• Apple has raised prices across multiple categories in Australia
• The MacBook Neo has lost some of its entry-level appeal
• The move follows rising RAM and storage costs

Australian shoppers looking for EOFY offers, or waiting for early Amazon Prime Day tech deals, now have another price shift to factor in. Apple has raised local prices across several major product categories, including the new MacBook Neo, MacBook Air, iPad range, Apple TV 4K, HomePod mini and more.

The timing is awkward, but it also hasn't come from nowhere. Apple has usually been better than most tech companies at absorbing supply chain pressure before it reaches shoppers, though the current RAM and component crunch has been dragging on for long enough to change that calculation.

The warning signs came last month, when Tim Cook flagged "significantly higher memory costs" on an earnings call, then said RAM prices would "drive an increasing impact" on Apple products from this month.

Australian buyers will feel this

One of the clearest examples is the new MacBook Neo, Apple's lower-cost MacBook model and the machine most likely to appeal to students, or anyone trying to get a new Apple laptop for less than MacBook Air money. In Australia it launched with a price from AU$899. It now starts at AU$1,049, so it has lost some of its entry-level appeal.

Sure, it’s still Apple's cheapest laptop, but the higher starting price makes it less competitive against Windows laptops that have been fighting to compete with the Neo. The 512GB model with Touch ID has also gone from AU$1,099 to AU$1,249.

The MacBook Air has lost some of its competitive edge, and the 13-inch model with the M5 chip (check out our MacBook Air 13-inch M5 review) has jumped from AU$1,799 to AU$2,099 to start.

The 15-inch model is up by the same AU$300 amount, from AU$2,199 to AU$2,499. For a laptop that often sits in the middle of Apple's consumer Mac range, that is a significant hit to its value proposition.

The MacBook Pro increases are especially notable in some configurations. The 14-inch MacBook Pro with M5 now starts at AU$3,199, up from AU$2,699, and the higher-end M5 Max models have also moved up by several hundred dollars. Buyers looking at extra memory or storage were already dealing with expensive upgrades, so the higher base prices only make that decision harder.

The Mac mini is another notable hit. It has gone from AU$999 to AU$1,299, which is a 30% increase on a machine that has often been one of the easier Apple desktops to justify on price.

The iPad range is up, which matters for students, families and anyone who was looking at a new tablet for work, study, travel or general use. The 11-inch iPad Air now starts at AU$1,249, up from AU$999, while the standard iPad, iPad mini and iPad Pro models have also increased.

The rises are not limited to Macs and iPads. HomePod mini has gone from AU$149 to AU$199, HomePod is up from AU$479 to AU$549, and Apple TV 4K has jumped from AU$219 to AU$299. Vision Pro was already a niche product at AU$5,999, and the new AU$6,299 starting price certainly does not broaden its appeal.

Apple's iPhone lineup, Apple Watch and AirPods appear to have avoided this round of increases at least. That helps limit the pain for some buyers, but it doesn’t change the issue for anyone who was waiting to buy a Mac, iPad or other Apple device.

Aussie price changes

Of course, Apple is not the only company dealing with higher memory and storage costs, but the scale of these changes is still pretty notable. Price rises across one or two products are easy enough to explain. Price rises across most of Apple’s range are not something that’s easily avoided.

An Apple spokesperson said: “The consumer electronics industry is facing an unprecedented challenge. The rapid expansion of AI data centers has created an extraordinary surge in demand for memory and storage. We have never seen a component price increase this much, this quickly. We have shielded our customers from these increases so far, but we have now reached a point where we need to begin raising prices on a number of products, including today’s increases for iPad and Mac. We know this is not welcome news, and we are working tirelessly to find solutions.”

The main question is whether the Australian prices come back down if the RAM shortage eases, or whether these higher starting points become normal. We are hopeful, but Apple hasn’t promised a reversal.

For now, local retailers may be worth checking more closely, especially if older stock or short-term deal pricing remains available during EOFY and early Prime Day sales periods.

To help out, we have included some of the better remaining Apple deals below.

Best old price Apple deals

Other Apple deals

These products haven't gone up in price, but they're still great deals. Want more? Check out our dedicated EOFY Apple sales page. Or for more laptops, take a look at our best EOFY laptop deals.

Apple can be its own worst enemy sometimes. After shaking up the industry with both the MacBook Air M5 (slim, light and great value for money) and the MacBook Neo (which redefined what we should expect from an affordable laptop), it spurred its laptop-making rivals, such as Dell and Acer, to up their game and compete.

The result is a reinvigorated laptop market with huge amounts of choice, with Apple continuing to lead the pack due to price and quality.

However, Apple has just announced some pretty major price hikes for a variety of its products, including the MacBook Neo ($699 / £699 / AU$1,049, up from $599 / £599 / AU$899), MacBook Air M5 ($1,299 / £1,299 / AU$2,099, up from $1,099 / £1,099 / AU$1,799) and the 14-inch MacBook Pro M5 ($1,999 / £1,999 / AU$3,199, up from $1,699 / £1,699 / AU$2,699).

Those increases, especially for the MacBook Air, are brutal, and make it a lot harder to justify. The MacBook Neo also becomes less of a no-brainer.

The problem for Apple is that these price hikes come at a time when its Windows 11 competitors are steadily bringing out brilliant alternatives - and it means they are now better value propositions in many cases, especially during Amazon Prime Day.

• Browse the full Amazon Prime Day sale

The reason behind Apple's price rises is the global memory shortage, but that means many Windows 11 laptops could see price rises as well (and some have risen in price already).

However, because of the huge variety of Windows laptops that are made by a range of manufacturers, there's a lot more choice for consumers to shop around for — and now Apple no longer has a lead when it comes to price, performance or design, those Windows laptops suddenly become a whole lot more tempting, as the current Prime Day sales prove.

Below, I've picked out some great US and UK deals for MacBook Neo, Air, and Pro alternatives. Fair warning: they do run Windows 11, so you'll need to put up with that, but to be fair, Microsoft's operating system is getting a steady stream of fixes and new features these days.

If you want to stick with Apple, then check out our collection of Apple Prime Day deals that can help you avoid the price rise.

Today's best MacBook Neo alternative deals in the US

Today's best MacBook Air alternative deals in the US

Today's best MacBook Pro alternative deals in the US

Today's best MacBook Neo alternative deals in the UK

Today's best MacBook Air alternative deals in the UK

Today's best MacBook Pro alternative deals in the UK

More Prime Day deals in the US

• Amazon Devices: Fire Sticks & Echo from $18
• Amazon Haul: viral gadgets, tech & appliances from $1.99
• Apple: MacBooks, AirPods & AirTags from $29
• Beauty: 50% off toothbrushes & hair tools
• Cheap TVs: smart TVs from $69.99
• Garden: tools, mowers, planters from $24.99
• Headphones: 50% off Beats, Bose & Samsung
• Laptops: Apple, HP & Dell from $199
• Mattresses: Sealy, Serta & more from $186
• Patio: outdoor furniture, rugs & decor from $19.99
• Sports: 50% off fitness gear, treadmills & clothing
• Vacuums: Dyson, Shark & Bissell from $34

More Prime Day deals in the UK

• Amazon Prime: get a 30-day free trial
• Amazon Devices: Fire, Ring & Blink from £13.99
• Amazon Haul: up to 30% off
• Apple: up to 33% off AirPods & Apple Watch
• Appliances: up to 45% off Ninja & Tefal
• Beauty: up to 60% off Philips & Oral-B
• Essentials: household goods from £5
• Fans: from £20
• Fashion: up to 50% off
• Gaming: £90 off PlayStation 5
• Headphones: up to 50% off Beats & Sony
• Laptops: from £149
• Tablets: Samsung & Lenovo from £79.99
• Toys: up to 25% off Lego and Tonies
• TVs: from £129.99
• Vacuums: up to 40% off Shark & Roborock
• Wearables: up to 30% off Garmin & Oura

Yes, the news that Apple fans have been fearing is here — Apple isn't immune to the RAM crisis and has just raised prices across Macs, iPads and the HomePod mini.

Those price hikes are global and are now live in its online store. An Apple spokesperson told Bloomberg "we know this is not welcome news, and we are working tirelessly to find solutions".

The headline news is that the MacBook Neo, praised for its excellent value, has seen its starting rise from $599 / £599 to a slightly less palatable $699 / £699. There have also been price hikes for the iPad Air, iPad Pro, MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, Mac mini and some Mac Studio models.

What should you do if you were looking to buy one of those Apple products? You've can follow all the latest reaction and deals here in this liveblog...

Welcome to our Apple support group

Hello, and welcome to this liveblog for our reaction to Apple's bombshell news today that it'll be raising prices across Macs, iPads and more.

I'd call it a 'shock' but if you've been following the news lately, it sadly isn't. The RAM crisis news continues to worsen, and Tim Cook recently dropped an unsubtle hint that "price increases are unavoidable".

So what should you do if, like me, you've been looking at upgrading your Apple kit recently? I'll be rounding up all of the latest advice and reaction from TechRadar's experts here — along with the best Prime day deals that could be your savior.

Why is Apple raising prices so much?

The RAM crisis is actually more of a PC component crisis — and unsurprisingly, Apple has said that it's this that's forced it to make unprecedented price hikes today.

An Apple spokesperson told Bloomberg that “the rapid expansion of AI data centers has created an extraordinary surge in demand for memory and storage”. They added that the company has “never seen a component price increase this much, this quickly.”

It's very unusual for Apple make statements like this, which shows how bad the crisis has become. Apple also added it has “shielded our customers from these increases so far, but we have now reached a point where we need to begin raising prices on a number of products including today’s increases for iPad and Mac.”

So what are the price hikes?

Here's a list of the most notable price hikes today for Apple products in the US and UK.

This isn't an exhaustive list — there are various spec configurations for Macs, for example, that will also be hit, particularly if you want to add more RAM.

But it's a handy overview if you want a quick look at the damage for your chosen product. No price hikes are welcome, but those MacBook and Mac mini ones are particularly painful considering the decent value they previously offered.

Deals to the rescue

If there is a small crumb of comfort from today's news, it's that there are some good deals around at Apple's old prices — which could net you some big savings.

I'll be running through some of the best of them now in this liveblog, for both the US and UK. And I have a personal stake in this too, having mulled over buying a MacBook Pro M5 just a few days ago (yes, it hurts).

So without further ago, let's get deals hunting...

iPad deals

The iPad deals below just got a whole lot better in light of today's Apple price hikes.

The iPad A16, for example, is now effectively $150 off, rather than just $50 in the US. Similarly, the iPad Pro's sale price of $899 is now a massive $300 less than Apple's new price, rather than the still-decent $100 saving you got previously.

For those in the UK, there aren't quite as many Prime Day deals right now, but there is a good one on the older iPad Air 11-inch (M3).

Today's best iPad deals in the US

Today's best Apple iPad deals in the UK

What does this mean for iPhone prices?

Fortunately, the iPhone is unaffected by today's price hikes — for now. But there's a good chance we'll see the iPhone 18 Pro get a price bump when it lands in September.

This week, we saw speculation based on JP Morgan research that the iPhone 18 Pro could get a price increase of $50-$100. It true, that would be pretty acceptable compared to the bigger price rises we've seen today.

The Apple Watch and AirPods have both also been spared price increases, though they could also be susceptible later this year (if to a lesser extent than Macs and iPads).

What MacBook deals are there?

If you're looking to buy a MacBook, the Prime Day deals just became a lot more important — maybe even essential, given the unprecedented Apple price hikes we've seen today.

For example, in the US you can buy the MacBook Neo (Apple's most affordable laptop) for $110 less than Apple's new pricing. Earlier today, that discount was only $10.

There are even bigger savings on pricier models like the MacBook Pro. The base 14-inch MacBook Pro M5 model is available for $1549 in the US, a massive $450 under Apple's new official price. How long these deals will last, though, is anyone's guess...

Today's best Apple MacBook deals in the US

Today's best Apple MacBook deals in the UK

We're officially on day three of Prime Day 2026, and Amazon's discounts on MacBooks and iPads couldn't be better timed.

Apple just raised prices across nearly its entire Mac lineup — including MacBooks, iMac, and Mac Studio — alongside the iPad family and home products such as the HomePod and Apple TV 4K.

While Apple's online store is already reflecting the higher prices, Amazon is still offering some of the best discounts we've seen all year on MacBooks and iPads — even without updating the new original prices.

• Browse the full Amazon Prime Day sale

Those deals look even better now that Apple's higher MSRPs are officially in effect. For instance, Apple now lists the 13-inch MacBook Air with the M5 chip, 16GB of RAM, and 512GB of storage at $1,299.99, but Amazon currently has it for $949. Likewise, the entry-level iPad now starts at $449 from Apple, while Amazon is selling it for just $299.

There's no telling how long these prices will last — though we're hoping they stick around through the remainder of Prime Day's four-day run. For now, keep scrolling for the best live deals on Macs, iPads, and Apple home devices that let you beat Apple's latest price increase.

You can even use the sidebar to jump to specific sections for each device category in the United States and the UK. Furthermore, while Apple hasn't raised prices for the Apple Watch, AirTags, or iPhone, I'm including deals for those as well since it's Prime Day after all.

Today's best iPad deals in the US

Today's best Apple MacBook deals in the US

Today's best Apple AirPods deals in the US

Today's best Apple Watch deals in the US

Today's best Apple AirTag deals in the US

Today's best Apple iPad deals in the UK

Today's best Apple MacBook deals in the UK

Today's best Apple AirPods deals in the UK

Today's best Apple Watch deals in the UK

Today's best Apple AirTag deals in the UK

Today's best Apple iPhone deals in the UK

More Prime Day deals in the US

• Amazon Devices: Fire Sticks & Echo from $18
• Amazon Haul: viral gadgets, tech & appliances from $1.99
• Apple: MacBooks, AirPods & AirTags from $29
• Beauty: 50% off toothbrushes & hair tools
• Cheap TVs: smart TVs from $69.99
• Garden: tools, mowers, planters from $24.99
• Headphones: 50% off Beats, Bose & Samsung
• Laptops: Apple, HP & Dell from $199
• Mattresses: Sealy, Serta & more from $186
• Patio: outdoor furniture, rugs & decor from $19.99
• Sports: 50% off fitness gear, treadmills & clothing
• Vacuums: Dyson, Shark & Bissell from $34

• Apple has raised prices across multiple categories
• The MacBook Neo notably got a sizable hike
• The move comes in response to the RAM crisis

While everyone is busy scooping up Amazon Prime Day deals on all manner of gadgets, Apple just dropped the opposite of deal news: price hikes across most major product categories, including the new MacBook Neo, MacBook Air, Apple TV, HomePod mini, and more.

Look, it's not like we didn't see this coming. Apple's outgoing CEO Tim Cook may be the supply chain maverick, ensuring the tech giant had ample supplies of components to fill tech orders for months, but the RAM and component crisis has dragged on for long enough that even Apple has been dragged in.

Cook warned us last month during an earnings call in which he cited "significantly higher memory costs" and then added that, starting this month, RAM prices would "drive an increasing impact" on Apple's products.

That impact has now translated into higher prices for numerous Apple products, which Apple announced by, well, not really announcing them. Instead, the Apple Store went offline at around 7:30AM ET on Thursday and then returned an hour later with new prices and, basically, no fanfare.

This is gonna hurt

Among the devices seeing a price hike is the exciting and affordable new MacBook Neo, a mobile CPU-powered laptop that was perfectly built for the back-to-school market, and at $599 to start, was Apple's cheapest laptop in memory. It now starts at $699, which also means the Neo with double the storage (512GB) and TouchID is now $799 to start.

There is essentially bad news across multiple categories.

The MacBook Air 13-inch with the M5 chip, a laptop I called "the best ultraportable I've ever used," jumps from $1,099 to start to $1,299. The MacBook Pro jumps a whopping $300 / AU$500 (from $1,699 to $1,999) to start.

Other products getting price hikes include the Apple TV streaming box (now starts at $199) and HomePod Mini(up to $129 from $99).

Perhaps more disturbing for the back-to-school set, the iPad Air base system jumps from $599 to $699.

One of the more shocking price hikes is for a product that, perhaps thankfully, many will not sweat: the Vision Pro. At $3,499 it was already wildly expensive. Now the M5 edition starts at — wait for it — $3,699. That won't help its chances with consumer market penetration.

Shielded from these price hikes is Apple's entire iPhone lineup, Apple Watch, and AirPods. So there's that.

Here are all of the changes Apple has made, for US and UK markets:

It's fairly clear Apple didn't want to do this. In fact, it's hard to remember a time when Apple summarily raised so many prices at once, but its hand was forced. Tech companies across almost every category are responding to these RAM shortages with higher prices.

We've contacted Apple and then sent us this comment: “The consumer electronics industry is facing an unprecedented challenge. The rapid expansion of AI data centers has created an extraordinary surge in demand for memory and storage. We have never seen a component price increase this much, this quickly. We have shielded our customers from these increases so far, but we have now reached a point where we need to begin raising prices on a number of products, including today’s increases for iPad and Mac. We know this is not welcome news, and we are working tirelessly to find solutions.”

If and when the RAM crisis subsides, will prices return to pre-RAM shortage levels, or is Apple setting a new normal? Only time will tell.

Go find the deals

In the meantime, Prime Day is still live, and there are ample chances to snap up good deals on these gadgets before you're left with nothing but the higher prices (where prices are rising). You'll find the best deals we spotted on iPads, MacBooks, and more below and in this roundup.

Prime Day iPad deals

Prime Day MacBook deals

Prime Day AirPod deals

Prime Day Apple Watch deals

Prime Day AirTag deals

• JP Morgan believes the iPhone 18 Pro price hike could be less severe than other analysts have predicted, at just $50
• Another analyst has flagged chip price increases at TSMC which will affect Apple, and its laptops are in a different situation to iPhones
• The end result could be substantial laptop price increases, while Apple's smartphones get away relatively unscathed

Update: Not long after this story was published, Apple officially announced price hikes on MacBooks (and other products). The MacBook Neo entry-level laptop got a straight $100 hike to start at $699 in the US (£699 in the UK, AU$1,049 in Australia).

The MacBook Air 13-inch with M5 has been hiked $200 to start at $1,299 (£1,299 / AU$2,099). The MacBook Pro has increased even more, by $300, so the baseline model is $1,999 (£1,999 / AU$3,199). In short, these are the painful hikes for Apple's laptops as predicted below, and notably the pricing of the iPhone range hasn't changed.

Original story follows below...

We know Apple's products have price hikes coming — Tim Cook has made that clear in no uncertain terms — but based on the latest spinning from the rumor mill, the iPhone could get away with a relatively mild price bump, with MacBooks potentially hit a good deal harder.

You might be surprised at the possibility that the next iPhone might not be hiked by all that much, because earlier rumors and napkin maths suggested that the incoming iPhone 18 Pro might hit $1,299 in the US, a hefty $200 increase (with a similarly step price hike for other countries). Others have theorized that there could be an even bigger jump than this.

However, as Phone Arena noticed, Max Weinbach, a tech analyst at Creative Strategies, posted on X to flag up JP Morgan's research on what the next-gen iPhone price hike might be.

Contrary to other analysis, JP Morgan thinks it might be more in line with a $50 price bump, as while memory costs will put a lot of pressure on Apple — as a Wccftech report recently underlined, noting that the firm is facing a "sticker shock heading into Q3" — the company seemingly has ways to mitigate those increases elsewhere. One such saving would be made by swapping to Apple's own modem for the new iPhone, as an example.

Another way Apple could theoretically alleviate the pressure on smartphone prices is to recoup some money by charging a premium for the rumored iPhone Ultra foldable, which will be inevitably pricey for those who want the latest and greatest tech (and it looks very much like that foldable is inbound for this year).

As for potential MacBook price hikes, there's not the same space for Apple to maneuver in terms of offsetting other component costs with its laptops. And as Tom's Hardware spotted, analyst (and former Bloomberg reporter) Tim Culpan has just delivered a rumor that TSMC is seemingly increasing chip prices for customers (from 3nm processes down to 7nm and older products) in the order of 5% to 10%.

