Windows Laptops are in BIG Trouble.

All right, let's be real here for a sec.

Apple has never made a Mac this

affordable. I mean, sure, the Mac Mini

starts at $599, but you're going to have

to invest in other accessories to get it

up and running. But the MacBook Neo,

with the same price point, or just $4.99

if you're a student, is Apple's answer

to everyone who wants to get into the

ecosystem without breaking the bank. So,

these are my first impressions minutes

after the announcement. Unfortunately, I

was able to get to the in-person event.

Uh, but thanks to the internet, we do

have a ton of information online uh and

also assess some of the things that you

might miss. Let's start with the design.

The MacBook Neo is a 13-in laptop. It's

similar in size compared to the MacBook

Air, but it's just a tiny bit smaller.

It's.5 in thin versus 44 in on the Air.

So, the Air still carries the crown of

being the thinnest Mac in the lineup.

But here's what surprised me. The Neo

and the MacBook Air weigh exactly the

same, uh, around 2.7 lb or 1.23 kilos.

So, you're really not sacrificing on the

portability aspect here. The chassis is

made out of recycled aluminum

throughout, and it comes in four

tasteful colors, which is silver, blush,

which is kind of like a pink shade.

There's also citrus and indigo, which is

a lighter color palette of the midnight

blue variant that you get with the

MacBook Air. Now, what's interesting is

Apple has translated that color into the

interior space, including the key caps.

And I am not sure how I feel about this

yet. I have a feeling that the silver

model is going to be the most popular

since it's neutral and it just blends

into everything else. And if you look at

the display, it spans across 13 in. It

is an IPS panel with a 2.4K resolution

at 60 Hz with SDR brightness levels

reaching 500 nits, which is awesome for

a laptop at this price point. It does

seem like they're also using the same

panel as the MacBook Air for the Neo.

And because it is using an IPS panel,

you're not going to be dealing with any

PWM flickering issues that OLED uh

offers with some of the Windows laptops

out there. Up top, you get a 1080p

FaceTime HD camera. It looks pretty

solid for video calls, but I'll have to

test that out. Audio wise, you're

getting dual sidefiring speakers. I'm

not sure if it's going to be as good as

the MacBook Air or let alone the MacBook

Pro's insane sound system built in, but

uh I will have to listen to this myself

and give you guys my verdict on it. So

certainly stay tuned for our full

review. Now, the keyboard setup is a bit

different on the Neo. The base model at

$599 does not come with Touch ID. If you

do want that, it is an extra $100, but

you also get twice the storage size. So

512 GB versus 256 GB on the base model.

One thing you'll also notice is that

Apple has reabeled some of the keys on

their entire MacBook lineup. So, the

tab, the caps lock, the left and right

shift keys, the return key, and the

delete key. They're all been replaced

from text to shapes or icons if you want

to put it that way. Another cost cutting

measure that you notice is you don't get

LED backlighting on the Neo. Not sure

how people are going to feel about this,

but I also have a feeling that the

reason why Apple did end up color

coordinating the colors of the exterior

design to the key caps was to make sure

that it is bright enough so you can

actually see the keys at night,

especially when the display brightness

sort of reflects off the key caps. It's

a bold move from Apple. But if you shift

gears to the trackpad, this is where

again it's one of those cost cutting

measures uh that come into play. Instead

of the force touch trackpads that we're

used to on the MacBook Pros, the MacBook

Airs, Apple has replaced it with

something a bit more cost-effective. I'm

not sure if the Surface is coated in

myar or if it's plastic or if it's

glass, but it seems like they're using

the old school button style instead of

the haptics. Again, this could be a

dealbreaker for some people and it could

also make or break the Mac OS

experience. Now, if we look at ports,

well, you only get one USBC 3.2 to Gen 2

port and another USB 2 type-C cap at

only 480 megabytes per second plus an

audio jack. Uh you don't get Mac safe,

there's no HDMI, there's no Thunderbolt.

So this is one of those instances where

you'll need to embrace the dongle life.

