I'm late on the MacBook Neo—but in fairness, so was Apple... Check INMO GO3 Now: https://geni.us/INMO-SnazzyLabs FANTASTIC merch at Copland Supply* - https://copland.supply Follow Snazzy Labs on Twitter - https://twitter.com/snazzylabs Follow me on Bluesky - https://snazzy.fm/UW Follow me on Threads - https://snazzy.fm/XV Follow me on Mastodon - https://snazzy.fm/NN Follow me on Instagram - https://instagram.com/snazzyq The MacBook Neo is Apple's most controversial and most important Mac in years — a $600 laptop running the A18 Pro mobile chip with 8GB of memory, no haptic Force Touch trackpad, no backlit keyboard, no notch, no ambient light sensor, and the best repairability of any MacBook in over a decade. Compared head-to-head against the M5 MacBook Air, M1 MacBook Air, M4 Mac mini, iPad Pro, Microsoft Surface, and entry-level Chromebooks and Windows laptops, the Neo proves Apple's pricing premium is officially dead. Coverage of Apple reportedly reopening TSMC's A18 Pro fabrication line instead of moving to the A19 Pro and 12GB of packaged memory, the impact of current DRAM pricing and the global memory shortage, macOS 26 Tahoe performance quirks, FileVault setup slowdowns, swap and 256GB SSD longevity concerns, long-term software support past 2032, and why the touchscreen OLED MacBook Pro coming later this year is going to the wrong demographic. Plus thoughts on whether the iPad will ever run macOS (it won't), the end of Intel Mac support in macOS 27, Apple's self-service repair program pricing, and how the Neo could be the gateway device that finally pushes Mac market share past every iPhone owner who hasn't switched yet. Sponsored by the INMO GO3 AI translation glasses. 0:00 Everybody else is wrong. 4:27 The cuts, SLASH SLASH! 8:54 ...but here's the irony... 9:42 Apple's most repairable Mac. 11:55 macOS on a phone chip. 13:38 The elephant in the RAM. 16:04 Will it last 'til 2032? 17:53 Hey, future Quinn here. 20:38 Who this is actually for? 21:59 What's next for the Mac? #macbookneo #neo #apple #INMO #INMOGO3 #INMOAR #INMOGLASSES #displayglasses
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You can run Logic Pro on it and produce an entire song with like 30 stems and have one foot into a 'professional' audio DAW workstation for $499 student pricing / $599 everyone. That is crazy. Same thing with their other pro apps that they offer.
The Neo most definitely does have an ambient light sensor.. it doesn't have a True Tone sensor. I say this as my screen just adjusted to a bright light in the kitchen on the neo.
8:30 Neo does have an ambient light sensor actually. Check your Display settings. You may have it disabled. I actually purposely disabled mine because it adjusts pretty aggressively on partly cloudy days (but is useful otherwise)
8:30 The Neo does have a brightness sensor?? It’s aggressive as hell on mine.
Until the "high-end only" Apple snobs start buying my hardware for me, their opinion is irrelevant. The Macbook Neo is genius, and long overdue.
Bought this little guy, the Neo not Quinn, for a new job. It's my first mac and it's been an incredible experience so far. It's done pretty much everything I've asked it to do! No light up keyboard does suck though.
21:40 *neuron activation*
19:04 My guess is that while they’re doing that in the short term to meet the demand, the longer term solution is that they’re probably going to keep the A19 Pro production line running at its current output instead of winding it down as we get closer to the next yearly iPhone refresh so that they don’t run into this issue when the Neo is eventually refreshed.
My wife switched from the phenomenal M1 MacBook Air. It’s basically the same computer minus Touch ID and a backlit keyboard. And she likes the neo so much more. She’s told me a dozen times how happy she is with it.
I manage 14,000 Macs at work and we have quite a few Neos already. At $535 CDW price? Why the heck not.
I don’t think it’s fair to call some of the Neo‘s compromises „feeling old“ since most buyers will be totally new to the platform. And will thus not make the comparison to more expensive alternatives from Apple. Also, new buyers will not migrate from pre-existing installs, so the „initial slow-down“ described here will most likely not occur. The Neo is best approached with the mindset of someone completely new to Macs. And for many of those, it is a great machine.
The Neo makes a great companion device to a desktop computer for someone (me) who doesn't want to do anything more than the basics away from their desk. The solid feeling, knowing it's not a more expensive device, also makes me feel a bit more comfortable carrying it around every day too. I even used the savings to get my elderly father a Neo of his own. The only thing I really noticed was the lack of disk sharing from recovery mode. Is that just not gonna be a feature on these things?
I feel like he was watching me browse the Neo….
being a owner of 8g macbook pro.. due to some weird unchangeable reasons... i have slowly adapted to live with it.. it works all well... cyberpunk doesn;t.... also its worth remembering the cmd q shortcut
Too late, it was the first product I ever preordered and I love it
Zip Tie Tuning! 9:28
Testing from geekerwan actually showed that apple allocated more ssd space dedicated to swap not accessible to the user. When they filled up the NEO's ssd ram and swap weren't effected
14:09: Not any more. The Mac Mini now starts at $799 USD.
I'd love Apple to sell parts that let you swap out the MOBO and/or larger battery when they release a newer version…(à la Framework)
I´m thinking of buying the Neo because of the battery. I'm a software engineer and I'm also a musician that has to go on tours pretty often, but vacations days are limited, so I need to work my 9 to 5 job like most people (being on tour is expensive). My main reason to buy this is because while on the road there are limited ways of charging a laptop and Neo seems to be pretty decent when fully charge, plus USB-C connection for charging with a powerbank (maybe?)and since I have to connect to a remote desktop for my job, the Neo would only be running the remote desktop client and shouldn't have any problem with memory. I want to know if people have better suggestion, I know that my case could be very specific, but right now this is my line of thought for getting this laptop.