That hits a bunch of firms who use TSMC to manufacture their chips, but notably AMD, Nvidia, and Apple. For Apple, the more heavyweight MacBook CPUs will be hit harder than mobile silicon, and on top of that, it's yet another unwelcome pressure on the affordably priced MacBook Neo.

As Culpan jokes at the end of his piece: "Maybe those red MacBook Neos will arrive after all." Puzzled as to what that means, exactly? Let's dive into that next.

Analysis: cooking the MacBooks

Arguably, Apple's biggest problem here is keeping the MacBook Neo at its tempting baseline price, in the face of these 'unavoidable' price rises as Tim Cook has called them. Mainly because the price is so low for an Apple laptop, with its popularity and demand meaning that the production of the Neo is rumored to have been massively cranked up.

Culpan has previously floated the theory that Apple will have to either apply price hikes to the MacBook Neo – and perhaps soften that blow with new colors (which is what the 'red Neo' comment refers to) – or just ditch the current entry-level variant, and offer the higher-tier Neo as a baseline instead. The latter is basically a way of applying a price hike of a hundred notes without actually having to increase prices technically, and what makes this seem more likely is that Apple did exactly that as a tactic with the Mac mini recently.

We don't know how this will play out yet, but it's looking increasingly likely that some considerable upward pricing movements will be coming to MacBooks, while the iPhone might perhaps escape the worsts.

A price hike of only $50 for the iPhone would be very much welcomed by many at this point as effectively stable pricing, given all that talk of a couple of hundred dollars or more being stuck on top of the current-gen price tag. And perhaps that's the point — with consumers fearing the worst for the iPhone 18 Pro, they'll eventually be relieved if this is the case.

At any rate — I've been saying this for a while — if you're thinking of buying a new MacBook, the time to move is very likely now, or soon, especially in the case of the Neo (unless you really, really want that red colorway, or whatever striking colors Apple may cook up to distract people from the new price tag).

"You can take the MacBook back. I don’t have the patience to learn a new thing," said my wife as she slid the MacBook Neo back across the kitchen counter.

It was the unceremonious end to a two-week-long experiment in which I encouraged my wife, a decades-long Windows user, to give Apple a try, more specifically, the flavor of Apple found in a lovely, citrus MacBook Neo.

Look, I am no pusher. Ever since I started testing the $599 laptop, my wife had been eyeing it. She was becoming Mac curious. This had a lot to do with her creaky Microsoft Surface Pro 4, a decade-old system that would soon face the dreaded end of Windows 10 security updates (no TPM 2.0 on that old Surface Pro).

As a realtor, she kind of loved the old girl. It ably ran all of her Web-based business software, handled emails, basic art needs for whipping up new listing sheets, and social media materials. She also knew, however, that it was almost time for an upgrade. We both wondered if the affordable and mid-range-powered MacBook Neo could ably step in for the Surface Pro.

My wife even told me that, if she went with the MacBook Neo, Cirtus would not be her choice; the blush looked rather nice. Of course, Citrus is what I had on hand, so that's what she got.

I told her that, while different, macOS would not be completely foreign. Sure, it moved some things around, but my wife was no Luddite; she picked up new tech pretty well.

One thing about her, though, should have been a warning: she hates change.

Taking the macOS plunge

Simply buying her a MacBook Neo — even if there are some nifty Prime Day Deals right now — without knowing if she'd take to it made no sense, and since I'd been testing and using this on-and-off for months, we decided to set her up with it as if she'd bought the system brand new.

I reset the MacBook Neo. It's a $699 model with Touch ID and 512GB of storage, and I told her that this would likely be the one we would buy anyway since I wouldn't want her to run into storage issues.

Next, we sat side-by-side as I walked her through the setup. She took to this part quickly, though I realized that the placement of Touch ID on the power/sleep button was non-obvious. When I told her to register her finger to unlock the laptop, she stared at the system for a few seconds, clearly looking for something with a fingerprint symbol.

You're on your own

For the next couple of weeks, I would watch her slip the laptop into her work bag or use it at the dining room table. I did catch her occasionally trying to tap the screen, which was unsurprising. After all, she'd spent a decade with a touch-screen convertible. I'd ask her how it was going, and she'd give me a slightly less-than-enthusiastic "OK".

At work, she said she struggled to connect to the office printer and finally had a coworker step in and help her.

When she was at home, I showed her how to add her OneDrive account to access work files, a move that seemed to both confound and confuse her. The Windows system automatically integrates the drive. For the Mac, there's an app and then a few steps.

Even the benefits I found in adding a Mac to my Apple ecosystem were lost on her:
"Why do my iPhone notifications keep popping up on the MacBook? That's annoying."

I kept waiting for that moment, the epiphany that triggered, "Why didn't I make this switch years ago?"

It never came.

She found the need to use two fingers to enact right-click functions confusing and didn't seem all that thrilled with the trackpad.

It was clear she appreciated the MacBook Neo design, and yet, she told me, “It’s nice and sleek and all of that, but I could get a new PC that’s nice and sleek and all of that."

As we walked through a Best Buy looking at both MacBook Neo and a bunch of comparable Windows machines from Lenovo, HP, Dell, and Acer, it was clear that the MacBook Neo had not won her over.

After she returned the system, my wife told me that she just couldn't get used to all the differences. Why was the control center at the top? Why did the dock look like that? How could they not have a Start button?

For the average Mac user, like myself, there were all good reasons for these design elements and placements, but, having been a switcher myself, I understood the confusion. Working on a MacBook after 30 years on Windows means you are living in a constant state of "Who moved my cheese?" And when you, as my wife does, have important work to get done, you can't have a system's quirks getting in the way of your productivity.

Getting real

None of this is a commentary on the still excellent MacBook Neo, but it does say something about a certain class of users who, while Apple might try to attract them with the affordable MacBook Neo, are unlikely to make the switch.

The reality is that the best market for the MacBook Neo is still the back-to-school market, where it will likely have an easier time of swaying kids who've used Chromebooks or have only been on iPads.

They'll become Apple's newest customers. As for aging Windows users, getting them to make the switch might be more than Apple can or should hope for — even with the appealing MacBook Neo.

• Apple's CEO has warned that "price increases are unavoidable" for its products
• That means more expensive Macs, iPhones and iPads for starters
• Price hikes will likely be substantial, and there are concerns that product lines could be adjusted as seen recently with the Mac mini – is the entry-level MacBook Neo to suffer the same fate?

CEO Tim Cook has warned that Apple is going to substantially hike prices on its products due to the RAM crisis.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal (as spotted by Wccftech), Cook said: "Unfortunately, price increases are unavoidable. We're doing our best to mitigate the huge increases that are being passed to us, and we've been trying to shield our customers from the increases, but the situation has become unsustainable."

The spiralling costs of both memory and storage (SSDs) means that Apple needs to put up prices, and the hikes will be "substantial" the report suggests (as did Cook's previous comments whereby the CEO said that from June, Apple will be facing "significant" cost increases for memory and this will "drive an increasing impact" on Apple's products).

So, this wasn't unexpected, but now it's crystal clear that these price increases are coming due to the "unsustainable" situation around memory chip supply (which is being eaten by AI and data centers to the detriment of consumer products).

What we don't know is the magnitude of these price increases, or what products they might apply to, as Cook didn't furnish us with any specific info along those lines.

It's a safe enough bet that Apple's core products are going to get pricier, though, meaning the iPhone, iPad and Macs. The WSJ even theorizes that the iPhone Pro 18 might cost from $1,299 in the US based on some rough maths.

Analysis: time to buy a Mac?

How soon these price hikes might happen is another key question, of course, but given Cook's previous comments about June, Mac rises could be imminent, as the WSJ indicates – particularly given that we've already seen the Mac mini get pricier at its baseline level. If you recall, Apple discontinued the most affordable entry-level model with 256GB of storage, effectively making the cheapest Mac mini a third more expensive.

The upshot is that if you're thinking of buying a Mac, now seems to be the time to pull the trigger, before these devices get pricier. Any deals that pop up on MacBooks for Prime Day could well be worth pouncing on, and there's already been a discount applied to the MacBook Neo (in the UK).

Grabbing that deal might be a particularly smart move to make, actually, because if the Mac mini is anything to go by, the current base version of the MacBook Neo may not survive the coming quarter. As one of a few such comments on this Reddit thread puts it: "The $599 MacBook Neo was fun while it lasted."

As to what all this means more broadly for Apple pricing moving forward, another interesting point that Cook brings up in the interview with the WSJ is that he says Apple is willing to use its "balance sheet to help be a part of the solution."

By that, the CEO doesn't mean Apple is about to fund the building of its own chip production facilities, and Cook explicitly states that. What it indicates is that the company is going to invest in this side of the tech industry, but exactly how is up for debate.

Some (like Jukan on X) theorize that what Cook is referring to is Apple prepaying to secure more memory supply – and that'll require a serious amount of upfront cash to compete with the major AI players. Others believe this could mean that Apple might help fund expansion plans for memory chip makers as part of some kind of deal to lock in more favorable longer-term pricing for iPhone, iPad and Mac memory supply.

Meanwhile, Jukan also highlighted a message from President Trump on Truth Social which states that "Apple has agreed to work with Intel to design and build its chips in America", as has been previously rumored as a way of diversifying away from Apple's reliance on TSMC.

Tim Cook said before that Apple is exploring a "range of options" in terms of dealing with the RAM crisis, and it seems there's a lot going on behind the scenes right now. Hopefully we'll learn more about the details soon enough, but for now, I'm nervously watching what happens with the MacBook Neo and other Apple laptops.

Schrödinger sock. That's how I describe the child's foot apparel that was not visible but brought to photo-realistic life by Apple Intelligence running on iOS 27 Dev Beta. The sock exists in the liminal space between assumption and reality. Only generative AI can make it real, even if the child in the photo was never wearing his other sock. Such is the power of the upcoming update to Apple's iOS and other platforms, and of the up-to-now relatively disappointing Apple Intelligence: Apple takes on Artificial Intelligence so carefully applied that it seemed woefully behind the competition.

But that was before.

Today, after its unveiling on Monday at WWDC 2026, we have the new Apple Intelligence and its powerful image-altering and creation tools that are the product of powerful off-device models built in cooperation with Google, or rather, that incorporate Google's generative models but apply them with Apple flair.

In the demo I saw, designed to show off the power of Apple Intelligence's new and enhanced Image Editing tools, we looked at the more powerful clean up that can do something Apple has never tried before in image editing: create something biological out of nothing, or at least infer the existence of something human we clearly cannot see. In this case, a child's socked foot. In the image (which I sadly cannot share here, but there are other examples above), the boy is seated on the floor, with one leg partially obscured by a large stuffed bear.

As before, we can trace over such distractions like a chair and the bear, and then tap Clean Up to remove them. Removal is something Apple Intelligence is already quite good at, but replacing large image parts or creating what should be there was really not part of Apple's generative image editing strategy. Now it is.

Like magic, we could see the rest of the child's leg and his other socked foot. No matter that this small boy might not have been wearing a sock on that foot, it got the same sock. As I said, we'll never know if that sock ever truly existed, but in the mind's eye of Apple Intelligence, it does.

Reframing the story

The other tools similarly stretch the bounds of memory and reality. Spatial reframing is a wild Apple Intelligence tool that applies a sort of 3D model to the image, letting you subtly rotate the subject and background this way and that to better frame your image. You can even grab and shift the subject a little bit. I watched them do this with an image of a woman sitting on the grass. I must admit that the final result did look better, and I guess no one will remember the less perfectly composed photos. At least you can always go back to the original, imperfect image to remember how things truly were.

Perhaps the best and least drastic of these generative image alteration features is the new expansion tool that, like AI tools in, say, Adobe Firefly, lets you basically extend the background in a photo to make it a better fit for a certain frame or wallpaper. It's something I could see myself using quite a bit, especially because it leaves the subjects alone.

Create something new

Yes, friends, we are officially entering uncharted Apple territory. For a company that prides itself on photographic excellence with one of the best cameras, sensors, and image pipelines in the business, it is now fully in bed with photorealistic imagination creation.

In one demo I saw, a young man wanted to create a flyer to promote a, I think, a bake sale for his friend, Phil. As before, Image Playground lets you choose seed photos and subjects from your Photos library, but where the old app would stick to basically comic book renderings of these subjects, the new app, with new Gemini-infused models backing it (they all live on Apple's Private Cloud compute), happily creates photorealistic images.

It's now a powerful tool, and I watched as we selected the subject (Phil) and described him piping a cake and with a bowl of fruit nearby. Soon, our buddy Phil appeared on screen looking very much like a master baker. No matter if the guy ever baked a cake in his life, let alone decorated one. He was doing it here. There's nothing real about this image, and while Apple likes to talk about maintaining the essence of our photos in the Apple Intelligence-powered Photo editing tools, this other land will create full-scale image narratives from whole cloth.

Yes, there is some sonic dissonance here.

Even so, Image Playground is now a vastly more powerful tool. After we gave Phil his fake bakery skills, we decided that the bowl of berries we requested for the image was not the right kind of berries. No matter, we simply used the Apple Pencil to select the berry bowl and then asked the app to switch it to blueberries. We also asked for a cupcake tower because Phil's baker bonifides were not quite strong enough.

The result was photorealistic perfection.

This is what you wanted, right? We all said Apple was behind. Now it's pulling even with the rest of the generative image world. It's progress, though I'm not sure to what end.

We're usually accustomed to big retailers like Amazon listing record-low prices over big sales events like Memorial Day, but I've just spotted a surprise post-event discount on one of our favorite laptops here at TechRadar.

Right now, the retailer has the excellent Apple MacBook Pro 13 M5 listed for just $899 (was $1,099) — a price that beats the previous record by a full $50.

While we've seen this latest model regularly drop to $949 in recent months, today's price cut is even better and definitely a surprise considering that the MacBook Air M5 is still relatively new as of writing.

This particular model saw a real price hike at launch thanks to the new chipset and an upgraded 512GB storage configuration, which is significantly better than the 256GB that the old models came with. Today's discount, however, addresses the price hike with a deal that's easily up there with the MacBook Neo when it comes to outright value.

Record-low MacBook Air deal at Amazon

• See more: check out all of today's deals at Amazon

Note, while the price cut on the MacBook Air is the headline deal at Amazon today, the retailer also has good discounts on other models. I've attached a few more options just down below, including the high-end MacBook Pro and the budget-oriented MacBook Neo, which is another fantastic value choice.

Other great MacBook deals to check out today

As if you needed more of an excuse to buy a shiny MacBook, Amazon has just listed a range of record-low price cuts across all three of the latest models.

That means a great discount on the MacBook Pro M5, the MacBook Air M5, and even the brand new MacBook Neo. Whatever you need, the retailer has a deal for you ahead of this year's Memorial Day.

Starting with the MacBook Neo, you can currently pick up Apple's budget laptop for just $589 (was $600) right now. Not the biggest price cut in the world, but I'd take a $10 saving on a laptop that's already outstanding value.

Where the discounts ramp up is with the latest MacBook Air 13, which is currently $949 (was $1,099) on the baseline 16GB/512GB configuration. This discount addresses our main issue with what's otherwise an amazing laptop — the fact that this iteration is pricier than the last. With this deal, however, you're saving a bundle.

Finally, check out the MacBook Pro for $1,499 (was $1,699) if you need a high-end machine. We've seen this price on one occasion before, but it's another record-low price that's well worth considering. With $200 off, you're cutting down that hefty price significantly here.

Record-low price MacBooks at Amazon

• See more: check out all of today's deals at Amazon

What's the best MacBook to buy right now?

The MacBook Pro is the best MacBook you can buy, but it's likely overkill if you're not going to be doing demanding work on your machine. For daily use, both the MacBook Air and MacBook Neo are fantastic choices for most people.

The Neo features the same chipset as the iPhone 17 Pro, which, on paper, would suggest it's a much weaker performer than the others. In reality, however, even the baseline 8GB RAM / 256GB configuration can provide decent performance if you're just using your machine for the basics like streaming, browsing social media, or writing content.

The MacBook Air is a great compromise if you think you need a little more headroom from your machine. It's powerful enough for creative tasks like photo editing, music production, or coding and provides excellent battery life overall. It's a little thinner and more portable than the Pro, and features silent operation thanks to its fanless design.

The MacBook Pro, with its built-in fans, really unleashes the potential of the latest Apple chipsets, by comparison. As the name suggests, it's the natural choice for 'professional' workloads because you not only get more performance headroom, but more ports, a better display, and better speakers. It's pricier, but again, if you want a laptop that can rival much bigger desktops in terms of power, this is it.

The latest MacBook Pro 14 is a stunning laptop that's perfect for both casual and professional use. The only issue? It usually comes with a hefty outlay versus the cheaper Air and Neo models.

Right now, however, several retailers have the latest model listed for record-low prices on various configurations, making the Pro model a much more tempting buy.

For example, you can currently get the 24GB/512GB variant of the 14-inch MacBook Pro for $1,499 (was $1,799) at B&H Photo this week. According to my own price checking, this is a record-low price and one that actually makes this mid-range configuration cheaper than the entry-level 16GB/512GB version.

Another great MacBook Pro 14 deal today is the 32GB/1TB configuration for $1,799 (was $2,099) at Amazon. Again, this one looks to be a record-low price on a model that's particularly popular this week — and it's also a particularly good option if you're looking for a reliable machine for professional work.

Today's best MacBook Pro 14 deals

Is the latest MacBook Pro worth it?

Arguably, yes. Although it does depend on your use case. For most people, we usually recommend the MacBook Air for basic tasks like browsing, streaming, and light editing work, for example. The MacBook Pro is arguably overkill if you're just looking to cover the basics with a lightweight and stylish machine.

If you're a 'power user', however, which I would define as either a professional or an enthusiast, then the MacBook Pro is a fantastic choice. The Pro model features a better display, more ports, and overall much better performance. Even though some models share the same chipset, the Pro model's cooling fans allow it to properly tackle heavy workloads without any slowdowns.

If you're interested in reading more about the latest Pro model, then I'd recommend checking out our full MacBook Pro 14 (M5) review, which assesses the machine in much more detail.

If you've got the latest MacBook Neo in your shopping cart ready to go, I have a deal that could potentially just stop you in your tracks. It's on the equally excellent, but higher-end, MacBook Air M5.

Right now, Best Buy has this model listed for just $949 (was $1,099) on its baseline 16GB RAM / 512GB configuration. That's a great deal in itself, but what's really caught my eye is the retailer's trade-in program. Using this program, you can currently stack that upfront saving with some serious additional discounts.

From my own testing, it looks like you can get up to $600 off by trading in an older MacBook Air right now. Similarly, the retailer also accepts Windows laptops from well-known brands, so this could be a good opportunity to make the switch.

In some circumstances - depending on the value of your trade-in - you could potentially get a MacBook Air for even cheaper than $599, which is the starting price of the new MacBook Neo. If you can, it feels like a real no-brainer to go for the higher-end model here.

Best Buy's latest MacBook Air deal

Is the MacBook Air better than the Neo?

Better is subjective, but the Air is certainly a higher-end laptop than the Neo. It's designed from the ground up to have more performance - and, under normal circumstances, rightfully fetches a higher asking price than the Neo.

That said, if you're not trading in, there is still a strong case for the Neo at $599. If you're someone who just wants a laptop for the basics and even some demanding tasks within reason, the Neo is fantastic. It's just on those more demanding workloads where the Air is going to have more headroom.

The Air does come with a fair share of upgrades, too. Alongside the better chipset, the baseline Air configuration comes with 16GB of RAM and a speedier 512GB SSD. On top of that, you've also got a haptic mouse pad, better audio, and better ports overall.

For further details, I'd recommend checking out our Apple MacBook Air 13 (M5) review and Apple MacBook Neo review pages.

