It’s a watershed moment for Apple as it unveils the MacBook Neo.
This laptop, priced starting at $599, undercuts the MacBook Air’s usual entry point of $1,099 by $400. To reach this unprecedented price tier, Apple has made a radical technical choice: equipping the MacBook Neo with an A18 Pro chip—the same processor found in the iPhone 16 Pro introduced in 2024.
An iPhone chip in a Mac
It’s a first in the history of the Mac: Apple has never before used a smartphone processor inside a laptop. The machine features a six‑core CPU, a five‑core GPU, and 8 gigabytes of unified memory. There are no alternative configurations—the specs are fixed.
The 13‑inch display, the aluminum chassis, the full keyboard, the trackpad, the 1080p FaceTime camera, and Wi‑Fi 6E are all part of the standard package. Apple quotes a 16‑hour battery life, versus 18 hours for the MacBook Air M5. All told, the device weighs 2.7 pounds (about 1.2 kg) and comes in four colors. It runs macOS, the same operating system as Apple’s higher‑end Macs, with full compatibility with both iPhone and Mac apps.
The base version ships with 256 gigabytes of storage. A $699 version doubles the capacity and adds Touch ID. Students and educators can take advantage of a $100 discount on each model, bringing the starting price down to $499. Four colors are offered: citrus, silver, indigo, and blush. Preorders opened on Wednesday, with shipments expected to begin on March 11.
Chromebooks and Windows PCs in the crosshairs
The target market is unmistakable: users of Google-powered Chromebooks and entry‑level Windows PCs, a segment where Microsoft has struggled to gain traction with ARM-based devices despite promises of long battery life. Apple also aims at students, first‑time buyers, and businesses looking for an affordable entry point into the Mac ecosystem.
“The real question isn’t whether Apple can sell a MacBook at this price; it’s whether one of the best‑selling Macs in history will emerge if the brand can deliver, but how it manages to balance cost, performance, and premium positioning while preserving the Mac‑experience,” remarked Francisco Jeronimo, vice president of client devices at IDC, quoted by Reuters.
John Ternus, Apple’s senior vice president of hardware engineering, summed up the ambition in a statement: the MacBook Neo was “designed from the ground up to be more accessible to the broadest possible audience.”
An aggressive push into the entry‑level segment
The launch of the MacBook Neo sits within a busy cycle for Apple. This week, the company also unveiled the iPhone 17e at $599, featuring more base storage, and refreshed its MacBook Air and MacBook Pro with the new M5 chips and expanded standard memory configurations. All told, these moves signal a broader strategy: to defend Apple’s market share in a lukewarm PC market and a smartphone sector under pressure.
The context is complex. PC and smartphone markets remain highly price‑sensitive after several quarters of erratic demand, and manufacturers navigate difficult conditions amid surging costs for memory components.
The MacBook Neo, shipped with just 8 gigabytes of RAM—half the memory of the MacBook M4 and even behind the 12 gigabytes found in the iPhone 17 Pro—illustrates the compromises forced by the global memory shortage.
The question remains whether the wager will pay off. Apple has already dipped into this segment by offering a $699 MacBook Air at Walmart powered by an M1 chip, but that was a model near the end of its lifecycle. With the MacBook Neo, we’re looking at an entirely new device at this price point stepping onto the scene.
