Apple MacBook Neo review: The competition should be scared

The MacBook Neo is something I never thought I’d see and seems almost anti-Apple at first glance. The cheapest MacBooks tend to start at $999, with the exception of older models like the MacBook Air M1 that have dipped as low as $699 on sale. The MacBook Neo starts at $599 and $499 for education. That’s $500 less than the new MacBook Air M5.

That price should be setting off all sorts of alarm bells, but here’s the thing. Based on my time testing the MacBook Neo, it is the most well-rounded laptop I’ve ever used under $600. And it blows away all Windows laptops in its price range, not to mention most of the best Chromebooks.

That $599 price gets you a sturdy aluminum design, a bright and colorful 500-nit display, and a fairly speedy A18 Pro chip for everyday tasks like surfing the web, watching videos and playing casual games. Plus, you get surprisingly powerful side-mounted speakers. So what are the trade-offs, where does it rank among the best laptops, and is the MacBook Neo right for you? Here’s the pros and cons in my full MacBook Neo review.

MacBook Neo review: Cheat Sheet

• What is it? The MacBook Neo is Apple’s new entry-level laptop.
• Who is it for? Students, first-time Mac users, small business customers or anyone looking to ditch Windows or Chrome OS on a budget.
• What does it cost? $599 and $499 for education customers, $699 if you want Touch ID and double the storage
• What do I like? The colorful and sturdy aluminum design, vivid display, solid 1080p webcam, dual speakers and fairly solid A18 Pro performance.
• What do I dislike? No backlit keyboard, doesn’t support Thunderbolt accessories, Touch ID costs extra.

MacBook Neo review: The Ups

The MacBook Neo blends the premium materials and utilitarian aesthetic of a MacBook Air with the fun of an old-school iBook, while giving you just enough of everything to be the right pick for most of your reading this.

Sturdy aluminum design, fun color options

While most laptops under $600 have chintzy plastic designs or maybe just metal on the palm rest, the MacBook Neo is made of all aluminum. I particularly like the rounded corners, which make the Neo comfy to hold and carry.

Weighing just 2.7 pounds, the Neo is lightweight and at 0.5 inches thin it’s a cinch to slip into a backpack and forget that it’s there. The MacBook Air is slightly thinner and smaller but weighs the same. I also like the little touches like the easy-to-open lid that’s a MacBook staple.

The MacBook Neo comes in four colors: Silver, Indigo, Blush and Citrus. I tested the Citrus model, which definitely pops the most in a bright greenish-yellow. Seriously, why can’t cheap laptops be fun? Bonus: Apple color-matches the keyboard with the rest of the chassis and even the rubber feet on bottom, as well as the desktop wallpaper.

Vivid display

Probably the best thing I can say about the MacBook Neo’s display is that it’s just about as good as the MacBook Air’s. And that’s pretty amazing for what you’re getting for the money.

Most Windows laptops in the Neo’s price range have dim (about 250 to 300 nits) and low-res displays. The MacBook Neo has a rated brightness of 500 nits and a resolution of 2408 x 1506 pixels. This panel is sharp, vibrant, and great for reading or watching videos.

The “Super Mario Galaxy Movie” trailer looked bright and colorful as Mario and Luigi transformed into their fireball-tossing alter-egos, and Yoshi was a shiny green. In our lab tests, the MacBook Neo reached 480 nits of brightness, compared to 322 nits for the Surface Laptop 3. And this screen is a lot more colorful, too.

Punchy speakers

The explosive soundtrack in the “Super Mario Galaxy Movie” trailer sounded quite good through the MacBook Neo’s speakers, which are located on the front left and right sides of the laptop. Many laptops in this price range have down-firing speakers, which means they’re located on the bottom of the system. The result is tinny sound and dialog that can be tough to hear.

Through the Neo’s speakers, Sublime’s “Santeria” had plenty of depth when I played it through Spotify. The vocals sounded crisp and the drums had a nice snap; just don’t expect a robust bottom end. The harmonicas in Blues Traveler’s “Hook” also sounded a bit shrill at top volume.

The dialog between Kyle Chandler and Aaron Pierre in the “The Lanterns” trailer sounded clear even with a strumming guitar in the background. And the screeching car actually jarred me a bit before it careened off a cliff.

Comfy keyboard, accurate touchpad

The Magic Keyboard on the MacBook Neo offered pretty snappy feedback as I wrote this review on the laptop. I achieved my usual 74 wpm with 98% accuracy when taking an online typing test, and I found the travel fairly good overall for such a thin profile machine.

The MacBook Neo doesn’t feature the same Force Touch trackpad as more premium MacBooks, which means you’re getting a mechanical touchpad that physically depresses instead of one that senses pressure and gives haptic feedback and enables Force Clicks.

Nevertheless, I found the Multi-Touch trackpad on the Neo to be smooth, responsive and precise, whether I was moving the cursor or performing gestures like a three-finger swipe up to show all open apps or pinching to zoom.

Solid performance for the price (with some hiccups)

The best way to test the MacBook Neo was to put it through my usual workload. And that includes running Chrome with at least a couple dozen tabs open, juggling multiple Slack conversations and editing photos in Pixelmator Pro — sometimes with Spotify playing in the background.

I found the Neo pleasantly responsive for the most part. I had an easy time jumping between multiple tabs and switching between several open apps. I noticed a half-second delay at times versus the MacBook Air when resuming tabs in Chrome, but not enough to be a nuisance.

The Neo did get hung up temporarily on a couple of occasions. I noticed some lag when trying to jump from the Finder directly to the Display settings with an Apple Studio Display attached to the Neo. And I had trouble pairing an Xbox controller to the Neo after I connected a Bluetooth mouse and keyboard, but it worked the second time.