• Apple's incoming laptop with OLED touchscreen is set to be called the MacBook Ultra, according to a source who spoke to Macworld
• Packing M6 silicon, it's expected to sit above the existing MacBook Pro M5
• Macworld notes: "This new MacBook will cost significantly more than the current MacBook Pro and offer an entirely new feature set."

We've heard a bit more about the rumored MacBook Ultra, a possible new model that Apple could have planned for its laptop range – and this Ultra branding could extend further than laptops, too.

Macworld claims it has a source who reckons that the rumored MacBook with an OLED touchscreen won't be a MacBook Pro (as was believed until recently), but that instead Apple will introduce a new category: the MacBook Ultra.

You won't like the reason for this potential name change, mind, which is essentially that the MacBook OLED will be seriously pricey, hence the need to recategorize it as a new even higher-end offering, placed above the MacBook Pro.

As Macworld states: "This new MacBook will cost significantly more than the current MacBook Pro and offer an entirely new feature set than the existing models."

Last month, Mark Gurman of Bloomberg (via MacRumors) also said the new top-end Apple laptop with OLED could be called the MacBook Ultra.

As well as the touchscreen and OLED upgrades, the belief is that this MacBook Ultra will run with M6 Pro and Max chips, and it'll be thinner than the MacBook Pro (which would fit the idea of it being ultra-premium, as it were). The touchscreen in particular would change the MacBook experience considerably, of course, or presumably that's the idea.

The expected launch window for this new MacBook is the first half of 2027, we're told, though Apple has apparently pushed that back from late in 2026 due to the RAM crisis. All of this is rumored, of course, so grab some handfuls of salt.

Analysis: Ultra branding feels like a distinct possibility

It makes sense for Apple to try to clearly differentiate a model that goes above and beyond where the MacBook Pro currently stands by adding an OLED touchscreen. After all, that's going to be a costly upgrade, and the suggestion of a new MacBook Ultra name hints that it might be very pricey indeed. Of course, people won't just be paying for the hardware, but the cachet of owning an 'Ultra' device from Apple.

The branding also fits with Apple's existing scheme of things in terms of its processors, which have base models, then Pro and Max variants, followed by Ultra at the top.

I wouldn't bet against a MacBook Ultra appearing, then, particularly as we've heard a few bits of chatter from the grapevine about such a laptop in recent times. It seems the idea might be to keep the MacBook Pro M5 models in place, with the MacBook Ultra M6 coming in on top, featuring something in the order of a 20% price hike, Gurman has speculated in the past.

As mentioned at the outset, there could be a fair few more products carrying the Ultra name besides this MacBook.

Macworld also believes that Apple is planning an iPhone Ultra, a foldable device that's been rumored elsewhere, and further theorizes about an iPad Ultra, Mac Studio Ultra, and maybe even an AirPods Ultra (with built-in cameras) that could be on the cards for the future. This might well be the case if Apple really wants to push the Ultra branding and give it a presence across a whole swathe of (more expensive) hardware.

• New rumors suggest Apple's MacBook Neo will receive an upgrade in 2027
• Reliable tech columnist Tim Culpan expects the Neo to use the iPhone 17 Pro's A19 Pro chip with 12GB of RAM
• The Neo is also expected to stick with a five-core GPU instead of the A19 Pro's six-core GPU

The MacBook Neo is critically acclaimed as one of the best budget laptops despite the downside of 8GB of unified memory. That might change next year, but the ongoing RAM crisis could make things challenging for Apple.

As reported by MacRumors, Apple's MacBook Neo could be set to receive two upgrades, with an A19 Pro chip and a push up to 12GB of RAM in 2027, according to tech columnist Tim Culpan in the Culpium newsletter. This would see the MacBook Neo utilize the same chip used in iPhone 17 Pro models: the A19 Pro.

The current MacBook Neo became available this March, with both 256GB and 512GB storage models limited to 8GB of memory, so the purported upgrade to 12GB is expected to give the Neo an extra boost for productivity and multitasking.

Culpan also anticipates the rumored upgraded Neo will use a 'binned' (slightly less powerful, but stable) version of the A19 Pro, but a five-core GPU instead of the chip's six-core GPU. That means there won't be much of an upgrade in GPU power, since the A18 Pro already has a five-core GPU.

However, there's an elephant in the room, which is the ongoing RAM crisis impacting several PC hardware manufacturers, and ultimately leading to higher prices for consumers. The likes of Dell, Framework, and several other laptop companies have been hit with supply chain problems in the past four months.

Fortunately, it's widely reported that Apple had its RAM supply chain locked down before the RAM crisis hit, and frankly, Apple's RAM usage on hardware is used efficiently to deliver good performance without needing more memory, unlike other Windows 11-based systems.

We can only hope that by the time the rumored MacBook Neo upgrade arrives, the RAM crisis and its impact will have simmered down, or Apple's supply chain stays strong throughout 2026, leading into next year.

Right now is a great time to pick up a new MacBook. Not only have several new models hit the market recently, but they've received price cuts at Amazon and other leading retailers.

Even better still, there's a model for everyone right now, thanks to the release of the new MacBook Neo. That starts at just $589 (was $599) at Amazon today, which is an almost unbelievable price considering what the Neo is capable of. If someone had said a year ago that a brand new MacBook would be available for under $600, I wouldn't have believed them.

Moving up in price, most people will find the MacBook Air 13 for $949 (was $1,099) as a great middle ground between the budget Neo and the pricey Pro models. The M5 chipset and 16GB of RAM inside this iteration mean it's a meaningful step-up from the Neo in terms of performance, and you also get better ports and speakers. Today's deal at Amazon also brings this brand-new model down to a record-low price.

Finally, there's also the MacBook Pro M5 for $1,549 (was $1,699) at Amazon. This is $50 off the previous record-low, but it's still a very good price cut for the latest iteration. Alongside the powerful M5 chipset and 1TB of storage, the Pro model's expanded ports and stunning Liquid Retina XDR display make it a fantastic option for professionals. Again, a terrific deal in the mid to upper ranges for a laptop.

Today's best MacBook deals at Amazon

• See more: check out all of today's deals at Amazon

Why now is a good time to pick up a MacBook

Aside from the fact that there's a MacBook for pretty much everyone right now, I suspect these price cuts at Amazon and other retailers will be unbeaten for a few months down the line. Even with the Memorial Day sales just around the corner, I doubt that retailers will post discounts much better than this - these are brand new models, after all.

Today's deal on the MacBook Air M5 is particularly good, since it addresses the main issue we had with the model when we reviewed it earlier this year. We loved the new chipset and increased storage, but felt the upcharge in price was a little steep considering it has the same design and display as the previous iteration. Now, it's much easier on the pocket, however.

If you’ve read many of my pieces on TechRadar, you’ll know I’ve been threatening to buy a new MacBook for a long while now. In part, this is because my laptop was a MacBook Pro 13-inch 2017 and its performance was getting decidedly dicey during demanding tasks. A far bigger motivation was the professional embarrassment of still using an Intel-based machine almost six years after the brand switched to using its far more powerful Apple silicon chipset.

So when the MacBook Air M5 was announced, I knew I was going to be pulling the trigger. Not only was every MacBook Air M5 review I read glowing, but I knew it was such a substantial step up from my existing machine that I would be getting enormous value out of every dollar I spent.

After much deliberation — by which I mean two weeks solid of full-blown choice gridlock — I finally settled on my chosen spec. Upgrading to 24GB of RAM was a bit of a no-brainer. While the MacBook Air 13-inch’s default 16GB is already double that of my last MacBook Pro, I wanted to make sure I was fully future-proofed for increasing software demands.

And thanks to the enormous size of some music-making tools and audio sample packs that I use regularly, I’ve had issues with SSD space in recent years, requiring regular trawls of my files to find things to delete. In light of this, skipping over the base 512GB drive to the 1TB seemed to make perfect sense

Now that’s not the cheapest spec for one of the best laptops by any means. In fact, it set me back a cool $1,499 / £1,499 / AU$2,399, which is a fair step up from the $1,099 / £1,099 / AU$1,799 charged for the base edition. But coupled with the M5 chip, that gives me a whole lot of power to play with, especially compared to a model so old that it was still running an Intel-based chipset.

My mind finally made up, I finally ordered my new MacBook Air after more than a year of posturing. And just two days later, my brand-new laptop was tossed over my neighbor’s hedge on my doorstep.

Starting up

Not gonna lie: unboxing my new MacBook Air genuinely gave me a bit of a buzz. Partly that’s because it’s a gorgeous piece of kit, with the sky blue colorway I opted for looking subtle and metallic while offering just a hint of hue that makes it stand out. But a far bigger factor is I’m in my 40s and this is what passes for excitement at my age.

Getting the MacBook Air set up was as easy as ever with Apple’s hardware. Once I’d set basics like region and language, all I had to do was connect both my machines to the Wi-Fi, fire up Migration Assistant and start transferring all my apps and files over. After just 90 agonizing minutes, I was all good to go on my new machine.

So how does the experience of using the MacBook Air M5 compare to my creaking old Intel-based MacBook Pro? Well, I don’t know whether anyone’s ever hit upon this hot take before but… Apple Silicon seems kinda fast.

Booting it up takes me just 30 seconds — and that includes the 15 or so seconds it takes me to fumble in my password. Everyday apps like Apple Music or Safari open in under a second, meaning my MacBook has usually loaded them faster than my rusty reaction times have had a chance to grind into gear. That’s a pretty big step up from my former MacBook, which definitely needed a bit of a runup to even open fairly undemanding apps.

This speedy performance extends to productivity as well. Don’t get me wrong: my old MacBook was no slouch when it came to web browsing and Google Drive work, but Chrome is not the lightest-weight browser ever conceived, so it can occasionally cause serious CPU constipation. But there’s no hint of this on my new MacBook Air. Even with many windows, each with a dozen tabs open — look, writers aren’t exactly renowned for our orderly workspaces — this kind of everyday usage feels lightning-fast.

Performance art

But these kinds of trifling tasks are a bit of a waste of the M5 chip’s talents — where I really noticed a difference was using apps like Photoshop. Not only does Photoshop boot on my MacBook Air M5 within 10 seconds rather than the minute it used to take, I can sketch on a hi-res artwork with more than 20 layers without any appreciable lag. And while I don’t use generative AI tools on principle, a quick test of generating a hi-res image using the built-in Image Playground tool of macOS took less than five seconds. Given Photoshop used to make my MacBook Pro 2017 wheeze like an emphysemic bellows, this is seriously impressive performance.

However, while I dabble in digital art, the main reason I decided to upgrade is for improved performance while making music. Before upgrading, even with a third of my channels mixed down to audio, many of my tracks would regularly see my CPU usage spike to 120% (macOS has a funny way of displaying CPU usage per core, leading to weird results like that), while their RAM usage sat at around double my physical 8GB RAM allocation. You don’t need to be great at math to see why this might be a problem.

By contrast, the new MacBook Air M5 peaked around 60% CPU usage and at about 130% of my 24GB physical RAM — and that’s with all my midi channels and effects running in real time. That’s a significant improvement and means that I’m no longer red-lining my CPU just to add a little polish to my beats.

Even though I’ve barely scratched the surface of what the M5 chip can do, so far it’s proving significantly speedier than any laptop I’ve owned before. But that new chipset isn’t the only factor that’s making an enormous difference to my productivity — the more expansive MacBook SSD is a huge help as well.

While a few people balked at the increased price when the latest MacBook Air was announced, I’m firmly of the opinion that the little bump in cost was more than justified thanks to the increased 512GB storage capacity. After many years of micromanaging my storage and deleting or offloading every single file I could possibly spare, I’ve been desperate for more space on my laptop. That new 512GB baseline would have taken the pressure off considerably, while my 1TB SSD should mean I don’t have to worry about space again for years to come.

So after less than 24 hours with the MacBook Air M5, I’ve been suitably impressed with what it can do. But what I’m looking forward to most is putting that power to work and really pumping some fuel into my creative engine. From what I’ve seen so far, I have zero regrets about my purchase.

Amazon is no stranger to price cuts on MacBooks, but every now and again, the retailer breaks ranks with a truly good discount. Today, it's on the slightly older 2025 MacBook Air 13, which you can pick up for £849 (was £999).

This particular deal not only undercuts the latest 2026 model by £150, but it's for the upgraded 512GB storage variant, meaning you don't have to settle for a miserly 256GB version that was recently discontinued by the brand. In short, you're getting a cheap MacBook Air here that's almost identical to the latest model, albeit with a slightly less powerful and efficient chipset.

At £849, I'd even favourably compare the 2025 MacBook Air 13 to the new MacBook Neo. The latter is much, much cheaper at £549 (was £599), but it's worth stretching for the MacBook Air if you're looking for something that can handle more intensive workloads. And, there are other reasons to go for the Air, like a better screen, more ports, and more RAM on the baseline model.

Today's best MacBook deal at Amazon

• See more: check out all of today's deals at Amazon

Also available at Amazon...

Is the MacBook Air a better buy right now?

The MacBook Neo is perfectly capable for everyday tasks and can handle some heavier apps, but it is more aimed at casual use. If you’re dealing with more demanding workloads, the MacBook Air M4 is the better option.

While the Neo’s A18 chip is solid, the Air’s M4 processor offers noticeably more performance headroom and handles multitasking with greater ease. That’s helped by the Air’s standard 16GB of RAM, which is a clear upgrade over the Neo’s 8GB.

You also get a few key hardware perks with the Air, including a faster SSD for quicker load times, a haptic trackpad, and significantly improved speakers. Perhaps most importantly, it features two Thunderbolt 4 USB-C ports, allowing support for dual external 1440p monitors.

• Leaker Mark Gurman believes Apple has pushed back the MacBook Pro with touchscreen (and the Mac Studio)
• The next-gen laptop is likely not arriving until early 2027, with the chances of a launch this year rapidly vanishing
• More than anything, reaction to the news has made it clear that some Apple laptop fans really don't want a touchscreen on their MacBook

Apple's rumored MacBook Pro with a touchscreen (and OLED) is supposedly now pushed out to next year for launch, and we're told that the Mac Studio's release has been postponed as well.

MacRumors picked up that in Mark Gurman's latest newsletter for Bloomberg, the noted Apple-watcher said it was possible that both these Macs could experience a 'slight' delay, and — surprise, surprise — it's due to the RAM crisis.

Apparently, the MacBook Pro 14-inch and 16-inch with touchscreen are now expected to arrive in early 2027. Note that this isn't necessarily a delay as such, because previously Gurman said these laptops were due to arrive in a timeframe from late 2026 to early 2027.

So, that hasn't changed, but we're now being told that these devices won't be launched until the latter part of that window, and that this is due to the ongoing memory crisis.

Seemingly the Mac Studio has been pushed back to October 2026, whereas this PC was previously rumored to be launching in the middle of this year, according to Gurman. We've already seen this month that some Macs are getting thinner on the ground for stock, of course, including the Mac Studio.

Analysis: a touchy subject

Clearly, it's believable enough that Apple may have to rejig some of its launch plans due to the RAM crisis. After all, the situation around memory — which includes storage, the SSDs inside PCs, as well as system RAM itself — has not gotten any better of late. (Although we have seen minor glints of optimism, they are just that — very slight in nature).

Okay, so it's a relatively minor (and obviously theoretical) delay; but part of what's been interesting here is the reaction to Gurman's most recent report around the next-gen MacBook Pro (M6) with touchscreen.

Notably, there's been quite a lot of negative or doubtful feedback around the need for a touchscreen on a MacBook. As one Redditor put it: "Touch on a Mac feels like solving a problem that doesn't really exist. Trackpad and keyboard are already near perfect for what macOS is built for."

Another in the same thread observed: "The touchscreen PC fad never really went anywhere. Not sure why Apple would try it out now."

And another denizen of Reddit simply said that: "MacBook Pro with touchscreen is a bad idea anyway."

Indeed, there's a fair outpouring of skepticism in that Reddit thread (all those comments are from the same one) about what Apple is hoping to achieve with this rumored move to a touchscreen (which will come alongside the much-awaited switch to OLED, or so we're told).

The main concern is that this is going to lead to changes in macOS to support touch functionality that'll be detrimental to the experience on existing (and indeed future) non-touch Macs.

However, if Apple did this – assuming the touchscreen MacBook is indeed coming – it would presumably have to respect the lines already drawn with macOS in terms of its interface. In other words, whatever touch aspects were added to the operating system would be overlaid on top as useful extras and shortcuts – an additional bonus that doesn't affect the existing platform.

As the original Redditor I quoted further notes: "Trackpad already covers most of what people want from touch without breaking workflow. Touch on a Mac feels more like a nice-to-have than something necessary."

And I think this nails it as far as the route Apple would likely take here: 'nice' additions that don't mess with existing workflows in macOS, because disrupting the latter would be foolish (in a world where most Macs still won't have touchscreen capabilities, of course). And this pretty much aligns with what we've heard Gurman say in the past — namely that Apple is going to make macOS adapt to the input method you're using, whether that's trackpad and keyboard, or touch.

Other than that, for the anti-touchscreen crowd, or the more undecided skeptics, I guess the broader fear is that this is about where Apple might be heading for the future. And also that a touchscreen (and OLED tech) will make the MacBook Pro potentially a good deal pricier — and in this climate of sky-high RAM costs we don't need any further pressures making already pricey MacBooks even more expensive.

Slight delays aside, it's clear enough that Apple is going to need to tread carefully with how it implements a touchscreen for the MacBook, if this is the course it has set sail on.

The latest Apple MacBook Air M5 is barely a month old, but we're already starting to see promising deals on this outstanding notebook. Right now, the best overall option has to be Best Buy's current promotion.

The retailer is currently listing the entry-level 16GB RAM / 512GB SSD configuration for a record-low price of $949 (was $1,099). That alone is a pretty damn good deal, but the real selling point here is that you can further supplement your savings by trading in an old machine.

I've been testing the retailer's trade-in calculator, and I've managed to hit a rebate value of $600 for a trade on a MacBook Air M3 in good condition. Combined with the current upfront discount, that's a total cost of $349 for a newly released MacBook Air.

Of course, hitting that maximum rebate is solely dependent on how good your old machine is. But even still, getting a few hundred dollars off the current listing price is absolutely nothing to be sniffed at here. It's entirely possible you could pick up a MacBook Air for the same price as the $599 entry-level MacBook Neo, for example.

Today's Apple MacBook Air deal at Best Buy

• See more: check out today's latest deals at Best Buy

Is the latest MacBook Air M5 worth picking up?

Our Apple MacBook Air 13 (M5) review stated that this machine was 'one of the best' ultra-portable laptops we'd ever used. That was to be expected, however, as we've always found the MacBook Air to be a real winner when it comes to design, portability, and value.

This particular model is a relatively modest upgrade over the previous iteration, but it does come with double the starting storage and a more efficient chipset. In short, the traditional MacBook Air selling points of portability and battery life have been further boosted, even though this one looks the same as last year's model.

Our only complaint? We weren't fans of the higher starting price, but today's price cut renders that criticism null and void.

The new Apple MacBook Neo has undoubtedly been one of the most popular tech launches of the year so far. So popular, in fact, that it seems to have overshadowed the brand's other recent launch, the latest MacBook Air M5. I imagine that's partly why you can pick up the MacBook Air M5 for $949 (was $1,099) at Amazon.

A $150 price cut this soon after launch is rare on a new Apple MacBook, but I'm certainly not complaining. This is a fantastic record-low price on a machine that we still think is an exceptional buy for most people.

Our recently published review awarded it an impressive four and a half stars out of five, praising its performance and design. While it's an iterative upgrade over the M4 version, Apple has definitely stuck to a winning formula here.

Today's price at Amazon brings the Air ever-so-closer to the Neo's admittedly compelling $599 price. It's still a lot pricier than the budget model, but it could just be worth springing for if you're looking for a more capable and fully-featured laptop.

Record-low MacBook Air M5 at Amazon

• See more: check out all of today's deals at Amazon

Is the MacBook Air a better buy right now?

It really depends on your use case. The MacBook Neo is more than enough for basic tasks and even some demanding applications (within reason). The Air is a better buy if you have more serious workloads in mind, however.

