Apple Announces Low-Cost 'MacBook Neo' with A18 Pro Chip

https://www.macrumors.com/2026/03/04/apple-announces-low-cost-macbook-neo-with-a18-pro-chip/

74•vanburen•2h ago

Comments

robinhood•2h ago

I can totally see many, many students and parents use that machine for daily tasks. Yes, base specs are pretty low: 8Gb RAM, 256 Gb drive - but the price tag is also low in the Apple world. I assume the trackpad will be excellent and the promise that the battery lasts all day is probably true (all day = 6-7h max). Good move from Apple, for once.

justonceokay•1h ago

It looks like a perfect replacement for my 2011 MBP. I always figured I’d get a Chromebook when it croaked but this is a viable contender

uf00lme•1h ago

A 2011 MBP is likely a better a general purpose PC, those early models had some great engineering. Wait for the reviews and benchmarks but the M1/M2 based MBPs are still great daily drivers.

jamesgeck0•53m ago

Those old 2011 machines aren't really getting macOS security updates anymore, and compatible apps are dropping; I wouldn't recommend using anything but Linux on them. And even with a non-15-year-old battery, you'll be lucky to get half the battery life of Apple Silicon with a 2nd gen Core i5 CPU.

mushufasa•49m ago

2011 is 15 years ago -- MacOs will not support that device, so it is a real security risk to use online.

This new offering seems comparable to the price of a refurbished M1/M2.

romanovcode•1h ago

> the trackpad will be excellent

Nope. It is mechanical.

freehorse•59m ago

What do you mean, "mechanical"?

alex_young•52m ago

A mechanical trackpad is like an unpowered treadmill iirc. Sometimes they ship with a gimbal mount so you can scroll more than one direction.

swiftcoder•19m ago

This explicitly says "Multi-Touch trackpad for precise cursor control and support for gestures", so at most it's the clicking action that is mechanical (rather than the click being faked with haptic feedback, as it is on the current models)

busymom0•36m ago

Their mechanical trackpads were excellent too. It's only their keyboard which they messed entirely up.

j45•1h ago

I thought Apple's RAM architecture/speed lets more than 8 GB be addressed, effectively letting it have 50-100% more operating capacity?

piyh•55m ago

Doesn't stop it from shitting the bed when you try to run anything like Fusion or Docker

mushufasa•50m ago

I also know many professionals who have a work computer and just want a personal device for occasional things like personal web browsing/shopping/occasionally watching videos -- things that would be inappropriate on a work computer and inelegant on a phone. These people already basically use their phone for everything -- many of them have never upgraded from their college laptop, which is now obsolete. They'd value a well-built (design, feel, screen) computer but have no performance needs.

cestith•2h ago

It looks like a good value if you can get by with 8 GB of RAM. This is a market niche that will sell, but it doesn’t replace the Air. The Air has 16GB standard and can be ordered with up to 32. I’m also curious about the benchmarks between the A18 Pro and the M5, although for a lot of people that’s going to be less important than the RAM.

Good on them for bringing back bright colors, and for including a 3.55mm audio jack on their new lowest end laptop.

dawnerd•48m ago

8gb was standard not that long ago and was just fine for most people.

regularfry•13m ago

I'm still working on an 8GB M1 Pro. It's just about ok. VS Code plus podman plus Teams plus Slack plus Firefox and it hits the limits; usually Slack is the thing to get killed.

cestith•7m ago

I’m on a 16GB M1 Pro. Slack, Zoom, then browser tabs for Jira, PagerDuty, GMail, Confluence, and a Google doc and it’s swapping like mad. It’s that fast SSD and the integrated memory, so it swaps quickly. Swapping is still swapping though.

bubblewand•5m ago

It’s great if you run max two “web apps” at a time. More, and it’s heading into “may be a problem” territory.

I’ve seen a Gmail tab eat 2.5Gb of memory all on its own… just sitting there. And you need some headroom for content and file caching and such to keep things feeling snappy.

tom_•1h ago

Already discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47247645, and here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47247649

ruined•1h ago

i didn't even know usbc2 ports were a thing

yndoendo•1h ago

The USB-C ports are unbalanced. Should have one on the left and right, not side by side.