And if you think about external display

support, uh it supports one 4K display

at 60 Hz while simultaneously running

the built-in display, which is not bad,

but again, if you're thinking about

running two screens or two or three

screens, it's not going to cut it. But

you might be asking, why? Why is the Neo

so limiting? Well, the answer is pretty

simple. The MacBook Neo is powered by

Apple's A18 Pro chip. you know, the chip

that debuted on the iPhone 16 Pro, which

is a 2-year-old phone. You see, the

chips on iPhones in the last few years

have proven to be incredibly fast and

efficient. And a lot of people were

trying to compare their performance to

laptops. Some even speculated what it

would look like when you have a Mac with

an A17 or A18 chip inside. And well,

look where we are right now. I don't get

why Apple chose to go with the A18 Pro

instead of the A19 Pro from the current

iPhone 17 Pro lineup. It could be again

a cost savings measure, but also Apple

might not have wanted the Neo to compete

with the current Pro branding of the

iPhone since they are in completely

different price brackets. So yeah, it's

still a capable chip, but here's what we

know about the A18 Pro. It's a six core

CPU paired with a 5 core GPU, while the

current M5 sits at 10 CPU cores and

eight GPU cores. The M5 also comes

paired or standard with 16 GB of RAM,

while the A18 Pro on the Neo comes 8 GB

uh across the board, which some might

say could be limiting, but honestly, I

think for most people it's going to be

fine with Mac OS. Although I will have

to test that out myself to see if it's

actually enough because from my

experience with Mac OS Tahoe, there have

been some increased memory consumption.

Uh but again, it all comes down to user

experience and workflow. So, we'll find

out if it's actually enough. But that

got me thinking. Let's assume that

Apple's using the same power limit for

the MacBook Neo's A18 Pro as they did

for the iPhone, which would make sense

since they're also using the same 20

watt charger as the 16 Pro series. Well,

that means we could get some idea of

performance right away. But I want to

preface this a bit first. These are

numbers we ran ourselves across the

devices you'll see. But the A18 Pro's

performance is based on a smartphone's

power envelope, not the MacBooks. If

Apple decides to increase its power

limit past the nominal 9 watts we saw

during testing, it would get better

results. So take these numbers with an

indication of what the MacBook Neo's

performance could look like. So one area

where the mobile A series chips

typically suffer against laptop

processors is in multi-threaded

benchmarks. Neither the processor nor

the MacBook Neo was built for heavy

multitasking scenarios. So, while it's

technically tied with the M1 and a bit

behind the M2 found in the MacBook Air,

it's far behind the M3 and M4 versions.

On the other hand, its high clock speeds

allow for really incredible performance

in lightly threaded scenarios, almost

reaching M4 levels of performance. So,

what does that tell us? Well, Apple's

gone and picked a processor that fits

the Neo's target market. It's going to

feel really snappy and responsive in

daily use and it be perfectly fine for

some very basic creative workloads. But

if you're looking for more consistent

output in a wider range of apps, the

MacBook Air would be the next logical

step upwards. But you know what? The

more I look into this thing, the more

I'm starting to realize the MacBook Neo

might have bigger shoes to fill,

especially for those who are still

rocking Apple's iconic M1 MacBook Air.