For example, even though the Neo's A18 chipset is good, the MacBook Air's M5 chip provides more headroom and multitasking capacity. That's aided by the fact that the baseline MacBook Air also comes with 16GB of RAM, which is a significant step-up from the Neo's 8GB.

Other upgrades include a faster SSD (better loading speeds), a haptic mouse pad, and much better audio thanks to the Air's more advanced speakers. Perhaps most crucially, however, the Air features two Thunderbolt 4 USB-C ports, which let it support two external 1440p monitors.

The MacBook Neo might only have a mobile-class A18 Pro chip on the inside, but it offers far more performance than you’d expect from a $599 laptop. At that price point, it’s incredibly impressive, and is going some way to redefining what we can expect from the best budget laptops in 2026.

Yet that doesn’t mean it’s perfect, and there are plenty of tasks that the MacBook Neo struggles with. Still, you don’t have to settle for that — if you want to tune up your Apple laptop and eke more performance out of its chip, you’ve got lots of avenues to explore.

Here, we’ve rounded up some of the best ways you can improve the performance of your MacBook Neo. From freeing up storage space to judiciously adjusting a handful of settings, trying these tips could give you even more bang for your buck than you already get.

1. Manage your storage

It’s a simple fact: the less free space your Mac’s storage drive has, the more sluggish your machine gets. If you’ve found your MacBook Neo has slowed to a crawl, it’s a good idea to check how much storage space you’ve got left by opening the System Settings app and making your way to General > Storage.

If it’s low, there are a few things you can do. The first is to look under the Recommendations section on the Storage page and click Optimize next to Optimize Storage. This will automatically remove things like Apple TV shows you’ve already watched. You can also offload files to iCloud (provided you have enough space), automatically empty the Trash, and more. All of these options cut down on the space used up by files on your Mac.

While you’re doing that, it’s worth shopping around for external storage drives and, once you have one, offloading hefty files onto that. Make sure you get an SSD rather than an HDD (also known as a hard drive), as the speed differences are incredible.

However, there’s one very important point to make here, and that’s on the value of configuring your Mac properly before you buy it. It’s very difficult (if not impossible) to upgrade your Mac’s internal storage, so you should make sure you equip your Mac with enough storage space before you pull the trigger. That way, you don’t need to worry about external SSDs or clearing out space on the regular.

2. Update macOS

Updating your Mac is not just a good way to keep it protected from emerging threats — it also ensures you get the latest speed and performance fixes, too.

Apple makes a big fuss about all the new features it’s been working on when it reveals new macOS versions every year, but an underappreciated aspect of these updates is the way they can speed up your Mac’s performance. Apple regularly tunes its software to ensure it functions optimally, and that’s something you’re missing out on if you stick to older versions.

Before you get started updating your Mac, make sure you’ve backed everything up (perhaps using one of our picks for the best backup software) in case something goes wrong. Then open System Settings and go to General > Software Update, wait for the new version to appear, then click Update Now.

3. Restart your Mac

It can be tempting to forgo shutting down your Mac and simply close its lid when you’re done at the end of the day — indeed, one reason the power button on the Mac mini is so awkward to reach is because Apple knows most people don’t actually shut down their computers. But doing so has notable benefits and can help to improve your Mac’s performance, even if it’s only in a small way.

You see, when you shut down your Mac, macOS clears its memory, deletes unneeded temporary files and caches, restarts demanding processes, and allows some app updates to complete. All of those things benefit your Mac and help to improve its performance by removing elements that could be holding it back. Conversely, the longer you go without shutting down, the worse these problems can get.

If you don’t want to shut down your Mac for a prolonged period of time, even a simple restart will help. That allows all the processes above to work in the same way as shutting down.

There’s also the added bonus that shutting down your Mac means it’s not drawing on your battery. This can have performance benefits of its own, as Apple starts to automatically cut back on performance when your laptop is running out of juice.

4. App improvements

Generally speaking, macOS is an efficient operating system that’s pretty good at managing apps and preventing them from getting out of control. But that doesn’t mean you’ll be able to write off app-related problems altogether.

One way you can keep a leash on things is by regularly quitting apps you’re not using. We don’t just mean closing the main app window, as the app itself is still running when you do this. Instead, press Command + Q or click the app’s name in the menu bar, then click Quit, which closes the app entirely. By only having in-use apps open, you reduce the strain on your Mac’s resources.

Aside from that, you can make a concerted effort to use more efficient apps. Google Chrome, for example, might be one of the best web browsers, but it’s also notorious for hogging your Mac’s memory and battery life. Switch to an alternative browser, and you will likely feel the performance benefits right away.

5. Use the correct USB port

This might sound like an odd one — after all, the two USB-C ports on the MacBook Neo look identical. Why would there be any difference between them?

Well, in an effort to cut costs, Apple has used a cheaper, slower option for one of the ports. The USB-C slot closest to the trackpad runs at USB 2 speeds, which top out at 480 Mbps. The port closest to the MacBook’s hinge, meanwhile, is USB 3.0, which means it can hit speeds of up to 5Gbps. That’s a big difference.

If you’ve got anything plugged in that relies on fast transfer speeds — one of the external SSDs we mentioned earlier, for instance — you’ll definitely notice something is wrong if you’ve got it plugged in to the front USB-C port. Switch it to the back one, and its performance will increase substantially.

6. Login and background items

Every time you start up your Mac, a plethora of apps and processes fire up alongside macOS itself. These run the gamut from apps you’ve installed to automatic updaters and everything in between. Accumulate too many and your MacBook Neo will feel the strain.

Fortunately, there’s a simple way to fix this. Open the System Settings app and navigate to General > Login Items & Extensions. Under the Open at Login header, you’ll see everything that gets going once you’ve logged in to macOS. If you see something you don’t need anymore, click the minus button (-) at the bottom of the list.

Below this is a section titled App Background Activity. This governs which apps are allowed to launch background processes (such as checking for updates or syncing files to the cloud). Like login items, background activity can gobble up a lot of your Mac’s resources. As before, check through the list and disable anything you don’t need using the toggles on the right-hand side.

There’s also an Extensions section at the bottom of the window. This concerns extra functionality added by apps, and these sometimes run in the background. The impact of disabling these is likely to be minimal, but it’s worth having a look just in case. Click the i button next to each entry to see the relevant extensions and disable them if needed.

And if an app has started misbehaving, or if you’ve noticed macOS slow down for no discernible reason, try opening the Activity Monitor app (you can find it by pressing Command + Space and typing its name into the Spotlight search bar). Activity Monitor lists all open apps and processes and shows how much of your Mac’s resources they’re using, including memory, storage, CPU, and more.

On the CPU tab, for example, you can sort items by CPU usage, then close anything that’s out of control. Be careful here, though, and only close things if you know exactly what they are. Otherwise, you could risk causing an error in macOS.

7. Adjust visual settings

The macOS operating system isn’t overly flashy, but it does rely on a few visual effects (especially with the arrival of the Liquid Glass redesign in macOS 26). While there’s nothing overly taxing, you might want to rein some things in a bit to help your Mac run a little smoother.

One option is to cut down on motion and transparency effects. First, open System Settings and head to Accessibility > Display. There, enable the toggle next to Reduce transparency. This makes operating system elements — like menus and the Dock — opaquer, thereby reducing the load on your Mac’s graphics processor.

Now go back to Accessibility and click Motion, then enable the toggle by Reduce motion. As the name implies, this uses simpler animations and cuts out some motion altogether, such as when you open and close the Notification Center. Not only can this help you with motion sickness, but it also lessens the impact on your Mac’s chip, freeing up resources and helping to improve its output.

Bonus: third-party tools

While all the above tips have focused on what you can do with your Mac itself, you can also level it up with a few third-party accessories. An external SSD is one we’ve already mentioned, and you shouldn’t underestimate how it can help with storage constraints.

Elsewhere, you might want to invest in a laptop cooling pad or similar solution if you’re frequently running things that get your MacBook Neo hot and bothered. Since this laptop doesn’t come with a fan, certain demanding tasks can cause it to overheat, which in turn leads to throttled performance. Granted, most people with a MacBook Neo aren’t likely to be crunching enormous datasets with their laptop, but you might find that keeping it cool leads to better performance from time to time.

Although it’s an extreme example, one YouTuber hooked up a custom water cooling rig to their MacBook Neo and claimed to have doubled its performance.

We’re not suggesting you try anything like that, but it shows what’s possible with a well-cooled machine. A much simpler cooling pad or fan could therefore be a worthwhile investment.

The brand-new MacBook Air only launched around a month ago, but it's already being offered with a $150 discount on Amazon. That means you can get the MacBook Air 13-inch (M5) at Amazon for $949 (was $1,099).

That's the price for the base configuration with 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD. Thankfully, that's double the amount of memory and storage in the base model compared to previous-generation versions of the laptop — a much welcome upgrade.

However, if you want even more, all variations of the 2026 MacBook Air are on sale with the same $150 off. For example, you can upgrade to a configuration with 16GB RAM and a 1TB SSD for $1,149 (was $1,299) or 24GB RAM and a 1TB SSD for $1,349 (was $1,499).

Today's best Apple MacBook deal

The MacBook Air M5 follows the design philosophy of past devices with its lightweight and compact aluminum frame. It weighs about 2.7 lbs and features a 13.6-inch liquid retina display with vibrant colors. It also lasts up to 18 hours on one charge, which is extremely handy for all-day working.

In our Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (M5) review, we gave it a nearly perfect score as it combines the best of both worlds between its design and power. It also ups the starting storage from 256GB to 512GB, and provides WiFi 7 and Bluetooth 6 support.

If you want more storage, you might as well take advantage of the discount just because of that. The MacBook Air is also what we typically recommend for most people if you want a powerful all-around laptop, unless you need the Pro for demanding photo and video editing tasks.

We currently have the MacBook Air 13-inch M4 as our best MacBook, but I have a feeling that will change to the M5 real soon. For options outside of Apple, see our recommendations for best laptops and best Windows laptop.

Apple is selling an insane number of MacBook Neos, so much so that it's now trying to adjust production to meet demand. People want the MacBook Neo in ways they have never wanted a MacBook before. It's a near-perfect blend of Apple quality and affordability, and it's opened the floodgates to consumers who thought they could never afford a MacBook. I expect this to be one of Apple's most popular products of the decade, and I hope that it teaches the tech giant a valuable lesson:

Make the iPhone more affordable.

As of this moment, the cheapest iPhone you can buy is the $599 iPhone 17e. Despite being a "budget" phone, we described it in our review thusly: "the 17e feels like a more complete and modern member of the iPhone lineup."

Does that price sound familiar? It should. This budget smartphone costs as much as Apple's most affordable laptop: the aforementioned MacBook Neo. Sure, the iPhone 17e has a slightly better chip (the A19 as opposed to the Neo's A18 Pro), but that performance difference is probably nominal, at best. They do match each other on 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, by the way.

We pay quite a premium for pocketability, but does it make sense for them to be priced the same? Maybe. On the other hand, the MacBook Neo reminds us that the first thing most consumers consider in a purchase decision is price.

Let's bring the iPhone back to that magic price

When the iPhone launched almost 20 years ago, it was priced at $499 for the base 8GB (storage) model. A year later, the iPhone 3G landed for $199. Granted, this price was achieved through carrier subsidies, but it was also what Steve Jobs liked to call the "magic" price point, a term he coined when launching the iPod mini.

Once carriers figured out how to shoulder the full cost of the phone and let you pay off monthly, price became a construct. It was something that only existed as the thing Apple announced on launch, and that was quickly subsumed into years of monthly payments to your carrier.

Basically, we're paying anywhere from $600 to well over $1,000 for the iPhone we want. We do so happily, it seems, because no one is without a smartphone (iPhone or otherwise). But Apple doesn't own the global market.

According to Counterpoint, Apple has roughly 25% of the global smartphone market, which beats Samsung's 18% but falls below "Others" 30%. If you ask me, Apple has a huge opportunity here because that "Others" is probably made up of a bunch of affordable handset makers, companies offering smartphones for $300 or less, and often with features that compare favorably to what Apple's offering in its mid-tier iPhone 17.

Tecno, which does not sell in the US, offers the Tecno Spark 50 5G with a 50MP camera, a 64000mAh battery, and military-grade shock resistance for roughly $200. For around $380, you could get the Tecno Camon 50 Pro, which features a three-camera array, a 6.7-inch display, and...okay, it tops out at 4G coverage. Still, you get the idea. There are many companies like this that sell highly affordable phones to emerging markets.

What the market can bear is changing

It's understandable that Apple (and its competitors like Samsung and Google) charge more in the affluent US market. People know these phones are expensive, but they hide the pain in those monthly payments.

The MacBook Neo, though, is proving that consumers are desperate for a deal, especially one that marries affordability to quality. As experiment after experiment I've run has proven, the MacBook Neo is that mix. Somehow, without cutting visible corners, Apple delivered a tiny, ready-for-work-and-play system that outshines all the rest of the budget competition.

This is a system that's as well-built as something costing hundreds more and is an absolute pleasure to look at and use. And you never have to tell yourself, "It cost a fortune, but then look at how it works, look at the design." Instead, you can boast about how you got more than your money's worth.

I'm not calling for all iPhones to be $599 or less. Instead, I'm suggesting that the most affordable new iPhone could start at $199 or, if that's asking too much, $299 (even $399 would be a win).

Can you imagine how many iPhones Apple would sell around the world if the doorway to one of the best smartphone brands on the market opened at under $300? Apple would rocket to the top of the global market share list, eating into "Other" and surely taking a slice or two from Samsung (though Samsung has long had the Galaxy A series, which can, in some cases, start for as little as $199.99).

The MacBook Neo will continue to outsell the budget PC competition and make waves. Let's see what Apple does about them and how it affects the prices of other Apple product lines.

• All flavors of the MacBook Neo are delayed by 2-3 weeks at Apple's online store
• You'll be lucky to pick one up at a bricks-and-mortar Apple store in the US, too, although some outlets do have stock
• The popularity of the laptop seems to have taken Apple by surprise, and rumor has it that supply issues could be a real problem going forward

The MacBook Neo is a victim of its own popularity, it seems, and if you're ordering the notebook online, it won't be delivered for quite some time — and there are rumblings that Apple is going to struggle meeting demand going forward.

First off, 9 to 5 Mac flagged up that no matter which configuration of the MacBook Neo (model or color) you select at Apple's US online store, there's a 2-3 week waiting time before the laptop ships.

Even if you're heading to a bricks-and-mortar Apple store, you most likely won't be able to buy a MacBook Neo there and then. While availability varies as you might imagine, you'll typically be waiting 3-4 weeks for an in-store pickup to be ready. That said, some stores do have on-the-day availability for the Neo, if you get lucky.

Checking in the UK, I can see it's a similar situation for online orders via the Apple website, although you can pick up a MacBook Neo right away in most Apple stores in the country. And in Australia, the official Apple store also indicates a 3-4 week wait time, although some other third-party retailers with physical stores do appear to have some models in stock still.

Here's where this gets really interesting — in a very tricky way for Apple — because as MacRumors spotted, we're hearing from a tech writer in Taiwan (an ex-Bloomberg reporter, Tim Culpan) that the Neo has been way more popular than anticipated. It has apparently "surpassed expectations" in terms of how swiftly the laptop has shifted units, posing a "massive dilemma" for Apple, the writer believes (based on the usual anonymous sources).

The theory is that Apple drafted in A18 Pro chips that couldn't be used in the iPhone 16 Pro due to having a faulty GPU core. Instead of a 6-core GPU as needed in the iPhone, these chips only had 5-cores, but were otherwise good – so with the faulty core disabled, they were put in the MacBook Neo.

This is a common strategy for chips that don't make a certain grade, as it avoids the silicon going to waste. However, it means that Apple only had a certain amount of CPUs based on the shortfall with these iPhone chips. That isn't going to be enough, Culpan informs us, now that sales of the Neo have taken off so strongly, and therefore Apple could be in some hot water here, or so the rumor runs — obviously add plenty of seasoning to this claim.

MacRumors also spotted that Culpan reckons Apple will have a refreshed MacBook Neo next year, built around the A19 Pro CPU (the chip in the current iPhone 17 Pro) and equipped with 12GB of system RAM. That'll be a useful upgrade on the current 8GB loadout, which while enough for everyday computing on the Neo, doesn't look so great in terms of future-proofing.

It's also worth noting that the Mac mini and Mac Studio are now suffering serious delays (months in some cases) when ordered from Apple's online store — although these delays are reportedly due to the ongoing RAM crisis, rather than demand outstripping supply.

Analysis: will Apple need to get creative here?

While these rumors fit together rather neatly, we must be careful about making too many assumptions. Although clearly there is a problem with supply not meeting the demand for the MacBook Neo, as the laptop's already lengthy lead times for delivery show.

The question is whether this is more of a blip in the flow of stock into retail, or whether the rumor about the moorings coming loose in terms of a shortfall of CPUs for the Neo is actually true. We'll only know by keeping an eye on the availability of the MacBook Neo, and seeing whether the current situation continues (or indeed gets even worse).

If Apple is facing a supply issue with its A18 Pro chips as suggested, the company will need to either live with disappointing its customers — not a great idea, especially given how well the Neo has gone down — or crank up production of the CPUs (also with the sixth GPU core disabled, because Apple would have to keep the integrated graphics the same as with existing models).

However, as Culpan points out, the latter is easier said than done, given how much it'll cost to secure production capacity with TSMC at the drop of a hat. That won't be easy to square on Apple's bank balance when you consider that profit margins on the Neo are already thin.

There could be creative ways around that problem, such as a decision to just produce the pricier (512GB) model of the Neo, which has a little more headroom with the profit margins, no doubt. But what Apple doesn't want to do is lose the momentum it has swiftly picked up with the Neo, which is a threat Microsoft apparently recognizes in terms of making macOS a more meaningful force in the Windows-dominated world of laptops.

Again, it all comes back to the MacBook Neo being something of a victim of its own success; and while we can't leap to conclusions, the theories behind what might be unfolding here seem plausible enough. Maybe that second-gen 12GB model of the Neo will be rushed out as quickly as possible…

If I'm being honest, I'm not surprised. I set out to see if the new MacBook Neo, a sub-$600 laptop running a smartphone CPU, could get through one or more of my workdays, and the results were even better than I expected.

When I announced the test on social media last week, I got a lot of feedback. Many were excited to see how Apple's first new MacBook model in more than a decade performed. Others questioned my use of the word "everyday". What kind of work did I mean? Basically, I was talking about my average workday.

If you're reading this, you know I'm a tech editor and much of my day revolves around writing, editing, and researching. I do video calls, I edit photos, I write scripts, work on reports, communicate in Messages, work and play in AI, and stream video content (for research, I swear!).

Put another way, this is not a heavy-duty workday with 4K video editing, Logic Pro music mixing, and Final Cut Pro video production. I'm not a game designer or 3D artist. Of course, the MacBook Neo, which Apple launched in March, is not designed for or aimed at Pro users: they can choose from an array of MacBook Pro and even MacBook Air models (or Mac Minis and Studios).

Apple built the MacBook Neo as an alternative to affordable Windows 11 laptops from HP, Asus, Acer, Lenovo, and others, as well as bargain-basement Chromebooks. Many of these sub-$600 systems are either built with cheaper materials or feature under-performing processors and graphics.

The MacBook Neo instantly stood out with its uncanny mix of attractive materials, excellent craftsmanship, and a big question mark: the use of the A18 Pro CPU last seen in the iPhone 16 Pro.

If you've never used an iPhone or even one of Apple's laptops, you might've considered that a risky move. I knew better. For as long as I've been writing about Apple Silicon on smartphones (and systems), I've said they have headroom to spare. It was usually impossible to push a chip like the A18 Pro to its limits.

Nope, just nope

My confidence aside, I attracted some serious skeptics online.

"Why? Dumb. It's a toy, 8GB RAM and tiny screen with huge bezels. This laptop is for my Grandmother," wrote Bob in MI on X (formerly Twitter).