Unbalanced USB-C ports has become a common bad design in the laptop industry.

freeone3000•47m ago

Commodity hubs, especially USB2, come with lots of ports; it's up to how many connectors you can reasonably fit on the chassis. But running a trace across the board for USB isn't a great sell. Getting a second board on the other side isn't a great sell, especially for budget computers like this one. So we end up with "unbalanced" ports.

matthewfcarlson•15m ago

Yup- if you put usb ports on both sides of the laptop you need a retimer chip as the traces are too long/suffer EMI. Which adds to BOM cost.

klodolph•1h ago

There are also USB-C 2 cables.

eigencoder•45m ago

USB-C is the bane of my existence. Everything looks the same, but certain cables won't charge certain devices for seemingly no reason, and other cables won't transfer data, and there's no easy way (AFAIK) to tell the difference

eigen•22m ago

> certain cables won't charge certain devices

not sure how you can make a cable that doesnt connect power from end to end. I can see if it doesnt charge as fast as others if it doesnt have the bits required for higher current support. and if a device requires >5V to charge, thats on the device not the cable.

> other cables won't transfer data

again, not sure you can make a cable that doesnt connect the USB2 pair from end to end. but if device doesnt use USB2 and requires something else without mentioning it then that again seems to be on the device not the cable.

ChrisArchitect•1h ago

More discussion on release: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/03/say-hello-to-macbook-... (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47247645)

dlisboa•1h ago

I wish more would be done on weight. The 12 inch Macbook was very lightweight, just 2 pounds. Today there's no Apple product that gets close to that: an iPad with the added accessories weighs more and it's still an iPad. The Macbook "Air" is not airy, this Macbook Neo weighs the same as an Air.

jurmous•1h ago

Geekbench CPU single/multi and GPU Metal scores.

- M1: 2,347 / 8,342 / 32,377

- M2: 2,587 / 9,669 / 44,712

- A18Pro: 3,539 / 8,772 / 32,288

So Neo is really comparable with the M1, although it has quite faster single core speed.

rayiner•47m ago

For daily use the single core speed is the most important. Web browsing, UI render, etc., is still single threaded mostly.

vesrah•34m ago

Single core is close to M4, even.

testing22321•29m ago

I’m using a used M1 air as my daily for editing tens of thousands of photos, tons of 4K video editing, web and light dev work.

It’s still the fastest computer I’ve ever used. (No Tahoe for me)

throwaway85825•1h ago

No magsafe seems like a bad idea given the target demographic.

ehutch79•1h ago

Right? also, where's the thunderbolt ports? and it needs about another inch? maybe half inch on the screen. And really, 16gb is the new minimum. There's a whole bunch of acceleration and co processing features in the m series missing from the a series, so they really should put an m5 in there instead...

Seriously though. Every feature someone says is missing and should have been added would be another $100 on the cost. This is already likely a low margin product meant of someone who's only using a browser and maybe a few apps.

whalesalad•57m ago

Honestly I am still wondering why tf they brought magsafe back. I thought Apple had turned the corner on proprietary connectors. I charge my M2 air with a usb-c cable.

jamesgeck0•48m ago

It's less stress on a frequently used port. I've got an early M1 MacBook Air where the USB-C port I always used for charging is starting to get flaky, presumably because it's been used so much and because of the weight of the cord + dongle hanging off the side of the machine.

SXX•19m ago

Replacement port for M1 Air can be bought for around $10 off Amazon and installation take like 10 minutes for total newbie like me. All you need is right screwdriver.

Just look for a2337 usb-c port replacement.

cillian64•36m ago

Two advantages for me: It's nice that you don't break the connector if you trip over the cable or put the laptop down on a soft surface, and it's nice being able to charge while still using both USB-C ports (although I guess 3x USB-C would also solve that).

I don't really see any downside to a proprietary connector if you also have the option to charge over USB-C as well.

bubblewand•3m ago

MagSafe’s great because nobody in your house will run off with your cable to charge their phone or tablet or Switch controller or whatever.

quesera•36m ago

I can't understand why they ever moved away from it.

Magsafe on laptops is so much better than any other option: zero force "insertion", convenient breakaway if tripped over causing no damage to either side. Magsafe is fantastic.

swiftcoder•17m ago

If only we could get a MagSafe data cable! I'd kill for a MagSafe equivalent of a thunderbolt dock

testing22321•26m ago

The day I tripped over the cord and smashed my netbook I suddenly appreciated MagSafe a lot more.

projektfu•16m ago

My wife does, too, but only because the dog ate the magsafe.

zardo•12m ago

It's a big selling point for the slice of laptop buyers that are replacing a machine they just broke by tripping over the power cord.

apparent•36m ago

Not if their goal is to make money on repairs/upgrades!