you know, the classic clamshell design

that still to this day, it just has a

special place in my heart. I mean, I've

recommended this laptop to so many of my

friends and family. I actually bought

one for my mom and she's still using it

to this day. The question really comes

down to whether or not if the A18 Pro

performs better than the M1. I picked up

this refurbished MacBook Air M1 for

around $500. And it is in pretty decent

condition. The battery hasn't degraded

all that much. It still runs Mac OS

Tahoe pretty well and you still get

things like a force touch trackpad, a

backlick keyboard, Thunderbolt ports,

Touch ID, and a bigger battery. Speaking

of battery, the Neo comes equipped with

a 36.5Wh hour battery, and it comes with

a 20 watt USBC charger. And with that,

Apple claims 11 hours of battery life

while browsing. Now, while we have no

idea what their methodology for that is,

if we line it up with some of other

modern laptops we've tested over the

last 6 months, it falls behind. I mean,

sure, we'll only know where things

really lie when we get one in for

testing, but like a lot of other things

with the MacBook Neo, it seems to be

well, I mean, good enough for its

intended market. What's really

interesting is how we look at the

efficiency front. It might have a pretty

minuscule battery, but it still does

really well when normalized down to how

many minutes of battery life it achieves

per watt of capacity. Also, I know that

this might be a bit off topic, but if

you have a budget of around $1,200, and

if you want to get into the Apple

ecosystem, the MacBook Neo paired with

the new iPhone 17e is like the ultimate

gateway drive because if you pair the

Mac and the iPhone together, you unlock

a lot of features like making phone

calls and sending text messages within

your Mac. Um, handoff is a great feature

as well. You can start one thing on your

Mac, finish it on the iPhone, and vice

versa. There's iPhone mirroring.

Basically, it allows you to control your

iPhone on your Mac. AirDrop lets you

share photos or files between devices. I

use this regularly. Uh, and there's also

instant hotspot. You can use your iPhone

cellular connection. Uh, universal

clipboard. You can copy one thing on

your Mac, paste it on your iPhone, and

vice versa. Apple says that the Mac and

iPhone are incredible on their own, but

when you actually use them together,

it's interesting how you just unlock a

whole new set of features and it just

works pretty well. I also want to

quickly go over some other product

releases this week from Apple. Uh first

up, we have the MacBook Air. Uh it's

refreshed with the M5 chip. Sadly, there

is a price hike from $9.99 to $1099, but

the base storage has been bumped up from

256 GB to 512 GB, so it's not a bad deal

all things considered. Uh there's also

some new MacBook Pros. Uh they've

essentially been refreshed to M5 Pro and

M5 Max chips. These things honestly look

like absolute beasts for creators or

just anyone looking for a high

performance uh Mac. The M5 Pro has an 18

core CPU, so that consists of six super

cores for high performance and 12

performance cores. It supposedly

delivers up to 30% more multi-core

performance over M4 Pro. Uh you also get

a 20 core GPU and it has over 300 GB per

second of memory bandwidth. The M5 Max

uh basically has the same layout as the

M5 Pro, but you do get a massive 40 core

GPU and the memory bandwidth is 600 GB

per second, which is almost twice of

what you get with the M5 Pro. We also

got two new studio displays. The main

star of the show is the Studio Display

XDR. It's a 27in monitor with 5K

resolution and 120 Hz refresh rate,

which is a welcoming upgrade over my

older Studio Display with the 60 Hz LED

panel. Uh, and it also uses miniLEDD,

uh, which not only brings in really good

color accuracy to the table, but, uh,

also insane brightness output. I believe

that thing can go up to a,000 nits SDR.

Now, if you look at the price, obviously

it is out of my budget, but hey, I can

be excited about stuff that I can

afford, right? I also think the MacBook

Neo will most certainly most definitely

stir up the laptop market uh for the

rest of the year. And the reason I say

that is because at that price point,

Apple's really trying to poach two

different um categories. We've got folks

who are on the Chromebook side, right?

Um at that price point, you we're pretty

much getting a really good value

overall. Uh and then you have some

options from Intel. you know, they have

their Panther Lake CPUs. Um, AMD coming

up with Gorgon Point, and a lot of the

devices that are out there right now are

well over $1,000. It's going to be

really hard to find something that can

compete against the MacBook Neo, uh, in

terms of build quality, the display, and

the overall user experience, but that

could change. It could be the worst

experience when I get it in the studio

and, you know, start using it, or it

could just be something awesome. So,

stay tuned for our full review, guys.

cuz it's going to be an exciting uh next

couple of weeks. So uh if you guys have

any questions about the Mac Neo, if you

need to know anything else, let us know

in the comments down below. I'll make

sure to address that in my full review.

I'm Eva with Hunux. Thank you so much

for watching and I will talk to you guys

in the next one.