Apple's MacBook Neo nails the netbook by being nothing like it

The MacBook Neo is a sensation. Soon after Apple launched the $599 laptop and I posted quick first looks on various social media, I was stunned at the response. Thousands of likes, hundreds of reshares. People were jazzed, intrigued, confused, and some were put off.

Still, I was shocked at the level of interest. This could be Apple's first true everyperson portable PC, and I realized that the mania reminded me of another hyped product: the netbook.

Remember netbooks? Back in 2008, they were a low-cost revelation, affordable computing saviors amidst a global financial meltdown. Made mostly by Asus, Acer, Lenovo, and MSI, the sub-$500 laptops flew off the shelves. While aimed at kids, teens, and education, they made their way into almost every market sector, including business.

By 2009, I was calling them "the new norm for laptops," despite the fact that the specs were not great. Many featured ridiculously small keyboards, sub-1GHz Intel processors, 4GB of storage (!), half a gigabyte of RAM, and tiny 8- to 10-inch displays.

They were attractive, though, because they were small, light (under 2.3 lbs), and could run the still-popular Windows XP (most eventually shipped with, I believe, Windows 7). They even arrived with enough preloaded software (a Microsoft Office replacement called Star Office) to help you get basic homework (and even office work) done.

I bought a pair for my kids, and they used them for a while. My son even ran iTunes on his — until he sat on the netbook — while my younger child eventually moved on to a larger, more powerful Windows 8 laptop. While I didn't hear many complaints, neither one used these laptops enough to stress them.

What netbooks really did was shift expectations on what you'd pay for an entry-level portable. In many ways, I consider them the parents of the first Chromebooks, and grandparents of sub-$500 Intel Core i3 and Core i5 14-inch laptops. What all these systems have in common, though, is weak performance and generally low-quality builds.

Finally a not-netbook you could love

The MacBook Neo is what everyone wished their netbook could be: a stylish, dependable, and well-performing system that doesn't drain your bank account.

The netbook appealed to the broadest possible market at a time when money was tight, and the future felt uncertain. Netbooks couldn't do much, but they also felt somewhat disposable when you wondered if you'd have a job in a month or be able to afford to buy technology for your kid next Christmas.

Unlike the netbook, there are far fewer trade-offs with the MacBook Neo. Instead of a tiny keyboard and flaky trackpad, you have a full-sized keyboard and what looks like a large, effective mechanical trackpad. Instead of a tiny screen, you get Apple's 13-inch Liquid Retina Display. Instead of a sub-megapixel webcam, you get a 1080p one. For $599 ($499 education), you get 256GB of storage and 8GB of RAM (some remain concerned that this is not enough memory). The processor may be an A18 Pro mobile CPU, but it far outstrips not just classic netbooks (naturally) but what you can expect to get with a sub-$600 Windows 11 laptop.

Look, the list goes on. Netbooks had barely enough power to run a single app. I've already seen a MacBook Neo multitasking effortlessly.

Back when Steve Jobs introduced the first iPad, he positioned it squarely between the iPhone and a MacBook Pro and made it clear that it was the anti-netbook. The problem with that assertion was that not everyone wanted a touchscreen or could easily work without a keyboard. iPads have always supported keyboard accessories, but they could add hundreds of dollars to the price.

The MacBook Neo fits neatly into that space between iPhone and, say, a $1,100 MacBook Air, as the perfect solution for cash-strapped consumers wishing they could have the quality, ecosystem, and performance of a MacBook without the price or need to give up a keyboard.

In that sense, the MacBook Neo is the netbook perfected — even if it ends up being nothing like one at all.

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