I was wrong about the MacBook Neo and I’m glad about it — Apple’s new MacBook is ‘the best budget laptop you can buy right now’

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23 Mar 2026, 12:05 · TechRadar

Features By Hamish Hector published 23 March 2026

(Image credit: Jacob Krol/Future)

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When we recorded the latest episode of the TechRadar podcast we were coming in hot after the major new product announcements from Apple including the iPhone 17e, iPad Air M4 and its new budget MacBook.

Hearing that the affordable Apple laptop boasted an iPhone chip – the A18 pro which debuted in the iPhone 16 Pro back in 2024 — and only 8GB of unified memory (which we call RAM in the recording though it’s not the same as typical PC RAM) I just didn’t believe it would be that great. Even at its budget pricing I thought it would be a major let down.

Then we got to review the MacBook Neo and this thing blew us away. Our Computing Editor Matt Hanson called it “the best budget laptop you can buy right now.”

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Clearly I was wrong, but what makes the MacBook Neo so excellent?

MacBook Neo review: Apple takes on budget laptops and Chromebooks in style - YouTube

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Beautiful inside and out

The first success of this machine is its design.

There’s silver, black, pink, and a lime green which all look beautiful, and the vibrant colorways are felt throughout the whole machine — across its body, keyboard, accents, and even macOS elements.

Couple this with the silent fanless design, the already sleek macOS software, and a gorgeous 13-inch 2408 x 1506-pixel display, and the MacBook Neo oozes premium — something most budget machines simply can’t achieve.

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