Apple says 'life is just better on a Mac' — and the $599 MacBook Neo may be its smartest pitch yet

Just as polished, but a much, much lower price

05 Mar 2026, 02:02 · TechRadar

Opinion By Jacob Krol published 5 March 2026

(Image credit: Jacob Krol/Future)

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Apple’s John Ternus kicked off the company’s in-person experience in New York just moments before the MacBook Neo was unveiled. And it delivered — then exceeded expectations. The long-rumored low-cost MacBook arrives at just $599, or $499 with Apple’s education discount, while still packing many of the features you’d expect from a Mac.

Ternus made Apple’s thinking clear before the reveal: “Let’s just be honest — life is better when you’re using a Mac.”

I’ve been on the platform for years, and there’s some truth to that statement. The Mac has seen a renaissance since the shift to Apple Silicon, though it’s almost always been positioned as a higher-end option. Never the cheapest, never the most affordable — but consistently a polished, all-in-one solution.

For years, the entry point was the MacBook Air at $999. Earlier this week, Apple refreshed that laptop with the M5 chip, nudging the starting price to $1,099 — though it did double the base storage.

Apple has also been experimenting at the lower end. The company no longer sells the M1 MacBook Air directly, but Walmart still carries it in three colors with 256GB of storage and 8GB of RAM for about $649.99.

(Image credit: Future/Jacob Krol)

The MacBook Neo changes that equation. This is finally a truly affordable Mac — one that can go toe-to-toe with Windows PCs in the same price range and even compete with Chromebooks that cost less, the same, or sometimes more. It’s arguably the perfect entry point into the Mac lineup, and a clear step toward Apple’s goal of getting Macs into more people’s hands.

And this isn’t an iPhone 5c–style compromise. If anything, the MacBook Neo feels like the clearest expression yet of Apple’s value proposition. It still features an aluminum build — just like the MacBook Air or MacBook Pro — delivering a sturdy design that weighs just 2.7 pounds. You also still get practical connectivity with two USB-C ports and a headphone jack.

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