds. In the hand it feels solidand that sturdiness matters when you consider the audience its aimed at: homes and classrooms where a computer can end up passing through more hands than any best-practices guide would ever recommend.
Apple is also leaning on color as a hook, with bolder options like a greenish citrus tone and a blush pink, alongside the classic light and dark finishes. Its the kind of detail that wont boost FPS or speed up an export, but it does make the machine feel less corporate and more personalexactly what many people want when a laptop is part of everyday life.
On the display, the Neo plays a strong card for the money. It packs a 13-inch LCD panel with a slightly lower resolution than the Air, but because the screen is smaller it keeps a pixel density that looks very similar in practice. Indoors it appears vibrant with good contrast, and what impressed me most was the brightness: its bright enough to work in direct sunlight, a scenario where many budget laptops give up and force you to crank brightness until the battery starts suffering. Here, that ritual isnt necessary.
Audio is also above average for this tier. The side-firing speakers deliver a fuller sound than the typical tinny output of many discounted laptops; theyre good for video and streaming, even if they dont reach the clarity and bass impact of a MacBook Air or MacBook Pro with upward-firing speakers.
Real-world performance: the A18 Pro chip and its limits
The MacBook Neos biggest oddity sits under the hood: it uses an A18 Pro, the chip that powered the previous years iPhone 16 Pro, instead of an M-series chip. That decision helps explain how Apple can hit this price, but it also defines the products boundaries. The Neo ships with 8 GB of RAM and a 256 GB SSD in the base configuration, and while theres an option that bumps storage to 512 GB for 100 more and includes Touch ID, theres no way to upgrade the RAM. If you live with dozens of tabs, heavy apps, and large files, thats not a trivial footnotebecause on Macs, unified memory is integrated into the chip and it largely determines how long the machine remains comfortably usable.
Still, in day-to-day use it surprised me in a good way. I pushed it with dozens of tabs spread across multiple browsers, a video playing in the TV app, photo editing in Pixelmator Pro, and an Apple Arcade game like Oceanhorn 3, and the system stayed smooth without the stutters that give away a lack of headroom. You can tell macOS manages memory intelligently: in my tests, RAM use often hovered around 80% to 85% when I tried to stress it, but it rarely climbed beyond that, and the system itself was using close to 50% even with no apps open. That number puts into perspective why this Mac is designed for specific tasks rather than everything at once computing.
In benchmarks, the Neo lands below recent MacBook Air models in multi-threaded workloads, but in single-core performance it sits in a surprisingly competitive rangeeven against modern Intel and AMD hardware. Its the kind of result that explains why, for office work, browsing, media consumption, and some light editing, the feel can be that of a more expensive laptop, even if heavier tasks on bigger processors with active cooling will show inevitable differences.
Where I did hit a wall was in demanding games built for M-series chips. I tried installing Lies of P and, while the installation completed, the game froze during shader loading. Translation: the Neo is for titles designed for Apple Arcade and mobile-class chips, or for cloud streaming via services like GeForce Now or Xbox. Anyone hoping to turn it into a native gaming machine will end up looking at the Air or the Proor a LED-lit desktop tower, which has its own appeal for those who live in build mode.
Battery life, in a looped 4K video playback test, delivered 12 hours and 15 minutes. Thats well short of the highest numbers youll see from a MacBook Air with newer hardware, but its still enough to get through a typical day of classes or work without living next to the charger.
Keyboard, trackpad, camera, and ports: the tough calls
When it comes to built-in peripherals, the Neo behaves like a real Macand thats exactly what creates the biggest gap versus many budget laptops. The keyboard, even though it initially felt a little flimsier at first touch, proved precise and consistent in real use; I could type at my usual pace without missed keystrokes or odd behavior. And the trackpad, while mechanical (Apple doesnt use the haptic Force Touch trackpad here), is surprisingly well tuned: gesture and scrolling response is accurate, the click doesnt feel mushy, and importantly its clickable across the entire surfacesomething many competitors with mechanical trackpads fail to get right.
The webcam is another area where Apple chose not to cut corners. The Neo includes a 1080p camera with image processing that looks crisp and lively; in video calls, that quality tends to give away the class of laptop youre using, and here it feels like something from a higher tier.
The most visible compromises come in connectivity and configuration. There are only two USBC ports, one with USB 3.0 and the other with USB 2.0, and theres no MagSafesomething you miss precisely because of the usage context Apple is targeting: school desks, taut cables, and accidental trips. Storage is also clearly capped (up to 512 GB) and RAM is fixed at 8 GB, a combination that very strictly defines who this machine is for.
Even so, the end result is oddly convincing: for 699, it delivers a screen, keyboard, trackpad, and build quality that, at this price, is usually a land of constant compromise. Is it the Mac for enthusiasts who compile, render, and live inside virtual machines? No. But as an on-ramp to macOS or a reliable everyday laptop, the MacBook Neo has an almost dangerous quality: it makes a lot of people wonder how long theyve been normalizing mediocre laptops just because thats what you were supposed to accept at this price.
