All about Apple’s new MacBook Neo (starts at just $499)

Apple has just unveiled a new Mac notebook model named MacBook Neo, which joins their Pro and Air lineups.

MacBook Neo is a low-cost Mac that starts at $599, and with the education discount, it drops to just $499, making it an incredible value for students and anyone who wants to experience macOS at an affordable price.

Here’s all you need to know about this fanless Mac that clearly intends to eat the market share of entry to mid-range Windows PC and Chromebooks.

MacBook Neo details

Official name: MacBook Neo (A18 Pro)

Operating system: macOS Tahoe

Apple Intelligence: Supported

MacBook Neo 13 inch Liquid Retina display

Screen: 13-inch LCD/Liquid Retina display (sRGB). Has an anti-reflective coating. No True Tone.

Screen resolution: 2408 by 1506 pixels

Screen brightness: Up to 500 nits

External display: Supports one external display (up to 4K 60Hz) using the USB 3 port.

Ports: 2 USB-C ports (no Thunderbolt). One of them is USB 3, which supports data transfer speeds up to 10 Gb/s and also connects to an external display. The other port is USB 2 with a max speed of 480 Mb/s. There is no visual way to tell which one is USB 3 and which is USB 2. But remember that the top one (just above the rubber feet) is the faster USB 3. The good thing is you can use both ports to charge the laptop.

Storage: 256 GB and 512 GB SSD options

RAM: 8 GB on both storage models

Body: Made of aluminum. Has beautiful rounded corners like other MacBook models.

Chip: Apple’s A18 Pro System on Chip (the same as iPhone 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max). It has a 6-core CPU (with 2 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores), a 5-core GPU, and a 16-core Neural Engine. Since A18 Pro is Apple silicon, this new Mac should be able to run all modern macOS applications with ease.

Colors: Comes in 4 finishes: Blush (soft pink, the same as the new iPhone 17e), Indigo (blue), Silver, Citrus (lemon yellow)

Battery: 36.5-watt-hour lithium-ion. Apple claims this battery offers up to 11 hours of wireless web browsing and up to 16 hours of video streaming on a single charge. There is no word about fast charging MacBook Neo’s battery.

Webcam: 1080p HD camera with dual microphone (supports Voice Isolation and Wide Spectrum microphone modes). Unlike other MacBooks, this one does not have a physical green indicator LED that confirms when your camera is in use. Instead, a green dot appears in the top right corner of the screen whenever the webcam is activated.

Weight: 2.7 pounds (1.23 kg), which is the same as a 13-inch MacBook Air