Bob's right, the MacBook only ships with 8GB of RAM. There is no option for 16GB, and nothing can slow down a system more than a RAM shortage. Even my 512GB test unit (the base model ships with 256GB of storage) has just 8GB. Bob also accurately noted the larger bezels around the smaller screen (13 inches compared to the MacBook Air's 13.6-inch).

But he also exaggerated. The bezels are not huge, and the screen is far from tiny. Also, why pick on his grandmother? I don't know the lady, but I think she might love this Citrus-colored portable.

Amidst the naysayers and curiosity seekers, there were more than a few people reporting they had already been using the MacBook Neo for a few weeks. Not one person who owned one reported any degradation, even when doing image editing, running Spotify, and using Microsoft's Office Suite.

My MacBook Neo diary

What followed were days of normal work and some note-taking about my MacBook Neo experience. My goal was never to push the system to its limits. I just wanted to get my job done without any slowdowns or tech issues.

Turns out I couldn't jump right into work because the MacBook Neo wasn't set up for my typical workday.

I started by opening Chrome (most of my company's software and systems require us to use Google's browser) and logging into my corporate Google account, which gives me access to Gmail, Slack, Google Docs, accounting systems, and more.

I already had Adobe Photoshop 2026 — my go-to image editing software — installed from previous MacBook Neo tests.

As you probably already know, I'm an active social media user and often post directly from my laptop. So I logged into X, BlueSky, and Threads. This also helped me track reactions to my adventure (and my messy workdesk).

As I start working, I keep admiring the color; Citrus is so bright and cheerful. Not everyone is a fan. My wife noticed I had switched to the MacBook Neo for work, and when I asked her about the cute color, she made a face, "Not my favorite." I assured her it came in other fun colors like Blush and Indigo.

Not only do I like the color, which can make a dreary day a bit more cheerful, but I also appreciate how the colors bleed through to the keyboard and software elements. It's a nice touch.

Attack of the tabs

Much of my writing and editing is spent within our company's proprietary publishing system, but I also open up other browser tabs for research. Add those to my Gmail, Slack, Feedly, the TechRadar homepage, and all those social media platforms, and the browser tabs start to add up.

In fact, I usually have a significant tab problem. I constantly open new ones as I research a story, and then I sometimes forget I opened them, or lose track of an entire window of open tabs. This can seriously stress even a Pro-level system, so I adopted a slightly different strategy with the MacBook Neo.

I tried to be far more intentional in my tab use. If I opened one, I'd complete my work with it, copy the data I needed — often in Notes — and then close the tab (even so, I currently have 17 tabs open). Look, I'm no fool; I know 8GB is only going to get me so far.

Things I noticed and things I miss

On the first day, I chose to work with the MacBook Neo connected to power. As I plugged in a USB-C cable, I did, for a moment, miss the MagSafe charge port, but I also quickly forgot about it.

I also used the remaining USB-C port to plug in my Targus port adapter and connect the MacBook Neo to a second HD display.

The MacBook Neo did make me realize how I take the MacBook Air's backlit keyboard for granted. No matter how the light changes at home, at work, or on the train, the MacBook Air keyboard is consistently visible. The MacBook Neo keyboard, by contrast, is at the mercy of external light, and I couldn't help but notice the shadows from my hands, and how, when the light shifts in the room, suddenly half the keyboard looks darker. Again, minor issue.

I spent much of that first morning editing and then writing a post. As is often the case, I needed art. I opened Photoshop, which had been quietly running in the background, downloaded a high-resolution image from Getty, and then edited and exported the photo.

I usually save these images to OneDrive (yes, I still run the Office suite, including Word and Excel), but I decided not to add OneDrive to the MacBook Neo because I knew that mirroring my cloud storage might eat half of the system's 512GB drive. I do worry about people who buy the $599 / £599 / AU$899 base model with just 256GB of storage. That does seem a bit limited for anyone's storage needs.

Streaming history

While I've been running my small and insignificant test on the ground, NASA Artemis II astronauts rocketed into space and are flying toward the moon. Naturally, I had to track every moment of the mission, so I opened YouTube and left the stream running throughout the day (it's running right now).

Later, I used Photoshop on the MacBook Neo to turn one of the astronaut's photos into wallpaper. Doing so required running Firefly, Adobe's cloud-based Generative AI system. It all worked perfectly.

This $699 / £699 / AU$1099 system also ships with TouchID, an upgrade I appreciate for how it makes unlocking the system a fingerprint away and for how I often used it to log in to my personal Gmail with a passkey.

As the day wore on, I started to notice the difference between a Force Touch TrackPad and a Multi-Touch trackpad. One uses haptics to trick your fingers and mind into thinking the platform is moving. The MacBook Neo's highly responsive trackpad actually moves, and that means you need to apply a tiny bit more pressure to use it. It's not like it tired me out, but I did notice the cumulative difference after a day of use.

My new commute buddy

I usually work on my commute home, and I wasn't going to spare the MacBook Neo. I connected the laptop to my iPhone 17 Pro Max's Personal Hotspot and worked for about an hour as the train rolled from the city to my neighborhood. The 2.7-pound laptop felt comfortable on my lap, and I continued editing, writing, and doing some image editing (and tracking the Artemis II mission).

I was surprised to see that at the end of the hour, the Neo's battery had dropped to 59%.

A new day and a new plan

The next day, I decided to run the MacBook Neo on battery power. After recharging the laptop overnight, I unplugged it at 7 AM ET.

As at work, I had the MacBook Neo connected to a port adapter and another HD display to extend the desktop.

I also decided to push the laptop a little harder, leaving a few more browser tabs open than I had the day before. I started noting just a small bit of hesitation. After I got my first spinning pinwheel, I pulled back and closed a few browser tabs. Smooth operation resumed.

By 8:41 AM ET, and with numerous tabs and Photoshop open, battery power had plummeted to 59%.

I continued working, and by 10:05 AM ET, I was down to 22%. It's worth noting that I did not adjust the screen brightness or switch to low-power mode; I just kept working.

I got a warning at 10% battery life, and by 10:54 AM ET, the MacBook Neo ran out of juice and shut down. I plugged it in, and it took about 5 minutes for the laptop to get enough power to wake up.

My work day continued until about 5 PM without issue. A couple of days later, I was back at work and, to be honest, kind of forgot about the test. I mean, I forgot I was working on a MacBook Neo and not my typical MacBook Air.

My point is that this system I'm using right now is more than adequate for everyday work. It's an accomplished system that I would recommend to almost anyone who is not doing Pro-grade content creation.

Yes, I was a little disappointed at the unplugged battery life, but I do think I couldn't have extended my battery performance by hours had I used low-power mode (something I often employ on the MacBook Air).

Once again, the affordable MacBook Air proves itself a fantastic value that I would happily recommend to almost anybody.

It's been less than a month since the MacBook Neo was released, and would you believe it, Amazon has cut a full £50 off the price. That means you can buy the MacBook Neo 256GB at Amazon for £549 (was £599). Or, if you'd like more storage, then the MacBook Neo 512GB model is also discounted to £649 (was £699).

We were already amazed at the affordability of Apple's new laptop, so this discount makes it even better value for money. We gave it an impressive 4.5-star rating and found the design, build quality and performance to be leagues ahead of its Windows and Chromebook competitors.

Cheaper alternatives do exist, but if you like Apple's trademark design and macOS experience, then you can now have it for an unbelievably low price.

Today's best MacBook Neo deal

Our 4.5-star Apple MacBook Neo review shows you how highly we regard what Apple has managed to do. The 13-inch laptop includes the A18 Pro chip, which you'll find in the iPhone 16 lineup. Boasting a six‑core CPU, a five‑core GPU, and 8GB of memory, the MacBook Neo isn't going to manage demanding workflows, but it will be sufficient for anyone who spends most of their time browsing the web, using web apps, and watching videos.

In addition, the Neo features two USB-C ports, a 1080p FaceTime HD camera and a headphone jack. The screen is a 13-inch Liquid Retina display with 500 nits of brightness. It also includes a multi-touch trackpad and the Magic Keyboard. It's pretty much everything you know and love from Apple.

The MacBook Neo has already made it into our guide of the best laptops, but there are plenty of other options in that list as well. If money is really tight, then our best budget laptop guide is well worth a look.

Adorable. That's the only way to describe Apple's Lil Finder Guy, who arrived without much fanfare alongside the MacBook Neo. The two-tone, 3D character is a physical embodiment of Apple's iconic Finder icon in macOS. It's also more than that.

No one is quite certain of where Lil Finder Guy comes from. Apple's never issued a press release. Instead, some eagle-eyed Apple fans first noticed Lil Finder Guy using a tiny MacBook Neo in the background of an Apple TikTok livestream.

During all the excitement surrounding Apple's most affordable and excellent $599 / £599 / AU$899 MacBook Neo, I certainly didn't notice the pale-and-deep-blue guy. However, possibly as part of Apple's unexpectedly massive 50th Anniversary celebrations, the spungy little guy has appeared in a handful of clever Tok Tok ads, where Lil Finder Guy is seen in a director's chair, with his squishy head resting on a desk, face down on the floor, and using the Edge Light in a FaceTime call.

In other words, Lil Finder Guy is now a sort of proxy for you, the user. It's also like Apple's unofficial mascot. I always thought that was the role of the Apple with a bite out, but that's a logo, and lacks, if not personality, humanity.

Lil Finder Guy is different. With his cherubic features, he's automatically comical and eminently watchable.

People have such affection for him that they figured out how to make 3D printouts of Lil Finder Guy, complete with magnetically attached appendages (so you can pose him, of course). Others have used Gemini to create a whole library of Lil Finder Guy poses.

I have to admit, I'm smitten with him, and wonder if Apple will expand his presence. Could Apple add a digital version of him in macOS 27, a helpful little guy that appears on screen and offers to answer your questions? What if Lil Finder Guy takes over for Siri? Every time you summon Siri, Lil Finder Guy pops up and then runs around the desktop, doing your bidding.

With that Gemini Foundational Model integration, Lil Finder Guy could be the face of a much smarter Siri. Of course, we're edging into Clippy territory here, so maybe Apple shouldn't do this.

The secret

There's another reason Lil Finder Guy can never be a stand-in for Siri: he has a very specific purpose. He's the Finder, and the Finder is not just a locator for all your Mac folders and files. To understand Finder's true purpose, we need to look at the original design. I did not figure this out myself.

I was listening to the Retrocast podcast discuss the cute Lil Finder Guy (and the need for a real name) when they started delving into the Finder's design.

Here's the secret: it's not a face. It's two faces. The one on the right is you, the user, and the one on the left is the computer. It's an image of a user looking at the Mac startup face on the computer!

As the Retrocast hosts explained, the design evokes the "special relationship between people and high technology." It's a design manifestation of how Apple approaches technology, as a deeper connection between human and digital, and how tech does not have to be impersonal. The Macintosh launched with a face and instantly made something remote and unfeeling accessible.

Granted, this means Lil Finder Guy's face is two faces, which is a bit weird, but he pulls off the look nicely and is still just as cute.

I don't know what Apple's long-term plans are for the Lil Finder Guy. At the very least, I expect physical copies to show up in Apple Stores, where you can buy them alongside the t-shirts and pins. But I hope Apple considered letting him stick around to promote future products and show us how to do things on our MacBooks. He instantly seems like a TikTok citizen. Apple could build him his own account and probably amass more than the Apple account's 8 million followers.

You’ve just got a shiny new MacBook Neo and you’re keen to see what it can do. But before you go racing off to browse the internet or play some games, there are a few things it’s worth doing first.

Here, we’ll show you 7 of the best changes you can make to your Mac, from strengthening your privacy to customizing it to your liking. These quick fixes and adjustments will make all the difference to your macOS experience, and these tips are great for anyone new to macOS, no matter what Mac or MacBook you have.

Secure your Mac

The last thing you want to happen to your new Mac is for it to be compromised. Luckily, privacy and security are two of Apple’s core strengths, and macOS is well equipped to keep your digital life safe and sound.

First, you’ll want to enable automatic updates to ensure your Mac always has the latest security patches and new features. To do so, open the System Settings app and head to General > Software Update in the left-hand sidebar. From there, click the i button next to Automatic Updates and switch all the toggles on.

While the entry-level MacBook Neo lacks Touch ID, the more expensive model comes with Apple’s fingerprint recognition system. To register your fingerprint with macOS, go to the Touch ID & Password section of the System Settings app and click Add Fingerprint, then follow the instructions.

If your MacBook Neo model doesn’t have Touch ID, you can still protect your login details with Apple’s Passwords app. This is the free, built-in password manager that comes with macOS, and you’ll find it in your Mac’s Applications folder that’s accessed using the Finder. Just open it up and follow the on-screen instructions. Make sure you click Passwords > Get Browser Extension in the app’s menu bar to install it in your favorite web browser. That way, you can save and fill passwords on the web without needing to leave your browser.

It’s also a good idea to turn on FileVault. This encrypts your files so that even if you lose your laptop, no one else can access your private documents and information. To set it up, open System Settings and go to Privacy & Security > FileVault in the sidebar, then enable the toggle to start protecting your files. Just make sure you make a note of your Mac’s password so you don’t get locked out. Your Recovery Key is also synced to every Apple device you own with iCloud Keychain enabled.

All about apps

While iOS is very restrictive about where you get your apps (although that’s beginning to change), Mac users have long been able to install apps from anywhere they like. But in order to do that, you’ve got to change a simple setting first.

Go to the Privacy & Security section of the System Settings app, then scroll to the bottom of the page. Under the Security header, you’ll see ‘Allow applications from.’ Click the pop-up menu and select App Store & Known Developers. This gives you wider access to apps from outside the App Store while maintaining the security of your device.

Once you’ve installed a few new apps, it’s a good idea to change which ones are used to open certain files. After all, you might not always want videos to open using QuickTime, for example. There are a few ways to change your default apps.

Firstly, let’s say you want to change the app that’s used to open JPG images. Right-click a JPG file, click Get Info, then expand the Open with section and pick an app from the pop-up menu. Click Change All to make sure every JPG file opens with this app rather than just the one you selected.

To switch to a different default web browser, open System Settings, click Desktop & Dock in the sidebar, then scroll down to the Widgets section. There, next to ‘Default web browser,’ click the pop-up menu and pick a new app.

Finally, you can change your default email client by opening the Mail app and clicking Mail > Settings in the menu bar. Now click the General tab and choose a new app from the ‘Default email reader’ pop-up menu at the top of the page.

Customize your Dock

The macOS Dock permanently houses all your favorite apps, shows recently opened apps, and has spots for downloaded items and the trash. It’s a pretty powerful tool when you know how to use it.

To rearrange app icons in the Dock, just drag them to a new position. You can add new apps by dragging them onto the Dock and remove apps by dragging them out until the word Remove appears, then letting go.

By default, the Dock shows recent apps on the right-hand side. That can be handy, but can also clutter the Dock. To change this, open System Settings and navigate to Desktop & Dock in the sidebar, then disable the toggle next to ‘Show suggested and recent apps in Dock.’

You can also hide the Dock itself by adjusting the ‘Automatically hide and show the Dock’ toggle. It disappears by default and will reappear if you move your mouse pointer to the bottom of your Mac’s screen.

Finally, Apple’s standard configuration has apps use a ‘Genie’ effect when they’re minimized. This sucks them down into the Dock at an angle, but it’s not to everyone’s taste. If you don’t like it, change Genie Effect to Scale Effect next to ‘Minimized window animation’ in the same System Settings window.

I’ve written about the Dock in more detail, including highlighting some clever tricks to help you get even more out of it. Check that guide out if you want to learn a bit more about this macOS feature.

Set up Time Machine

If anything was to go wrong with your Mac, you don’t want to find out you’ve lost all your files. One way you can prevent that is by using Time Machine to back up your Mac. For this, you’ll need an external storage drive with enough space to hold your Mac’s files.

Now, ensure your drive is connected to your Mac, then open System Settings and go to General > Time Machine > Add Backup Disk. Choose your external drive from the list and click Set Up Disk. Once you’ve followed the on-screen instructions, you should be good to go. Your Mac will now automatically back up as long as your drive is connected.

Make full use of your trackpad

Apple’s MacBook trackpads are some of the best in the business, and even though the MacBook Neo doesn’t use a Force Touch trackpad, its offering is still incredibly well refined. You’ll find a range of intuitive gestures are enabled by default, like pinching your fingers together to open the Applications pane or moving four fingers upwards to show all your open app windows.

But you can unlock extra trackpad gestures that are hidden in your Mac’s settings. The first one can be found in System Settings by scrolling to the bottom of the sidebar and clicking Trackpad. From there, click More Gestures, then click the pop-up menu next to App Exposé and choose a gesture. App Exposé shows all the open windows of just the foremost app – rather than those of all currently open apps – allowing you to quickly flick between them.

The second secret gesture relates to dragging and dropping files. Sometimes, you might find you run out of space on your trackpad when moving a file. But if you go to System Settings > Accessibility > Pointer Control > Trackpad Options, you’ll find some handy ways to fix that. At the bottom, enable the toggle next to ‘Use trackpad for dragging,’ then pick one of the options from the pop-up menu. These choices let you do things like let go of the trackpad to reposition your fingers as you move a file, all without dropping it, making the process a lot easier.

Keep your battery going for longer

The better you look after your MacBook Neo’s battery, the longer it’ll serve you. Apple’s laptop batteries are already some of the most effective in the industry, but a few quick tweaks could help you get even more out of them.

The first thing to do is head to System Settings > Battery. Next to Charging, click the i button, then enable Optimized Battery Charging. This learns your daily usage routine and charges at optimal times to prevent overcharging.

Back in the Battery section, scroll to the bottom and click Options, then enable ‘Slightly dim the display on battery’ to make sure your screen isn’t eating into your battery too much while you’re not using a charger.

If you really want to eke as much juice out of your laptop as you can, click the pop-up menu next to Low Power Mode and select a scenario. This disables certain features to prolong your battery as much as possible.

Tune up your display

MacBooks have beautiful displays, and the MacBook Neo is no different. A few little changes here and there, though, can make it even better.

If you tend to use your laptop at night, you know how painful it can be to have your eyes blasted by a bright screen. To put that right, go to System Settings > Displays > Night Shift, then click the pop-up menu next to Schedule. Night Shift automatically changes your screen’s color temperature, which helps ease the strain on your eyes. You can either set up a custom schedule or use Apple’s Sunset to Sunrise option.

Back on the Displays pane, enable the toggle next to ‘Automatically adjust brightness.’ As the name suggests, this detects the brightness of your surroundings, then changes your display to match. It can help ensure your screen is never too bright or too dark for your needs.

It's not always easy to find a MacBook Air, even an older 2025 model, for a discount at a reputable retailer. However, for the Amazon Big Spring Sale, you can get the Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (M4) for its lowest price yet of $949 (was $1,199).

This price is only available in the sky blue color with 16GB Unified Memory, but you also get a 512GB SSD, which is double the storage of the standard model. That makes this deal even sweeter, especially as 256GB of storage is a bit weak in 2026.

Other colors like silver and midnight are available for a slightly higher cost at $999. The same configuration for the beige starlight color isn't available for a similar price, but you can get the configuration with 24GB Unified Memory and 512GB SSD for $1,199 (was $1,399).

Today's best Apple MacBook Pro M4 deal

You can already buy the MacBook Air M5, but that doesn't mean you need to if you want a powerful laptop. The MacBook Air M4 was our 2025 laptop of the year for a reason, and it's not going out of style anytime soon.

We gave it 4.5 out of five stars in our MacBook Air M4 review for its "top-notch performance, design, all-day battery life," and affordability on top of all that. Even with the mixed bag that is Apple Intelligence, it doesn't distract from its technical strengths.

If you want a more detailed breakdown between the MacBook Air M4 versus the M5, we have an article comparing the two and advising which one you should buy during the Amazon Spring Sale. We also have a dedicated Mac Buyer's Guide that tells you the strengths and weaknesses of our best Apple laptops.

