Apple's budget-friendly MacBook Neo is bursting with color and compromise

Cupertino grabs an aging A18 Pro from parts bin to power its latest attempt at an entry-level MacBook

You'll soon be able to get a MacBook that's cheaper than many budget PCs. Apple on Wednesday unveiled the MacBook Neo, a $599 exercise in cost cutting powered by the same silicon as an iPhone 16 Pro.

The 13-inch notebook is Apple's most affordable and colorful yet, with a design that closely resembles that of the pricier Air, which itself got an M5 refresh earlier this week. The Neo is available in four shades of anodized aluminum: blush (pink), indigo (dark blue), citrus (yellow), and silver. 

While similar in design to the Air, the Neo is both thicker at 0.5 inches of z-height and smaller than the Air, which rocks a slightly larger 13.6-inch display.

Apple has clearly prioritized build quality with the Neo as most of the cost cutting measures necessary to hit the machine's comparatively frugal $599 price point are hidden on the inside.

The most obvious of these is the Neo's processor. Rather than its now famous M-series silicon, Apple grabbed an A18 Pro from its parts bin. As you may recall, the system on chip launched back in 2024 alongside the iPhone 16 Pro.

Built on TSMC's 3 nm process tech, the chip packs two performance cores and four efficiency cores in a big-little arrangement. The CPU is complemented by a five-core GPU and a 16-core neural engine to power all of those Apple Intelligence features that Tim Cook is so proud of. The low power SoC means that, like the Air, the Neo is entirely fanless. 

While the Neo is by no means Apple's fastest Mac, the iGiant claims the A18 Pro is still "up to 50 percent faster for everyday tasks than the bestselling PC with the latest shipping Intel Core Ultra 5." Obviously, take those claims with a grain of salt, as Apple's footnotes are conspicuously devoid of detail to back those boasts up.

But, unlike its more expensive siblings, the Neo doesn't offer much in terms of upgradability. The A18 Pro is paired with 8 GB of unified memory with no option to upgrade even at the time of purchase.

The machine's storage options are also quite limited. The base model comes with 256 GB of flash storage with the option to upgrade to 512 GB for an additional $100. If you need more than that, you'll need to upgrade to one of Apple's pricier Macs.

Apple's cost cutting also extends to I/O. If you thought the MacBook Air's I/O was limited, the Neo is positively spartan, with just two USB-C ports, only one of which supports USB 3 (10 Gbps) connectivity. The other is limited to USB 2.0 (480 Mbps). And since there's no MagSafe connector, only one of those ports is available for peripherals when charging, which you'll be doing a little more frequently than with a MacBook Air or Pro with the Neo boasting just 16 hours of battery life.

The sole USB 3 port also means the Neo is limited to a single external monitor up to 4K 60 Hz, which Apple says can be used simultaneously with the notebook's built-in display.

Speaking of the display, the Neo features a 13-inch IPS panel with a resolution of 2408 by 1506 pixels and a brightness of 500 nits. While just as bright as the Air, the Neo lacks the P3 color gamut reproduction and Apple's True Tone technology.

The Neo also doesn't get the new N1 wireless chip found on Apple's new M5 Macs. As such, the Neo is limited to Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 6 connectivity.

The cost cutting also extends to the Neo's webcam. Rather than the 12 MP affair found on the MacBook Air and Pro, Neo customers are stuck with a lower-res 1080p camera.

But the most noticeable and perhaps questionable cost cutting measure concerns security. Apple's Touch ID fingerprint reader is only available on the more expensive 512 GB SKU.

The Neo ships with a standard copy of macOS Tahoe and includes a bevy of free software including GarageBand, iMovie, Keynote, Pages, and Numbers.

With the Neo, Apple is clearly targeting a more casual, budget-oriented user base that may be willing to give up some premium features and performance if the price is right. Apple's marketing highlights productivity tasks like web browsing, note taking, light gaming and entertainment rather than the heavy duty content creation roles for which its products are prized.

The MacBook Neo launches at a particularly inopportune time for PC vendors as ballooning memory prices continue to drive up entry-level PC prices. IDC expects the PC market to decline by about 11 percent in 2026.

"Apple has always positioned the MacBook as a premium computing product, with entry prices typically starting near or above $999," IDC analyst Francisco Jeronimo said in an email to El Reg. "Moving into the $600 range indicates that Apple's strategy is to expand the macOS installed base and compete more directly with Windows laptops and Chromebooks in education and price-sensitive segments."

Apple isn't immune to the memory crunch. On Tuesday, Apple used its M5 refresh as an excuse to jack up the price of its MacBook Air and MacBook Pros.

The Neo is available for pre-order today starting at $599, with a $100 education discount for eligible students and faculty with general availability slated for March 11. ®