On Geekbench 6, which measures overall performance, the Neo turned in a score of 3,535, which is 15% higher than the Surface Laptop Go 3. The Neo’s multi-core score is 28% higher. The MacBook Air M5’s chip is considerably faster though.

Compared to the MacBook Air M1, the MacBook Neo is slightly faster on both Geekbench tests.

I wouldn’t recommend the MacBook Neo for heavy video editing. On our HandBrake video transcoding test, which involves converting a 12-minute 4K video to 1080p, the Neo took nearly 10 minutes. That’s 7 minutes faster than the Surface Laptop but nearly double the time from the MacBook Air. The MacBook Air M1 and and M2 both finished faster than the Neo.

So what about gaming? The MacBook Neo held its own when I played the new Oceanhorn 3 game in Apple Arcade. I noticed some skipped frames here and there, but overall the graphics looked pretty smooth as I swung my sword at multiple oncoming enemies.

On the 3DMark Solar Bay test, the Neo averaged 6,916 with a frame rate of 26.1 fps. The MacBook Air had nearly triple that with 73.6 fps. While this laptop won't be able to handle AAA games, it’s more than good enough for some casual/indie play.

Strong battery life

Apple rates the MacBook Neo for 16 hours of battery life while playing video. The Tom’s Guide Battery test is a bit more demanding, as it involves continuous web surfing at 150 nits of screen brightness.

The Neo lasted 13 hours and 28 minutes, which is fantastic endurance for a laptop in this price range. For example, the Surface Laptop Go endured for less than 9 hours. The MacBook Air lasted exactly 2 hours longer than the Neo.

I worked unplugged for a couple of hours, jumping between multiple Chrome windows with Slack playing in the background with the screen at 75% brightness, and the battery meter dropped to only 74% percent.

Pretty good webcam

The MacBook Neo features a 1080p webcam, and I’d say it’s decent for the price. When holding a Google Meet call under ideal lighting, my colleague said I looked “okay” but somewhat blotchy.

It’s worth noting that there’s no indicator light right next to the camera as there is with other MacBooks. Instead, there’s an indicator in the far right corner of the display.

MacBook Neo review: The Downs

To get a MacBook down to this price, Apple had to make some compromises. Some of these won’t be a huge annoyance to your general day-to-day, but one can be a frustration to night owls.

Keyboard not backlit

Here’s one of the corners Apple decided to cut. The Magic Keyboard on the MacBook Neo is not backlit. So if you want to work in a dim environment you’ll be out of luck. I can live with this trade-off, because I generally know where all the keys are. If you don’t and want some guidance, you might want to step up to the MacBook Air.

Touch ID costs extra

This feels a bit chintzy to me. By default the MacBook Neo features a lock button on the top right corner of the keyboard. You can add a Touch ID button there, but you’ll need to spend an extra $100 for that perk. If you don’t, you’ll just have to type your password each time you log on.

The good news is that the $699 configuration comes with both Touch ID and double the standard storage at 512GB.

No Thunderbolt ports

The MacBook Neo features a USB 3 port and USB 2 port (both USB-C) on the left side of the system along with an audio jack.

I should have realized, given the specs, but my first instinct was to plug the MacBook Neo into my Caldigit dock at home, which in turn connects to my LG monitor. No dice. The Neo doesn’t support Thunderbolt, and my dock requires that connection. You'll get an error message if you try to plug in a Thunderbolt accessory.

So to connect to my monitor I instead used a USB-C to DisplayPort dongle. It’s not a dealbreaker, just annoying since that dock also connects to a ring light and external webcam at the same time when I’m using my usual MacBook Pro.

In terms of wireless connectivity, the MacBook Neo supports Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 6. The MacBook Air supports the newer Wi-Fi 7 standard, but overall you’re not missing much.

Just 8GB of RAM for Apple Intelligence

I get why the MacBook Neo comes with only 8GB of unified memory, but it’s worth noting that you can’t upgrade to 16GB. So if you want more RAM for things like Apple Intelligence tasks and other AI apps, you’ll want to opt for the MacBook Air.

The MacBook Neo does support Apple Intelligence, though, which means you can do things like get AI summaries of your notes and generate images in Image Playground. When I used the app to create an image of a golden retriever playing frisbee by the beach with hot air balloons in the background, it took close to 9 seconds, compared to 5.5 seconds for my usual MacBook Pro M4 with 16GB of RAM.

MacBook Neo review: Verdict

The MacBook Neo is a milestone not just for MacBooks but for all laptops, especially at a time that other laptop makers are raising their prices and everyone is feeling the pinch from a shaky economy. Apple has built a machine from the ground up for $599 that runs circles around the competition, and it will force the likes of Lenovo, HP and Dell to scramble to catch up.

This system ticks all the right boxes for its low price, with a premium aluminum design, a rich and bright display you’d normally find on $1,000 laptops and good-enough performance from its A18 Pro chip. I also like the side-mounted speakers, as well as the comfy keyboard and smooth touchpad. And the more than 13 hours of battery life is very impressive at this price.

However, the MacBook Neo does make some trade-offs. I wish Touch ID was standard, and the lack of Thunderbolt and a keyboard backlight is a bummer. And you should not expect to do video editing on this machine with any speed, nor should you expect the zippiest performance when you have a ton of apps open or with Apple Intelligence tasks.

But for $599, you would be hard pressed to find a laptop that even comes close to the MacBook Neo’s value. It’s arguably the best value laptop ever and raises the bar for the entire industry.