The MacBook Neo just keeps winning — repair costs beat Air, teardown looks simple, and now I want it even more

MacBook Neo is turning the budget computing world on its head, terrifying rival PC manufacturers, entrancing reviewers, and simplifying the build so much that it's even lowering the cost of MacBook repairs.

I'm not surprised. The MacBook Neo is everything that virtually every budget/affordable Windows or Chrome laptop is not. It's stylish, well-built with high-quality materials, and doesn't skimp on key features like performance and battery life.

"While its price is at the higher end of what I’d consider 'budget', the design, build quality and performance are all leagues ahead of its Windows and Chromebook competitors," wrote our own Matt Hanson in his extensive review.

His thoughts echo those I've read and seen across the web. There's virtually nothing but love for what is now Apple's cheapest computer at $599 / £599 / AU$899 and just $499 / £499 for education.

It's no shock that companies known for selling low-end laptops to education are worried. Apple is not supposed to step into their budget pool. But the reality of the situation is inescapable. The MacBook Neo is here, and now they have to adjust, though I doubt they can do it in time for the critical back-to-school buying season.

More than the sum of its parts

Someone at TechRadar described the MacBook Neo, which runs on the iPhone 16 Pro's old A18 Pro chip, as basically a smartphone "minus the keyboard and modem." That's sort of true, and the point is driven home when you look at the included 20W charging brick (in the US), which is essentially an iPhone charger.

So, yeah, it's maybe a bit like a phone with a giant screen and full-sized keyboard, but it's also running a full-blown desktop OS. And when I look at the benchmarks from, say, the first MacBook Air M1, which I reviewed in 2020, and compare it to this MacBook, the numbers do look better on the Neo. Granted, not wildly so; after all, this system has just 8GB of RAM (same as the base M1 MacBook Air), and its performance trails well behind the MacBook Air M5, which has 16GB of RAM and costs over $1,000.

Even if the Neo does not win on performance or battery life against its pricier cousins, it bests our leading budget laptop, the $299 Acer Aspire Go 15, with comparable battery life, much brighter and sharper screen, and significantly better performance. It's also a pound and a half lighter, something that really matters for on-the-go students and workers.

It's what's inside

We also got confirmation this week, via a video review that included a brief teardown, that the MacBook Neo is simply built, with quality components that might be easier to fix. In fact, Apple sort of confirms this by making repair costs half of what you'd pay to repair a MacBook Air.

That must be music to the ears of parents who are now considering a MacBook Neo for their grade-school or college-age kid, wondering if the laptop will hold up and, if it doesn't, what it'll cost to bring it back to life.

Repair costs aside, I think they needn't worry. The MacBook Neo is light (2.7lbs) but solidly built. It feels good to hold, and displays all the engineering expertise and tolerances you expect from a MacBook.

This is the genius of this new product. I know there are things missing, like a backlit keyboard and Touch ID (you can get the latter and another 256GB of storage for $699), but Apple did not skimp anywhere that matters. That's why people are so excited about this multi-color lineup; it's not a cheap knockoff with poor performance and sketchy battery life.

Instead of building this 'Frankenstein-style' out of pieces discarded from previous MacBooks, Apple, as they told me last week, really designed the MacBook Neo from the ground up. It's built around some aging mobile silicon, but even that is fresh enough to offer most people all the power they need for a standard work or school day.

It's no wonder my interest ticks up by the day, and I dream of owning one or buying one for my hard-working partner who toils on an aging Windows laptop.

There has been, it seems, almost nothing but good news about the MacBook Neo — and I'm betting the only bad news will be when Apple runs out of them.

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