The Amazon Spring Sale has yielded some great discounts on Apple MacBooks this week, including the first-ever discount on the brand-new M5 iteration — a model that's barely a few weeks old as of writing.

Right now, you can get the baseline 16GB configuration for $1,049 (was $1,099) at the retailer thanks to a small but welcome $50 discount. That's not much, but it's quite impressive considering these machines have just left the factory.

Interestingly, I've also spotted the slightly older (but still amazing) MacBook Air 13 M4 with 24GB of RAM for $1,149 (was $1,399) at the retailer, which is another record-low price.

In short, you're really spoilt for choice right now if you've been thinking about picking up a new MacBook. There are some differences, however, that are worth thinking about if you're trying to decide between these two models. First, here are those two deals in full:

MacBook Air on sale at Amazon

Which is the better buy right now?

• The latest chipset brings incremental gains
• More RAM is very handy for demanding applications

In terms of design, there are functionally no differences between the two models. Both feature the super-thin, lightweight, and premium aluminum chassis that Apple has utilized for a few generations now. Both are even available in the same colors, which shows you how iterative this year's upgrade actually is.

The two MacBooks also feature the same display: a 13.6-inch Liquid Retina panel with 2,560 x 1,664 resolution and 500 nits of brightness. It's not an OLED display, but it's still fantastic for everyday use and creative work.

Where the two models differ significantly is essentially the chipset, with the newer model featuring the latest M5 processor. According to Apple, the MacBook Air M5’s unified memory is 28 per cent faster than the M4’s, and the AI performance is 4x faster. In real-world use, you should see a bump in performance with tasks like video rendering and increased write speeds with the newer model.

With that said, today's price cut on the older M4 model at Amazon is for a configuration with 24GB of RAM — a significant upgrade versus the baseline 16GB variant. That's going to give you smoother everyday performance if you use your machine for massive spreadsheets, professional coding, or running a large number of browser tabs.

If you don't need that extra RAM, however, then the M5 model is an obvious pick today. You'll get super-snappy performance for everyday tasks that don't require massive heaps of RAM, as well as a healthy $100 saving overall.

For a full deep dive into these models, check out our Apple MacBook Air 13 (M4) review and Apple MacBook Air 13 (M5) review pages.

Got your hands on a new MacBook Air 15-inch M5? If you're going to take it out with you, you'll want to pick up a good bag or cover to keep it protected from scratches and bumps. We've rounded up our favorite options below, with a range of cases for different tastes and preferences. Some have extra pockets to keep your cables organized, others come with a stand to prop the MacBook up while you work, and others keep things ultra-streamlined. We've included some more heavy-duty bags for those who want to take their machine everywhere, as well as some that prioritize style while still offering a layer of protection against scratches.

This new MacBook Air M5 was one of a whole bunch of products unveiled at Apple's March event, ahead of the brand's 50th anniversary. We tested the 13-inch version for our MacBook Air 13-inch M5 review, and awarded it a near-perfect 4.5 stars, calling it "an exquisite, lightweight yet durable laptop that fits perfectly into your work, play, home life, and the Apple ecosystem". The 15-inch version is heavier and pricier, but with a substantially larger screen, more speakers, and two extra GPU cores in the base model.

Read on for our pick of the best 15-inch MacBook Air cases in the US, or hop down the page for our top UK picks.

US: 15-inch MacBook Air cases

UK: 15-inch MacBook Air cases

MacBook Air 15-inch cases: useful information

Want to make extra sure your top pick is going to fit your new laptop? The exact proportions of the 15-inch MacBook Air M5 are as follows (H x W x D):

0.45 x 13.4 x 9.35 inches / 1.15 x 34.04 x 23.76 cm

The 15-inch MacBook Air's screen is actually 15.3 inches (measured diagonally). To keep things simple, most brands will refer to the compatible cases as 15-inch, in line with Apple's wording choice.

There's also a 13-inch MacBook Air M5 — if that's the one you're buying, I have a separate guide to the best 13-inch MacBook Air M5 cases and bags. However, most of these options are also available in 13-inch versions, and you can toggle to your preferred size on the product page.

Earlier this month, Apple announced a whole load of new products that would be joining its lineup. So many, in fact, that it was a little difficult to keep track of it all. Now the dust has settled, and everything is available to purchase — or at least preorder — so I've rounded up all the new additions, with links to find out more, below.

The news that drew perhaps most attention is that of the MacBook Neo, a pleasingly budget-friendly intruder into Apple's traditionally premium-only lineup. It's powered by an iPhone processor, but incredibly, manages to hold its own against traditional MacBooks in use.

We also have a new MacBook Air M5, various new MacBook Pro M5 options, and an iPad Air M4 — all with welcome, if relatively minor, upgrades over their predecessors. The 2026 iPhone 17e also refines rather than reinvents, but notably does so without a bump to the price tag compared to the 16e. We said it felt like "a more complete and modern member of the iPhone lineup" when we tested it. Rounding out the announcements from the main event was news of a 2026 Apple Studio Display monitor, with upgraded camera, ports, and audio, and a high-end sibling in the Studio Display XDR.

We also got a surprise bonus addition the week following the main event, with news that after five years of waiting, we'd finally be getting an AirPods Max 2. The new cans boast a host of smart features, '1.5x' better noise cancellation, and a new amplifier for improved audio quality.

Scroll down for links to find out more about each of the new Apple products in the US or the UK (note: the pricing is for the base model of each option).

New Apple launches US

New Apple launches UK

• Apple is experiencing shipping delays for the MacBook Neo
• Orders from Apple's online store aren't expected to ship until mid-April
• This demand is attributed to first-time Mac owners, making it the biggest Mac launch for Apple

Haven’t ordered your new MacBook Neo yet? Well, I’d advise you to score Apple’s budget laptop sooner rather than later, as it’s experiencing shipping delays everywhere.

Following its launch on March 11, the MacBook Neo has proved to be one of Apple’s most popular products in recent years, but it appears that the tech giant hasn’t been able to keep up with the skyrocketing demand that’s come with it. As a result, shipping delays are increasing, and now you may not be able to get your hands on a MacBook Neo until mid-April at the very earliest.

According to 9to5Mac, every configuration of the MacBook Neo has sold out in the US and won’t be shipped until between April 6 and April 13 when you order from Apple’s online store, pushing shipping dates back a good two to three weeks.

Apple’s online store in the UK is showing similar dates, and most models are due to be shipped between April 9 and April 16. Based on which iteration of the Neo you opt for, you could be looking between April 16 and April 23 for your device to be shipped — this is mainly for the MacBook Neo with the Blush finish, and applies to both the 256GB and 512GB models. Ordering from your local Apple store may not be the best idea either, as in-store collection dates are also being pushed back.

Waiting until next month to snag what will undoubtedly become one of the best budget laptops isn’t ideal, but a few weeks back, we predicted that Apple would sell these by the boatload, and voilà. But despite the frustrating delays, it reveals something monumental for Apple as a company, and it’s all thanks to first-time Mac customers.

For the first time, a MacBook launch has ushered in a demand that you only really see with the release of a new iPhone. Apple CEO Tim Cook has deemed it the ‘best launch week ever’ for Macs, which has been fuelled by first-time MacBook owners. This can be attributed to the MacBook Neo’s affordability, giving users who've wanted to convert to Mac a better entry point, but could never justify the hefty price tag. But the Neo has also done a stellar job at luring casual users and students.

Just like us, users on Reddit also expected the demand, with one describing the MacBook Neo as ‘such a neat notebook’, garnering a shedload of responses agreeing that it'll be a big hit with scholars, especially when September comes around. Not only that, but Apple’s budget laptop has given users more reason to not opt for an iPad, which costs around the same as the MacBook Neo, but requires purchasing a separate keyboard and other accessories, which aren’t budget-friendly.

With this in mind, picking a MacBook Neo up at your nearest Apple store may be your best option if you don’t want to wait nearly three weeks for one to arrive. Alternatively, you can try other retailers such as Amazon, which offers same-week shipping. Unfortunately, the MacBook Neo is out of stock on Amazon UK, so heading to the Apple store is your best shot right now.

When we recorded the latest episode of the TechRadar podcast we were coming in hot after the major new product announcements from Apple including the iPhone 17e, iPad Air M4 and its new budget MacBook.

Hearing that the affordable Apple laptop boasted an iPhone chip – the A18 pro which debuted in the iPhone 16 Pro back in 2024 — and only 8GB of unified memory (which we call RAM in the recording though it’s not the same as typical PC RAM) I just didn’t believe it would be that great. Even at its budget pricing I thought it would be a major let down.

Then we got to review the MacBook Neo and this thing blew us away. Our Computing Editor Matt Hanson called it “the best budget laptop you can buy right now.”

Clearly I was wrong, but what makes the MacBook Neo so excellent?

Beautiful inside and out

The first success of this machine is its design.

There’s silver, black, pink, and a lime green which all look beautiful, and the vibrant colorways are felt throughout the whole machine — across its body, keyboard, accents, and even macOS elements.

Couple this with the silent fanless design, the already sleek macOS software, and a gorgeous 13-inch 2408 x 1506-pixel display, and the MacBook Neo oozes premium — something most budget machines simply can’t achieve.

While not as essential as performance (at least in my books) the look of something is important.

Case in point, I’m currently testing the Rokid AI glasses and while they boast solid AI abilities to rival Meta’s smart specs they just don’t share the Oakley or Ray-Ban pizazz. Even though they are cheaper the Rokid design just feels bland and plasticky, and it’s a serious let down that makes me much less inclined to use them.

The Neo, on the other hand, smashes the design — it’s a budget gadget you’ll be proud to get caught using — but it does succeed on the performance side of things too.

iPhone chip, MacBook performance

Without an M-series chip I didn’t believe Apple’s MacBook Neo could deliver a laptop experience, but as our review discovered, this machine delivers an uncompromised version of macOS.

You aren’t locked out of any apps or locked into iPhone or iPad software, and this machine can multitask a fair amount too. Obviously we have to temper expectations — 3D blender projects or serious 4K video editing aren’t what the Neo is for, as is to be expected in this price category.

But if you want to do typical productivity tasks, the Neo will be great. In fact, it boasts better Geekbench 6 scores than the MacBook Air M1, and it beats the MacBook Air M2 in single core performance — impressive feats for a phone chip.

This supports what we found in testing. Simpler tasks, even a little light gaming should be fine, but things like scientific simulations or hefty video editing will be slow with the Neo’s less impressive multicore performance and mere 8GB of unified memory (you may find this 8GB harms its future-proofing somewhat too).

And while this might not sound like an out and out victory for the Neo, you have to remember that cheap Chromebooks and Windows 11 machines come with much stricter limitations and worse performance. It’s not the best laptop ever made, sure, but the Neo is best in class if affordability is a priority.

And thus, Apple has wholeheartedly proved me wrong on the MacBook Neo, and you know what? I’m happy about it.

With costs rising, especially in tech, it’s nice to see some affordability victories — especially from a big brand like Apple. The Neo stuck the landing for students and folks in need of a cheap productivity machine.

Few laptops have enjoyed the staying power of the MacBook Air M1. Six years ago, I called it "an astonishing breakthrough." It was the first Mac to feature Apple Silicon and the last Air to wear that iconic wedge design. As recently as last year, people were still buying this system for roughly $699 at Walmart.

As it finally shifts into refurb-only availability, the MacBook Air M1 remains the affordable Mac to beat, and now, with the MacBook Neo, that iconic Mac has met its match.

Like that system before it, the MacBook Neo breaks new ground for Apple. We've never seen an affordable MacBook like it. From the day-glo colors to the iPhone CPU (oh, hey, A18 Pro), the $599 / £599 / AU$899 MacBook Neo stands out among its peers, and has put the affordable laptop market (bargain basement Windows systems and Chromebooks) on notice.

While that comparison is obvious, I admit to some surprise that the most frequent question I got about the MacBook Neo is how it compares to the MacBook Air M1, not the M2 or even the recently unveiled MacBook Air M5 (an exceptional portable).

The more I thought about it, the more sense it made. I, too, remain a massive fan of that M1 model — from its classic design to the still excellent price/performance ratio. It's worth remembering, though, that the MacBook Air M1 started at $999, $400 more than you'll spend today for the MacBook Neo.

I still have the MacBook Air M1 I tested in 2020, and so I did what any rational tech reviewer would do: I compared it directly with the MacBook Neo by running the latter through virtually all the same tests.

TLDR: Despite a mobile processor, the MacBook Neo more than holds its own against the MacBook Air M1.

MacBook Neo refresher

First, let's talk about the new MacBook Neo. From a design perspective, the laptop's aesthetic owes far more to its more recent predecessors than the MacBook Air M1. That laptop marked the end of the line for a look and feel unveiled by Steve Jobs in 2008.

The MacBook Neo is like a smaller yet thicker MacBook Air, and with a better sense of style, thanks to a collection of bright colors like my test unit's Citrus finish. It's built around the A18 Pro that originally appeared in the iPhone 16 Pro, lacks a backlit keyboard, and only has TouchID in the $699 / £699 / AU$1099 model (like my test unit).

Turns out that the MacBook Neo is slightly smaller and a touch lighter than the MacBook Air M1. I can't really compare thickness, because the wedge-shaped M1 ranges from 0.16 inches to just over half an inch. The MacBook Neo is a neat 0.5 inches from edge to edge.

The M1 screen is slightly larger than what you get on the Neo and offers slightly higher resolutions (227ppi versus 219ppi on the Neo). But the Neo is, at 500 nits, the brighter screen.

Both systems have just two USB-C ports, but the M1's are Thunderbolt / USB 4 ports, while the Neo offers just one USB-3 (10 Gbps) port and one USB-2 port.

The gap narrowed when I started looking at core components and actual performance.

Now, keep in mind that my test units were not the base systems, but they still have comparable memory and storage (8GB of Unified RAM, and 512GB of storage — the base model of both systems is 256GB of storage).

MacBook Neo A18 Pro:

• 6‑core CPU with 2 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores
• 5‑core GPU
• Hardware-accelerated ray tracing
• 16-core Neural Engine

MacBook M1:

• 8-core CPU with 4 perform­ance cores and 4 efficiency cores
• 8-core GPU
• 16-core Neural Engine

As you can see, the M1 shipped with more performance cores and, in my test unit, more GPU cores.

With that information in hand, I started by running Geekbench 6 benchmarks on both systems. For the sake of comparison, I included some MacBook Air M5 results.

As you can see, the MacBook Neo actually bests the MacBook Air M1 on single-core performance and is quite close on multi-core. The disparity is greatest in Metal scores, which makes sense when you consider the MacBook Air M1's total GPU cores.

Enter the real world

What matters more to me, though, are real-world tests. Again, I dug back into my original MacBook Air M1 review and did my best to recreate the test suite.

I started by installing Adobe Photoshop, crossing my fingers that a system really designed for everyday work and not professionals could handle it. It would be the first time I'd be running the desktop version of Photoshop on an iPhone chip.

I needn't have worried. I easily installed Adobe Creative Cloud and Photoshop and then started manipulating multi-layered photos. I even ran some AI, asking Adobe Firefly to select a subject (Alicia Keys singing at an Apple 50th Anniversary event) and then replace Keys with someone else doing the exact same thing. It took a moment, but it worked.

Pixelmator Pro is another app I used on the M1, so I installed it here and edited a few of my photos.

I installed a couple of iPhone apps to see how they looked and worked on the platform. As on the MacBook Air M1, they appear in an iPhone-sized window and work perfectly.

Next, I installed Asphalt 8: Airborne and had fun using the keyboard to play. By the way, the side-firing dual speakers sounded quite good.

I opened Netflix and streamed Better Call Saul. Trust me, a lot of students will be streaming their favorite content on these laptops.

Yes, I even installed Final Cut Pro and started editing multiple video streams.

Again, these are all things I did with the M1, so why not repeat them here?

Keep in mind, I never closed an app. I just keep installing, opening, and using them, waiting for the MacBook Neo to cry uncle.

I opened Apple Maps and zoomed in and out until I could see and spin the entire globe.

Back in 2020, I opened Apple Arcade on the M1 and installed Little Orpheus. It's a beautiful game, but unfortunately, it has since left the Arcade. For the MacBook Neo, I installed the puzzle platformer Inmost. It played smoothly, and to keep from bothering my officemates, I connected my AirPods Pro 3 to enjoy the lush soundtrack.

Throughout my tests, I was also using Safari, but since the MacBook Neo showed no signs of slowing down or struggling, I also installed Google Chrome and opened a few tabs there, as well.

As for my anecdotal battery tests, with the MacBook Air M1, I regularly got more than 15 hours with mixed use. The MacBook Neo is rated for 16 hours if you only stream video. You can see what I was doing here, and in that scenario, I got over 12 hours. Obviously, your mileage will vary based on which app(s) you're running.

In virtually every situation, the MacBook Neo stood tall and appeared the equal of at least the MacBook Air M1. I suspect it could also hold up against M2 models (maybe even M3). I didn't put Steam or any AAA console games on the laptop, but I know that in his MacBook Neo review, Matt Hanson did give Cyberpunk 2077 a go. The MacBook Neo made it playable at about 30fps.

So, in answer to the question: 'Can the MacBook Neo replace my MacBook Air M1?' The answer is a resounding yes. This is clearly a limit-pushing budget laptop that will surprise many people. It's not a pro system, and people will certainly find some of the caveats, like just 256GB and 8GB of RAM, limiting. The $699 512GB model addresses some of those issues (including adding Touch ID), but it does not raise the speeds of those ports or add a backlit keyboard. Those looking to push the limit on storage, performance, and screen sizes will look to the MacBook Air and, especially, MacBook Pro models.

However, for those who fell in love with the MacBook Air M1 and — now that it's finally no longer on sale as a new system — are looking for a replacement, the MacBook Neo is here for you.

You won't be disappointed.

While you consider buying a MacBook Neo for yourself, waste a little time on this MacBook jigsaw puzzle, Can you handle the highest difficulty?

If you're in the market for a new MacBook, you may well have fallen head over heels for the new MacBook Air M5. I certainly did. Unfortunately, the course of true love never did run smooth and something has come along that may well draw thine eye in a different direction. And that's the fact you can currently get the MacBook Air M4 13-inch with 512GB SSD from Amazon for $949 (was $1,199) – which is an impressive price drop.

I'll be honest: this is pretty awkward timing. I've literally just gone on the record about how I've finally resolved to make the upgrade to the new MacBook Air M5 13-inch. Then Amazon drops this price reduction, making the M4 seem like a bargain — not just offering the same chunky 512GB SSD as the M5 but for a massive $150 less. So that's got me asking: might the M4 actually be a better buy?

Today's best MacBook Air M4 13-inch deal

In some ways, it's a really close fight. I concur with our MacBook Air M5 review when it says that in terms of design you might have "trouble telling the difference between this new 13-inch MacBook Air M5 and the M4 model". Not only are its looks identical, but so are features like its 12MP Center Stage camera, backlit keyboard, ForceTouch trackpad and Thunderbolt 4 ports.

Instead the big difference between the devices come down to power and storage. On top of the significant power increase offered by the M5 chip, the newer model offers a an SSD with superior read / write speeds as standard. So the previous model naturally can't boast the sheer power and dynamism of the latest one.

However, as our MacBook Air M4 review makes abundantly clear, the M4 still set a very high bar for its successor, with top-notch performance and an epic battery that befits one of the best laptops out there. And while the MacBook Air M5 13-inch has had a $100 price rise to pay for its larger 512GB SSD, this deal offers a model with a similarly capacious 512GB and yet has had its price slashed. It's fallen from $1,199 to just $949, giving you a huge saving.

Honestly, I think the value you get out of either model is pretty awesome. While I think I'm still just about won over by the M5 model's superior power, this deal has definitely evened the score. So whether you go for the most power or the cheapest price, I can assure you you're getting a great deal.

