MacBook Neo Review after 20 days - I Was WRONG..

I spent the last 20 days putting Apple's

new MacBook Neo through its paces,

testing everything from CPU and GPU

benchmarks, storage speed, and thermal

throttling all the way to gaming, photo

editing, video editing, programming,

video rendering, music production,

memory stress testing. And after all of

that, I've realized that I was wrong.

The MacBook Neo wasn't designed for

people who are editing, programming, or

pushing their laptop to the limits. It's

designed for people who just want to

browse the web, do their business or

school work, and watch videos reliably

on a laptop that doesn't break the bank

and without a mafi anti virus sales

pitch popping up every 10 minutes. And

for that, the $599 MacBook Neo is quite

literally the best budget laptop on the

market because not only do you have the

fastest web browsing performance, which

is even faster than a $2,400 brand new

Intel Panther Lake laptop, but it also

has better build quality than any other

laptop in its price range. The all

aluminum design is incredibly sturdy and

solid compared to flexible plastic

laptops that feel like they could crack

under pressure with an amazing trackpad

that clicks evenly all the way around

with the same keyboard from the more

expensive MacBook Pro, albeit without

backlighting, which the bright keys do

help with. And the display has 500 nits

of brightness, so it looks so much

better than the thick plastic bezel

competition. And yes, some of those

Windows laptops have better specs on

paper with more RAM, storage, and raw

performance thanks to the loud fans

keeping them cool. But for what most

people use their laptops for on a

dayto-day basis, the MacBook Neo makes

you feel better. It's hard to explain,

but when you switch from using one of

those Windows laptops to the Neo, it

feels special. It feels premium. It

feels like you're using a laptop that's

well over $1,000 with the texture of

aluminum in your palm. The beautiful

retina display and the latest Mac OS,

which looks and feels modern compared to

Windows 11, which honestly kind of feels

like Windows Vista right now. And that

is what makes the MacBook Neo so dang

good for day-to-day use. But the

incredible thing is that it was actually

able to do all of those performance

tasks that I tested like 3D video

rendering and 4K video editing. Yes, it

wasn't as quick as the new M5 chip in

the $1,100 MacBook Air, but it can get

performance tasks done if you really

need to every once in a while. And

speaking of the Neo, if you can only

pack one pair of shoes anywhere you go,

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top of that, they are really comfortable

out of the box, being soft and

lightweight, and they're surprisingly

breathable considering that they're

waterproof. And my favorite thing about

the Weekend Neos is that they match any

of my outfits that I wear day-to-day

from outings, work, travel, even church,

making Vessie my go-to shoes since 2022,

and I've loved them ever since. So, if

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hassle-free returns. Now, yes, the Neo

isn't perfect, as there are three major

issues that I have with it, which I'll

get into in a minute. But for the price

of $599

with everything else feeling so

incredible, I'm honestly finding it hard

to complain about them. Especially since

Apple geniusly and perfectly balanced

the very few compromises with the

incredible features in such a way that

it leaves room for improvement next time

around so that regular people who either

didn't hear about the Neo or were

previously on the edge about buying this

will be even more tempted to upgrade to

the Neo 2 next year. And that is Apple's

master plan to essentially get as many

people to switch from crappy budget

Windows laptops over to the Neo, which

gets them into the Apple ecosystem

buying Apple services. And of course,

once they try the Neo, they're going to

be upgrading to maybe the MacBook Air,

the MacBook Pro. I mean, this is money

for Apple. I'm talking about the

hundreds of thousands of people that

don't watch tech reviewers like me and

they only ever upgrade their laptop when

they walk into Costco and see a new $600

budget laptop that reminds them that

their old Windows laptop is a slow croc

of crap and they should probably buy a

new one. But this time around, they're

going to see the $600 MacBook Neo and

say, "Whoa, is that an Apple MacBook for

600 bucks?" And then they're going to

walk up to it and be shocked that it's

aluminum instead of the plastic crap

that they're used to with a great

trackpad, keyboard, display. And don't

forget about the variety of colors

that'll make them think of their teenage

daughter who could probably use a new

laptop right about now. I mean, this

right here is a historic moment because

what most people don't realize is that

the MacBook Neo is Apple's checkmate

move in a game of 4D chess that they've

been playing ever since 2010 when the

very first Apple Silicon chip went into

the iPhone 4, which then led to Apple

ditching Intel for their M1 chip for

their Macs in 2020. And now all of those

16 years of patient chess have led to

Apple's checkmate with the Neo, the

first MacBook that's not only powered by

an iPhone chip that's very inexpensive

for Apple to produce, but it's quick,

snappy, reliable, and it has an

incredible aluminum design. All for only

$599.

This shouldn't be possible in a world

where memory prices are going insane and

you've got Intel and AMD raising CPU

prices by 15% due to chip shortages. And

meanwhile, Apple is stealing their lunch

with a laptop that seems too good to be

true. But here it is, and it's real, and

it can do so much more than what it's

designed to do. I mean, look at all the

people like Andrew Sai and ETA Prime

running various games on it, including

Windows games with crossover and

emulated games. I mean, I tried League

of Legends, and I got over 200 FPS,

which blew my mind. But once again, the

Neo isn't meant to do that. It's meant

to give you an incredible everyday

experience browsing the web and

everything else with this incredible

design. And an even better reason to buy

one is that MacBooks have incredible

resale value. Just last week, we listed

a bunch of our older MacBooks and

Windows laptops on Facebook Marketplace

and eBay. And so far, Max has already

sold three MacBooks with tons of

interest in the other models while

nobody cares about the Windows laptops

that we're selling, even after huge

discounts. So, the beautiful thing about

the Neo is that you can buy one right

now for $5.99 or even $4.99 with the

education discount and resell it in a

couple of years for probably 350 to 400

bucks. While the only person interested

in your cheap budget Windows laptop is

probably the local garbage man. But

nevertheless, let me just calm down a

bit and give you guys some real talk

about the Neo because yes, like I

mentioned earlier, it does have some

issues. The first one is the charging.

It features only 20 watt charging, which

peaks out at about 30 watts, which means

that you've got to be very mindful about

the battery level because this takes