Kidding aside, I think this is one of their key differentiators from the MBA line. It's partly the MagSafe itself, and partly that you have an extra USB port open even when charging.

dcchambers•1h ago

It's an incredible value but a world of resource-hungry vibe-coded webapps and 8GB of RAM just does not feel compatible.

If you primarily use native Apple apps though this thing is awesome. $499 with student discount? This thing is going to do NUMBERS.

zemvpferreira•49m ago

A perfectly performant, luxury-feeling laptop with a secure OS for under $500? This thing is going to eat Chromebooks and budget HP shitboxes for lunch. Sure a lot of niceties are missing but compared to the experience most people have with their $500 laptops, this is going to be night and day.

Geonode•45m ago

It's $600, unless you're a school.

busymom0•38m ago

EDIT: With education discount, in Canada, it's good price: $679 for base, $849 for Touch ID + 512 SSD.

$799 in Canada for the base model & $999 for the one with touchID & 512 GB ssd.

Looks like both models only come with 8gb ram.

jeffbee•28m ago

You can't kill Chromebook with hardware. Apple needs software if they want more share of that market.

bubblewand•9m ago

What software do they need to compete with chromebooks? It has a browser (it could have several browsers, if you want). I personally prefer all their productivity software to Google’s or Microsoft’s, and it’s not a close race, but you can use those on it too. Accessibility, I was shocked to find is kinda awful on Chromebooks when I had to try to configure it, considering their target markets are kids and the elderly, while Apple’s the gold standard at that.

jeffbee•4m ago

You misunderstand the market. Chromebooks are bought by bureaucrats. They want provisioning, deployment, management. They want a kid to be able to throw a broken Chromebook into a big garbage bin and grab another one off the shelf and be up and running in 5 seconds.

SirMaster•28m ago

Depends what you consider luxury feeling. It's so stripped down.

Aside from the slower CPU, half the ram, and half the SSD as the Air this is also what it's all missing compared to the Air:

TouchID, MagSafe, slightly bigger wider color (P3) screen, better 12MP CenterStage camera, 2 more speakers, 1 more mic, backlit keyboard, ambient light sensor, force-touch trackpad, WiFi 7, 2 Thunderbolt 4 ports, larger battery with longer runtime and faster charging.

Yes you can get TouchID with the 512GB upgrade for more money on the Neo.

space_greg•43m ago

Well, why can’t my 17 Pro run macOS apps when connecting it to an external screen etc?

noname120•35m ago

Will it be true macOS or will they use this excuse of using an “iPhone chip” to lock down everything like they do on iPads/iPhones?

ajaimk•31m ago

A18 Pro offers 44% better single thread performance and similar multi-thread performance as the M1 processor.

The Neo should offer similar if not better performace as the first round of entry level Macbook Pro/Mini/Airs that Apple launched in 2020 with the M1 chip.

dmoy•30m ago

Was this meant to respond to a different comment?

danaris•7m ago

They don't have a "macOS Lite", and if these were running anything less than full macOS, you can be sure Apple would be positioning them as a new product (or part of the iPad line) rather than as a Mac.

And maybe, just maybe, that fact, once it becomes clear, will make at least a few of the people who assume that Apple desperately wants to lock down macOS realise that that's bullshit and always has been...

ajaimk•26m ago

Really want Apple to launch the Mac Mini version of this (yes, I really want an updates Apple TV)

paxys•14m ago

Mac Mini is already the Mac Mini version of this. How much lower in price can it realistically get?

dzonga•16m ago

I know this is a heavily tech circle.

however for the common person out there, unless they're buying for status -- this will meet most of their needs

office workers, hospital workers, stay-at-home parents - who just wanna fill forms occasionally, write emails, browse the web - design a few posters on canva for a funeral, special event etc

so yeah to those people they don't give a shit about M-series, as long it has enough memory and can do what they want without freezing.

well done to apple

bubblewand•12m ago

I’m still on an M1 Air for my personal laptop and probably will be for another couple years. It doesn’t feel “slow” and I feel no urge to start browsing newer models.

My understanding is this laptop matches or exceeds the M1 Air’s performance, so it should be pretty damn nice for most people.

deafpolygon•12m ago

now the next macOS update being performance/bug fixed focused makes sense to me

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