Another Apple launch event has come and dropped a heap of exciting new gadgets into our laps. But while a lot of people have been discussing the surprise announcement of the more affordable MacBook Neo and the powerful new MacBook Pro, I’ve only got eyes for the new MacBook Air M5. In fact, I’m so enamored, I’ve decided it’s finally time to ditch my trusty but dusty MacBook Pro 2017 and belatedly join the 2020s.

For a laptop that’s an absurd nine years old, my MacBook Pro has been aging pretty gracefully — that is until the last few months, when its fraying LCD display flex cable has finally begun to give up the ghost. The colors are so broken that my Retina display looks more like the psychedelic horror show that was mid-1980s EGA computer graphics. Worse, the screen is criss-crossed with lines that makes most apps and images look like they’re upholstered in tweed.

This is a pretty shameful look for a tech journalist — its certainly no longer a candidate for best laptop. But I could cope with the expressionistic graphics for a little longer if it wasn’t for the groaning machinery under the hood.

My MacBook Pro’s wheezing Intel architecture is increasingly showing its age. I predominantly use my laptop for music-making and digital artwork and many of my workflows have started to push my CPU usage to 140% — the kind of math that would cause my high-school teacher to silently weep about my exam prospects. Frankly, a pre-Apple-Silicon chipset can no longer keep up with creative workflows and redlining my laptop is only further shortening the mayfly-esque lifespan it has left.

So upgrading has become an inevitability at this point. But why has the MacBook Air M5 tempted me so much more than its predecessors?

Why I’m buying the MacBook Air M5

OK, it should be abundantly clear already: the MacBook Air M5 is a major step up from what I’m using right now. As I’ve already touched on, its Apple Silicon is far more suited to demanding workflows than the Intel chipset MacBooks used to rely on.

Yes, the M5 chip is only a modest advance compared to the previous generation. But it is important to consider how far we’ve come. The original M1 was a quantum leap compared to the CPUs it was competing with and each iteration since has advanced on that lead. While it can’t match the power of the M3 Ultra or the kind of creative powerhouse employed by 3D animators, the M5 chip is at the bleeding edge of computing power for everyday creatives and I can’t wait to see how much smoother that makes my creative process.

There’s another thing attracting me to the latest MacBook Air though. For any of you that rolled your eyes at the announced $100 / £100 / AU$100 price rise during last week’s launch, I’ll admit my pupils were freewheeling too. But, for me, the increased price is actually a bit of a bargain, given it also gives you access to a more expansive 512GB SSD as standard.

Frankly, after years of struggling to stretch a 256GB SSD to its absolute limits, it’s absolutely time this decrepit spec was put out to pasture. Even offloading all of my older productions to the cloud, creating enough space for sample libraries and software is becoming nigh-on impossible with drives this size, so I had always budgeted for a larger SSD in my next purchase. Given speccing up the MacBook Air M4 to a 512GB drive would have cost $1,199 / £1,199, getting the exact same amount of storage for just $1,099 / £1,099 / AU$1,799 is a bit of a steal in my book.

But why content myself with the MacBook Air? If I want professional results, wouldn’t the MacBook Pro be a better shout?

Honestly, no. As a result of the exponential growth in power of Apple Silicon, the MacBook lines have experienced serious power creep. While the Pro range was the only option for creatives a decade ago, the level of performance it’s designed for is above and beyond what most digital artists or bedroom producers need — unless you’re rendering 3D artwork or compiling enormous code databases, it’s likely going to be overkill.

And in line with this, the price of each range has increased, with the MacBook Pro ballooning from the relatively modest $1,299 / £1,249 / AU$1,899 I spent last time to a whopping $1,699 / £1,699 / AU$2,699 for the M5 — meaning the increased list price for the new MacBook Air is now far more in line with my budget than the exceedingly spendy Pro.

Ultimately, when you’ve got a laptop as elderly as mine, pretty much any alternative is going to be an upgrade. But given the professional power, storage and portability I need, the MacBook Air M5 sits right at the center of my dream laptop Venn diagram. Our initial benchmarking shows it's seriously fast, it’s impressively capacious and, most importantly, can display more than 16 colors — so I honestly cannot wait to get my hands on mine.

When I wrote about the Apple Mac mini M4 being the best deal in computing, I didn’t think Apple would one up itself less than two weeks later by launching the MacBook Neo, a laptop not only cheaper than the Mac mini, but also with much of the premium materials that MacBooks are known for.

Our MacBook Neo review called it the “best budget laptop you can buy”, thanks to its build quality, design, display and performance that are all “leagues ahead” of its Windows and Chromebook competitors — while also offering the full MacOS experience.

Apple achieves the low-for-a-Macbook AU$899 price point by using the A18 Pro processor — the same chip found in the iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max — instead of its M-series silicon found in the higher-end MacBooks. It also only comes in a base configuration of 8GB RAM and 256GB storage. You can increase storage to a 512GB SSD and gain Touch ID capabilities for AU$1,099.

And while AU$899 is already quite a tempting price point, you can now save AU$50 during the ongoing Afterpay Day sales — available in most colour options from Aussie retailer Mwave.

My favourite part about the MacBook Neo is its much-improved repairability, with plenty of online content creators having demonstrated how easy the laptop is to take apart and reassemble — something MacBooks haven’t historically been known for.

AppleCare+ costs are also some of the cheapest among MacBooks, with a free battery service, AU$79 apiece for a screen repair and external enclosure damage, and AU$249 for other accidental damage. In comparison, MacBook Air and Pro service costs are AU$149 for the screen repair and external enclosure damage, and AU$429 for other accidental damage.

All in all, I reckon the MacBook Neo is a winner if you’re looking for a laptop that can do basic tasks like web browsing, media consumption, or even light gaming and video editing. The 8GB of RAM may not sound like much, but our tests found the laptop performed well enough to run most Mac apps with no issue. With that all-metal chassis, hi-res display, and its repairability, the MacBook Neo is hard to beat. And it comes in fun colours.

If, however, you are looking for something more powerful, the 13-inch MacBook Air M4 is currently discounted on Amazon for AU$1,394, which has 16GB of RAM and a much faster M4 processor.

The 2026 model of the MacBook Air 15 was recently released. It boasts the newest M5 chip, but the problem is that it'll set you back at least $1,249. If that's beyond your budget and you're happy with the M4 chip, then we'd recommend buying the MacBook Air 15-inch (M4), which is on sale at Amazon for only $1,099 (was $1,399).

This is a record-low price for the laptop that is as powerful as it is light. With a slightly bigger 15-inch display, this model is the perfect companion for creatives, students, and professionals who love macOS and want a laptop that will serve them well for many years to come.

Today's best MacBook Air deal

• See more: check out all of today's deals at Amazon

In our Apple MacBook Air 15-inch (M4) review, we gave the laptop 4.5 out of 5 stars and said that "the best 15-inch laptop just got better." With cutting-edge Apple silicon, you're getting a whole lot of power in a super compact case. Even though this isn't the latest model, there's no compromising on power here.

We're big fans of the thin design, which is not only gorgeous to look at but also light enough to be one of the most portable laptops on the market. And if you were thinking that this design would compromise on the audio quality, think again. In fact, we found it to have some of the best speakers you'll find in a laptop.

The 15-inch display boasts Liquid Retina technology that makes it one of the best screens available. All types of work, web browsing, and video watching will look truly fantastic. We've not yet seen the full realization of Apple Intelligence, but this laptop has enough power to support it.

If you'd like a deal on a more powerful Apple laptop, then check out our dedicated MacBook Pro deals page. And if you're open to Windows laptops, then our guide to the best laptops is a great place to start.

If you’ve been waiting for the right moment to upgrade to a new laptop, we’ve spotted the MacBook deal for you. Right now, you can buy the MacBook Pro (M5, 2025) at Amazon for $1,499.99 (was $1,699), which is the lowest price it’s ever been for the popular 1TB storage variant.

Previously, the MacBook Pro (M5, 2025) had dipped to the $1,600 or so mark, but it’s never gone as low as this. $1,499.99 is a fantastic price for the MacBook Pro - which I would recommend to anyone who wants something powerful at their disposal.

In our tests, we found Apple’s M5 chip “scoring some impressive results”, leaping “to the top of our Cinebench R24 charts” making it a tempting proposition for anyone with ambitious aims. This deal is also on the 1TB SSD storage model, so you have plenty of space to store all your valuable files.

Today’s best MacBook deal

• See more: check out all of today's deals at Amazon

Our Apple MacBook Pro (M5, 2025) review points out it’s a “small update over the...M4 model” but it provides “one of the best displays on a laptop” as well as “very good performance”. It also has “excellent battery life” which is always good to see in any laptop. Besides the core specs, it also has three Thunderbolt 4 ports, a MagSafe 3 charging port, HDMI port, SDXC card slot, and a headphone jack. All-day battery life of between 18 and 24 hours is promised here as well.

It’s one of the best MacBooks around thanks to its steady mix of great performance and strong battery life. If you’re looking to invest in one of the best laptops, this one will see you happy for a long time to come.

If your budget or needs differ from what the MacBook Pro (M5, 2025) offers, take a look at the other laptop deals available at the moment. For gaming on the move, check out the gaming laptop deals going on too.

The MacBook Neo has made many headlines this week, and it's no surprise. At just £600, Apple's new budget laptop has the potential to seriously disrupt the market.

At such a low price, I wasn't expecting any deals for a while on this model, but Amazon has already broken ranks by offering the device for just £569 (was £599) in the Blush and Indigo colourways.

While £30 isn't a huge discount in isolation, it's rare to see Amazon (or any other retailer) offer a deal on a trending Apple product like this so soon. The Neo was just released a few days ago, in fact.

It's hard to say whether this particular price cut is part of the wider Amazon Spring Deal Days sale that's happening right now, or whether this is some kind of 'launch deal', but it's definitely worth considering. Amazon's sale ends on Monday night, too, so it could be worth picking this one up sooner rather than later.

First-ever discount on the MacBook Neo

A great choice for most people right now

We've just published our MacBook Neo review, which details why this new model is a fantastic choice for those on a budget. In short, Apple has brought many of the things that we love about the higher-end MacBook Air models down to a much more compelling price cut.

For one, we were genuinely surprised at how good the performance from the Apple A19 chipset in the Neo is for most everyday tasks. For those who don't already know, it's the same processor used in recent iPhones, so there was a question mark over whether it would handle the usual laptop-based tasks. With only 8GB of RAM, the Neo won't blow you away, but it's fantastic for browsing, emails, writing, and even various editing tasks.

Despite being a cheaper model, the Neo doesn't feel cheap at all, either. It's still constructed from the same sturdy aluminium as many of the higher-end models, and the display is also quite good. It has thicker bezels than some, but it's vibrant and has plenty of resolution. Overall, this machine is a great buy.

More of today's highlights in the Amazon Spring sale

• Amazon Devices: Fire TV & Blink from £13.99
• Apple: AirPods & Apple Watch from £139
• Appliances: up to 30% off Ninja & De'Longhi
• Clothing: up to 50% off Sketchers & Crocs
• Essentials: from £5
• Gaming: up to 50% off PS5 & Switch games
• Headphones: Sony & Shokz from £59
• Health & Beauty: up to 60% off Philips & Oral-B
• Laptops: from £149.99
• Smart home: up to 50% off cameras & doorbells
• Smartwatches: Apple & Huawei from £99
• Tablets: Fire & Galaxy Tabs from £59.99
• Toys: up to 30% off Lego
• TVs: from £139.99
• Vacuums: up to 30% off Shark & Vax

The MacBook Neo and iPhone 17e are cut from the same cloth. Both devices were announced at the same event on March 4, both represent the entry point into their respective product ecosystems, and both — remarkably — start at just $599 / £599 / AU$999.

We also know that iPhones work seamlessly with MacBooks, a fact that Apple’s typically glossy launch video for the Neo sought to remind audiences: “Best of all, Neo works like magic with your iPhone. You can start a chat on your Neo and continue on your iPhone. Or copy from one and paste straight to the other. You can even use your iPhone without holding your iPhone.” You get the idea — MacBook and iPhone: better together.

The MacBook Neo and iPhone 17e are the fun younger siblings of the best iPhones and best MacBooks, so my question to Apple is: why didn’t you make these two affordable, fun-loving devices available in the same colors?!

We discussed this topic and much more on the latest episode of the TechRadar Podcast, which you can view below.

In Apple’s world, more color typically equals greater affordability (remember the iPhone 5C?), and the company did at least soften the appeal of the iPhone 17e by offering it in — ahem — a rather lovely Soft Pink (the plain Black and White colors of the iPhone 16e also make a return).

The MacBook Neo, meanwhile, is available in Silver, Blush, Citrus, and Indigo. Three of those colors are exclusive to the Neo range, but none are similarly available on the iPhone 17e.

Bearing in mind that both products share a target market of cost-conscious (dare I say younger?) buyers, wouldn’t it have made sense for consumers to be able to pair their Citrus MacBook Neo with a Citrus iPhone 17e? Or pick up an Indigo version of both devices? Admittedly, Blush is a slightly darker shade of Soft Pink, and Silver is a slightly darker shade of White — but that’s about as close as you’ll get to a uniform MacBook Neo/iPhone 17e combo.

I am, of course, being facetious; this is a minor gripe with what was an otherwise formidable product launch from Apple. College students can now pick up a new iPhone and a MacBook for a combined $1,098 / £1,098 / AU$1748 — that just hasn’t been possible before, and it should worry the likes of Acer and Samsung, who have remained relatively unbothered by Apple at the lower end of the laptop market.

But Apple has really stepped up its color game in the past 12 months (Cosmic Orange and Mist Blue are all-timers), and it would be nice to have the option of picking up its two new budget-friendly buddies in the same exact shade. Apple is the king of uniform tech, after all. Here's hoping for a Citrus iPhone 18...

• The MacBook Neo has been disassembled on YouTube
• The content creator found the laptop to be incredibly easy to take apart
• That should make it much easier to repair than most Apple laptops

Apple’s laptops have a reputation for being particularly difficult to work on once they’re opened up, with components often glued in place or buried under masses of intricately routed and incredibly delicate cabling. So it comes as some surprise that the brand-new MacBook Neo is, in the words of one reviewer, “absolutely amazing” in this regard.

That comes from a teardown video published by Tech Re-Nu on YouTube. There, the content creator felt that Apple’s latest laptop was unusually accommodating of people who want to open it up and get at its internals.

For instance, Tech Re-Nu pointed out that there were no sticky tabs holding the MacBook Neo’s speakers in place, while the headphone jack was entirely modular, which Tech Re-Nu described as “very nice work from Apple.” That comes after similar conclusions from a teardown performed by YouTuber Dave2D.

Indeed, Tech Re-Nu was surprisingly effusive in its praise for the MacBook Neo and its disassembly process, stating: “I can’t say we’ve ever had a Mac that looks as repairable and as modular as this one. No sticky tape, no tricky adhesives, modular parts, minimal parts as well, no hinge covers or anything like that. It’s just super-straightforward, elegant design.”

Why has Apple done this?

Apple has often found itself in the sights of right to repair activists who say its penchant for making its laptops tough to tear down makes them much more difficult to repair, which in turn can contribute to high levels of e-waste. As well as that, this type of device can become more expensive for users who need to buy a new device when – theoretically – they might have been able to repair it instead if doing so was easier.

The likelihood is that Apple operates this way due to a long-standing desire to make its products as compact and as simple (on the outside) as possible. Both Steve Jobs and Apple’s former chief designer Jony Ive believed that Apple’s products should be free from needless extras, and that often extended to empty space – one apocryphal story has Jobs dropping an iPod prototype into a fish tank and pointing to the emerging bubbles as proof that there was too much unused space inside the device.

As a result, Apple tries to pack its devices’ insides as tightly as possible, ensuring it manages to include advanced components while keeping the product’s dimensions as slimline as possible. One upshot of this is the incredibly densely engineered internals that are a nightmare to tear down for all but the most adept of tinkerers.

Evidently, however, the MacBook Neo is different. Because it cuts a lot of the more advanced components commonly found inside other Macs, it’s a lot easier to manage on the inside. The motherboard, for example, is tiny, while the battery simply lifts out once its screws are removed, without the need to deal with adhesive or built-in tabs.

Another reason for Apple’s simplified assembly could be the pressure from right to repair campaigners. The movement has scored some significant wins in recent years and Apple has felt compelled to issue users with repair tools and guides, something that it never used to permit in the past. With regulators increasingly targeting Big Tech firms, Apple might have decided to preempt any potential scrutiny by changing how it puts the MacBook Neo together. That conclusion, though, will depend on whether the M5 MacBook Air and M5 Pro MacBook Pro are similarly easy to disassemble – which, for now, remains unknown.

What we saw in Tech Re-Nu’s video was a laptop that is neatly put together without being overly burdensome to repair. And that’s good news for anyone who might want to poke around inside their MacBook Neo if something goes wrong.

• Tim Cook pens a letter celebrating Apple's 50th anniversary
• Apple has announced plans to celebrate
• There are scant details so far

Apple is ready to celebrate 50 years of innovation. The company has been tight-lipped about how it will mark this half-century milestone, but now it and longtime CEO Tim Cook are opening up just a bit about the plans, how Apple views the last 50 years, and what comes next.

"Apple was founded on the simple notion that technology should be personal, and that belief — radical at the time — changed everything," wrote Cook in a letter posted on Apple.com to mark the occasion (the official date is April 1).

In the letter, Cook credits Apple's customers with defining the story of Apple: "In your hands, the tools we make have improved lives, and sometimes even saved them. And that is what inspires us — not what technology can do alone, but everything you can do with it."

While Cook and Apple often hesitate to look back, the company finally revealed in a press release a skeletal plan for celebrating 50 years of Apple:

"In the coming weeks, Apple and its global community will celebrate the company’s 50th anniversary, recognizing the creativity, innovation, and impact that people around the world have made possible with Apple technology."

What that means, though, is open to interpretation. Surely Apple will have some in-store decorations and displays celebrating the history. I've asked Apple, though, if Cook will host an Apple Park event for employees. I'll update this post if I hear back.

Founded in 1976 by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, Apple has produced some of the most important tech products of the information age. From the game-changing Macintosh to the music-carrying iPod, and then the only mobile phone ever casually described as the "Jesus Phone", which became the iPhone. While of lesser impact, the iPad has had the longevity and arguably the impact of other Apple products.

Under Cook's guidance (he took over as CEO in 2011 after Jobs' untimely death), Apple has become a leader in wearables (Apple Watch) and has built a formidable Services business. The jury, though, is still out on Cook's biggest swing, its expensive spatial computer, the Vision Pro.

It could be argued, in fact, I've seen these arguments on Reddit, that the company Jobs and Wozniak founded and that Jobs ran is distinctly different from the one Cook runs today.

Reddit user Raveen396 wrote, "Apple under Cook is a much more mature company...Not trying to be [a] corporate bootlicker here, but comparing Apple under Jobs and Apple under Cook is like comparing two entirely different companies."

Comment from r/iphone

I'm not sure you'd expect anything different from a company entering its second half-century. Leadership changes, and the world and its customers change around it. Apple under Cook has made numerous adjustments to meet the market and customers wherever they live.

Still, there is a continuum and one I'd like to see celebrated with Apple's own gift for elevated flair.

I envision museum-like installations at Apple Stores around the world (currently more than 500), displaying early products and their prototypes. 50 years is the perfect moment for Apple to pull back the curtain on its vaunted privacy, if only just a little bit.

Neo may mean more than you think

While some were hoping for a big product reveal during the 50th anniversary celebrations, I think the MacBook Neo may have won that moment. It's the first new Mac in over a decade and potentially opens up MacBooks to an entirely new market.

Still, it's not exactly the kind of earth-moving innovation we were hoping for. A tease of the iPhone Fold, now that would be something. As would a first look at Apple iGlasses.

We know Apple is working on a foldable handset or tablet and that augmented-reality smart glasses are somewhere on the product roadmap, as well. What if Apple broke with tradition and gave us a sneak peek at what Apple's labs are working on right now?

It's not just that I want this; Apple might need it. Apple's next 50 years are not a given.

The competition is tough, and people are less positive about technology than they were when Apple first arrived, maybe more so now than ever. They need something exciting to look forward to.

In its press release, Apple's statement on the future is promising, but vague: "Apple will continue to innovate in groundbreaking silicon, life-enriching products, transformative software, and services that improve people’s lives, while deepening its commitments to environmental responsibility, education, and community impact around the world."

What people want, though, is to believe that Apple at 50 is just as innovative and interested in risk-taking as it was in 1976.

I think Cook gets that, and the end of his letter is a signal that Apple is not done being crazy:

"If you’ve taught us anything, it’s that the people crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.

So here’s to the crazy ones."

Got a new 13-inch MacBook Air on its way? Great choice! In our MacBook Air 13-inch M5 review, my teammate Lance awarded it a near-perfect 4.5 stars, concluding that it delivered "the best mix of winning design, near-pro-level performance, and battery life you can find in an ultraportable".

Unless you're the kind of maniac who's happy to just shove a MacBook into your bag as-is, you'll want to get a case sorted before you start taking it out and about. Below, I've rounded up the best MacBook Air 13-inch cases I've found.

My collection includes a bunch of different options to suit different lifestyles and computing habits. There are functional soft cases, smart leather sleeves, and options with additional or integrated cable storage pockets so you can keep everything organized. There are also a few hard shells that snap straight onto the machine and protect it from scratches and fingerprints.

You're not short of options, and unless you're going to take a gamble on a cheap Amazon option from a brand whose name looks like someone just punched a keyboard, there are a few more established case-makers to look out for. tomtoc is a go-to for well-designed, protective soft cases. Bellroy is similarly excellent — and especially when it comes to integrating peripherals storage — but generally a step up in price.

Another jump in price and you can get yourself a chic leather wallet or folio. Check out Woolnut in the US or Harber London in the UK. At the other end of the price spectrum, Mosiso MacBook cases tend to come in at a very budget-friendly price, but achieve solid review scores on Amazon.

US — 13-inch MacBook Air cases

UK — 13in MacBook Air cases

MacBook Air 13-inch cases: useful information

Want to make doubly sure your chosen case will fit? Here are the exact proportions of the 13-inch MacBook Air M5 (H x W x D): 0.45 x 13.4 x 9.35 inches / 1.15 x 34.04 x 23.76cm.

There are two different sizes of MacBook Air M5 — a 13-inch (which I'm focusing on here) and a 15-inch. Do make sure you have the right option selected when choosing your case.

To confuse things, the 13-inch version's screen is actually 13.6 inches, and the 15-inch version's screen is 15.3 inches. Most manufacturers will refer to the compatible cases as 13-inch / 15-inch, though, in line with Apple's own wording.

• Apple's MacBook Air M5 is largely the same
• Eagle-eyed reviewers noticed a small but important keyboard difference that removes some words
• Alignment with the iPhone and the global market are the reasons

It's a change so subtle and crafty that you might not notice it at first. In fact, most reviewers missed this design switcheroo on the new Apple MacBook Air M5. It's on the keyboard where a handful of keys no longer have words, just images or glyphs.

How and why this happened is a subject of some debate, but Apple's reasoning is fairly obvious.

First of all, turns out that MacBook keyboards can look different depending on where in the world you buy them. Even between the US and UK, there have been differences. Now, though, there is some alignment.

On the new MacBook Air M5, these keys have changed:

• Cap Lock
• Shift
• Delete
• Return

They are all now represented with glyphs; the words are gone. In the UK, this is just how it's been on some previous MacBook Airs, like the first one to feature Apple Silicon, the M1 (though not apparently consistently).

To be clear, there was no situation where, on the previous MacBook Air, we had words and images, and so in this new laptop, we get just the glyphs.

Aesthetically, it's a cleaner look, and it shouldn't present any confusion, especially for touch typists who aren't looking at the keyboard anyway.

Glyph lineage

If you are a hunt-and-peck sort of typist, you'll probably navigate this change fine, as well. After all, these Glyphs should look quite familiar. Apple based them all on the virtual keyboard of iOS.

Look at Delete on your iPhone's keyboard. It's the same. Double-tap on the upper case key and, yes, you'll instantly recognize the Cap Lock key on the new MacBook Air.

It's the same for the Return and shift keys.

It's not a big deal or the kind of change that will impact your laptop buying decision, but it is interesting to see how usage and design decisions bleed out through the Apple ecosystem and around the world.

Apple and its customers thrive on utility and consistency. These changes will likely bring a small measure of both.

Making Mac familiar

Consistency has another benefit and one that may favor Apple's future market aspirations: it makes transitioning to the Mac from other platforms easier, especially if you've been using an iPhone.

One aging stat claimed that 70% of Windows users owned iPhones, which means there may still be a huge addressable and untapped market that could base their familiarity with a Mac on how well they know their iPhone.

Imagine if one subtle change could help tip the scales in favor of the Mac, which, by some measures, still has a single-digit desktop market share. And, in case you're wondering, the hot, new MacBook Neo features the same keyboard glyphs.

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.

Apple MacBook Neo two-minute review

The MacBook Neo is one of the most interesting releases from Apple in a long time, and it comes at an important moment. Thanks to a global memory shortage, a tariffs-loving president in the White House, and other global conditions, consumer electronics are becoming ever more expensive, just as the cost of living has also risen, which means consumers have less money to spend on things like a new laptop.

Apple is generally regarded as a company that sells high-end and expensive devices, which isn’t entirely fair, as I think the Mac mini (M4) is one of the best-value products in the computing space. The MacBook Neo is interesting, as Apple is entering the budget and midrange laptop market for the first time. This is a market that's dominated by cheap Chromebooks and affordable Windows 11 laptops, and while Apple is joining the fray with the MacBook Neo, it’s doing so on its own terms.

That means, as the company is keen to emphasise, that while the MacBook Neo is a more affordable MacBook, it is in no way a cheap, pared-back or limited MacBook.

You’re still getting a solid and great-looking laptop made out of aluminum (and now in four new colors, harking back to the more fun days when Apple launched brightly-colored Macs), and a bright and vibrant screen with a retina resolution of 2408 x 1506, which is higher (and therefore sharper and more detailed) than the 1080p screens laptops at this price usually sport.

Audio from the built-in speakers is also excellent, the 1080p webcam means video calls look great, and perhaps best of all, the MacBook Neo runs the full version of macOS, and you can run pretty much any Mac app on it.

While its 8GB of unified memory means you won't see the best performance when running multiple apps at once, overall I had no issues at all running various apps for day-to-day tasks, making it ideal for students in particular.

Best of all is the price: $599 / £599 / AU$899. You’re going to be hard-pushed to find a Windows laptop or Chromebook around this price that can match the build quality and performance of the MacBook Neo; and if you're a student, you can get a further discount that brings it down to just $499 / £499 / AU$749. At that price, it really is a no-brainer.

Of course, there are compromises. As well as the limited amount of memory, the MacBook Neo doesn’t come with a backlight behind the keyboard, so finding the right keys in darker environments can be an issue, and the two USB-C ports use older and slower USB 3 and USB 2 tech.

Despite those compromises, Apple has made easily the best budget laptop you can buy in 2026. While it’s not the cheapest laptop out there, it’s well worth paying a little extra to get such a slick and accomplished laptop at this price. Windows 11 laptop and Chromebook makers have been put on notice, and they’ll need to up their games to match, let alone surpass, the MacBook Neo.

Apple MacBook Neo: Price & release date

• Starts at $599 / £599 / AU$899
• Went on sale March 11

The biggest selling point of the MacBook Neo is its price, with Apple seemingly pulling out all the stops to keep the price as low as possible.

With a starting price of just $599 / £599 / AU$899 (and a further $100 / £100 / AU$150 discount for education users), this is one of the cheapest Macs Apple has ever made. Sure, the Mac mini (M4) is more powerful, and launched at the same price, but it doesn’t come with a screen, mouse or keyboard, so for sheer out-of-the-box value for money, the MacBook Neo now reigns supreme.

For that starting price you get a 13-inch Liquid Retina display, 8GB of unified memory and a 256GB SSD. The Neo is powered by the Apple A18 Pro chip, with a 6-core CPU and 5-core GPU. The A18 Pro debuted in 2024 in the iPhone 16 Pro, and the fact that the MacBook Neo is powered by an older mobile chip, rather than one of the M-series chips usually found in Macs, is one of the ways Apple has kept the overall price of the MacBook Neo down.

Customization options for the hardware are pretty limited as well, with just the option to double the storage to 512GB for an extra $100 / £100 / AU$200. Considering the current price of storage, this isn’t an obscene amount to pay for an extra 256GB of the stuff — and by going for the larger storage option you also get a Touch ID button on the keyboard that allows you to log in to macOS, pay for things via Apple Pay and more using your fingerprint. This is not an option with the base model of the MacBook Neo.

The $599 / £599 / AU$899 starting price firmly pits the MacBook Neo against the best budget laptops, such as the HP Chromebook Plus 15.6-inch and Acer Aspire Go 15 — the first time in a long, long, time that I can say that about a MacBook, and Apple’s build and design quality easily surpasses almost every budget laptop or Chromebook at this price point.

The arrival of the MacBook Neo also means the MacBook Air is no longer the cheapest MacBook model, which makes the new, more expensive, price of the just-announced MacBook Air (M5), which now starts at $1,099 / £1,099 / AU$1,799, a slightly less bitter pill to swallow. Slightly.

While I love the fact that you can now get a MacBook for $599 / £599 / AU$899, the value proposition of the Neo lives or dies on how many compromises Apple has had to make to keep the price low.

One last thing to note here is that in the UK and EU, the MacBook Neo does not come with a charger, just a USB-C cable, as is the case with the M5 MacBook Pro from last year and the Samsung Galaxy Book6 Ultra. It’s likely we’ll see an increasing number of laptops in the UK and EU not ship with chargers in a bid to reduce e-waste — if you don't already have a USB-C charger you’ll need to buy one.

• Price: 5/5

Apple MacBook Neo: Specs

Apple MacBook Neo: Design

• Available in four colors
• No backlit keyboard
• USB 2 and USB 3 ports

Apple has done an excellent job of ensuring that, despite its lower price, the MacBook Neo retains the look, feel and build quality that we’ve come to expect from Apple devices; and when it comes to design, the MacBook Neo blows pretty much all of the competition at this price point out of the water.

Thanks to its aluminum build the MacBook Neo feels solid, robust and impressively premium. It comes in four vibrant colors, and the review sample Apple sent me is the Citrus version, which is a nice bright-looking green. I also had the chance to check out the other colors at the launch event: Silver is the iconic Mac color, Blush is a lovely pinkish shade and Indigo is a dark blue.

As with the iMac redesign a few years ago, it’s great to see Apple return to releasing fun and colorful Macs, and while the MacBook Neo variants look bright, there’s a metallic sheen to them which means they don’t resemble toys.

The aluminum chassis means the MacBook Neo isn’t quite as light as you might imagine. At 2.7 pounds (1.23kg) it weighs the same as the MacBook Air, and while that’s certainly not a hefty laptop (hence the ‘Air’ moniker), students and kids lugging the MacBook Neo around might notice the weight. It’s also thicker than the MacBook Air.

The MacBook Neo’s Magic Keyboard is slightly colored to match the hue of the laptop, which, as Apple says, creates “a cohesive design aesthetic and [makes] MacBook Neo the most colorful MacBook yet.”

Speaking of the keyboard, it’s here where one of the big differences between the two models of the MacBook Neo can be found. If you go for the more expensive model with 512GB storage you also get a Touch ID button for signing into macOS using your fingerprint. It’s a shame that this is limited to the pricier model, as I find Touch ID to be really convenient — you can also use it to approve installations, insert passwords and make payments — and there are plenty of budget laptops out there that support biometric security.

The base model instead comes with a ‘lock’ button that you can press and hold to lock the MacBook Neo, which is far less useful.

While the keyboard of the MacBook Neo feels as comfortable to use and responsive as the Magic Keyboards on more expensive Macs, it does lack a very important feature: backlighting.

On other MacBooks, the keyboard backlights illuminate the letter or icon of each key, making them easy to see in low-light conditions. Without backlighting, typing can be more difficult if you’re not in a suitably lit environment, even if, like me, you’re a proficient typer who doesn’t usually need to look at the keyboard.

It’s arguably the biggest sacrifice Apple has made in order to keep the MacBook Neo’s price as low as possible, and while it's not a deal breaker, it’s definitely worth noting, and in dark and poorly lit classrooms and lecture halls the lack of backlighting could become an issue.

Along the left-hand side of the MacBook Neo are two USB-C ports, which are also used to charge the laptop (there’s no fancy magnetic MagSafe 3 port here). While the two USB-C ports are indistinguishable from each other, or from the USB-C ports found on other MacBooks, it’s important to note that both use different, and older, tech.

The USB port nearest the back of the MacBook Neo uses USB 3, which maxes out at 10Gb/s. For comparison, the new MacBook Air M5 comes with Thunderbolt 4 ports, which can handle up to 40Gb/s, and the most recent MacBook Pros with M5 Pro and M5 Max up that tech to Thunderbolt 5, which can handle 120GB/s.

So, while the USB 3 port on the MacBook Neo can handle modern peripherals (such as mice and keyboards), moving large files to and from an external hard drive will be noticeably slower than on many other modern laptops. You can at least plug in a USB-C monitor and use it as a second screen, with support for 4K and 60fps.

The second USB-C port uses the even older USB 2 interface, which limits speeds to just 60MB/s, which is far slower, and only really appropriate for wired keyboards and mice.

This is another big indicator of the MacBook Neo’s (relatively) low price, and while I can understand that Apple needed to make some sacrifices, it could have handled this a bit more elegantly. For a start, having two seemingly identical ports that use very different technology could cause confusion — you might wonder why your USB memory stick is suddenly very slow, or why a peripheral isn’t working correctly if you connect them via the wrong port.

Also, while using USB 3 technology is an understandable cost-cutting measure (Apple is likely banking on most people not noticing the low speeds compared to more modern USB technology), including USB 2 in a laptop in 2026 feels close to insulting, no matter how cheap the device is.

To be fair to Apple, the rest of the design of the MacBook Neo is free from those kind of compromises. As I’ve mentioned, the aluminum body makes it look and feel far more premium than pretty much any other laptop at this price point, and the screen is another highlight. At 13 inches, and with a resolution of 2408 x 1506, the display might not be the biggest or sharpest screen in Apple’s lineup, but on a laptop in this price range it’s a fantastic addition, considering that most Windows 11 and Chromebook rivals at this price will be limited to 1080p or even lower. The 13-inch screen also helps to make the MacBook Neo nicely portable, especially for kids and students. Perhaps the best thing about the Neo’s display is its brightness — it's able to hit the same 500 nits of peak brightness as the screen on the MacBook Air.

For anyone who's used a budget laptop and been disappointed by the dim or washed-out image quality, the MacBook Neo’s screen is impressively bright and vivid, and with support for one billion colors (and that higher-than-usual resolution), the MacBook Neo easily has one of the best, if not the best, displays on an affordable laptop — though, Apple being Apple, it’s not a touchscreen.

• Design: 4/5

Apple MacBook Neo: Performance

• Uses the same A18 Pro chip that powered the iPhone 16 Pro
• Can run macOS apps
• 8GB of memory is a concern

The MacBook Neo is one of Apple’s most interesting releases in years, and while it uses a chip built by Apple, unlike the other modern MacBooks it’s not an M-class chip; instead it's the A18 Pro, which originally appeared in the iPhone 16 Pro.

Putting a smartphone chip into a laptop might seem odd, but the logic is sound. For a start, Apple has been making mobile chips for a lot longer than it’s been making computing chips (by around 10 years), and the mobile chips it makes these days, especially for its high-end Pro iPhones, are impressively powerful — and you could argue that a powerful mobile chip like the A18 Pro is more capable than a weak laptop chip like those found in many budget devices.

By going with an older iPhone chip, Apple is able to keep the price of the MacBook Neo lower without impacting the performance too much.

So why not use an older computer chip like the M1? As Apple explained to me, the A18 Pro features a 16-core Neural Engine that can handle on-device AI features, including Apple’s much-hyped Apple Intelligence, which is baked into macOS. The M1 chip, which debuted with the MacBook Air in 2020, isn’t able to handle those tasks as well – and the A18 also uses faster memory. So, despite my initial reservations about Apple using a mobile chip for the MacBook Neo, it’s actually quite a shrewd move.

As the A18 Pro is also a 64-bit Arm-based chip, you don’t have to worry about only being able to run iPhone apps on the MacBook Neo. Instead, you can run any Mac app that can run on modern MacBooks.

macOS itself runs well on the Neo, and while it doesn’t feel quite as snappy as when I’m using my MacBook Pro, considering the price difference I was impressed. Because of the less powerful hardware in the MacBook Neo, for the best results it’s worth sticking to the default apps as much as possible. So, rather than loading up Ableton Live 12 and launching a project full of various sounds and instruments, I stuck to the pre-installed Garage Band instead; while it’s a more basic music-making application, it’s still got plenty of great features, and it ran without an issue on the MacBook Neo. Other default apps, such as Keynote, used for presentations, also ran well.

If you want to try more intensive apps you certainly can. As I mentioned earlier, despite running on an iPhone chip, the MacBook Neo can run any Mac app — I even installed Steam, which requires Rosetta to run on non-Intel hardware. You get the same macOS experience as you’d get on the similarly priced Mac mini, as well as on ultra-expensive MacBook Pros or the Mac Studio.

So, there are no limits as there are with ChromeOS on Chromebooks, where you can only run limited Android apps, or a relatively small selection of Chrome apps. Some budget laptops also come with ‘Windows 11 in S mode’ – a typically terrible Microsoft name, and which is essentially a locked-down version of Windows 11 that can only run apps bought or downloaded through the Microsoft Store, and on which you’re stuck with using Edge as the default browser.

The MacBook Neo suffers from none of these limitations, so in theory you’ll be able to run any app that you could run on a more expensive Mac. This makes the Neo a far more versatile device than a Chromebook or Windows 11 S laptop, and I’d also argue that it’s more useful than the iPad Pro, which despite being far more powerful (and which uses the latest Apple M5 chip), can only run iPadOS apps, rather than full Mac applications.

You can also use your iPhone or iPad with the MacBook Neo, in the same way you can with more expensive MacBooks. So, you can mirror the screen of your iPhone, drag and drop files, make calls and messages, share the clipboard, and use an iPad as a second screen. I paired the MacBook Neo up with the latest M5-powered iPad Pro (an unlikely pairing, I’ll admit, given the price difference between them), and used the iPad Pro as a second monitor, and it worked brilliantly.

So I have to give Apple major props when it comes to ensuring that users of the MacBook Neo do not get a compromised or limited macOS experience — you enjoy the same experience that other Mac owners do, and that’s great to see on a more affordable device.

The only limits, then, are those of the MacBook Neo’s hardware itself, so while you could fire up Blender and work on complex 3D scenes, the Neo is going to struggle, so you'll need to keep your expectations in check.

While I was pleasantly surprised by the performance of the A18 Pro chip, I do worry about the 8GB of unified memory, which could limit how future-proof the MacBook Neo will be.

Due to the global memory shortage, which is raising the price of memory, it was an inevitability that the Neo would come with a limited amount in order to help keep the overall price down — and I was actually relieved that we got 8GB rather than 4GB, which some Chromebooks and even some budget Windows 11 laptops still come with.

However, 8GB of system memory doesn’t go very far these days, and there’s no option to upgrade to a MacBook Neo model with more — and you certainly can’t easily open up the laptop and install more memory yourself.

With my MacBook Neo running Safari, Keynote, Garage Band and downloading a game through Steam, around 6.48–7GB of memory was being used at once — that's pretty darn close to the 8GB limit. Once you max out the MacBook Neo’s memory, as with any laptop, things start slowing down considerably.

The MacBook Neo, like other modern Macs, uses unified memory, which means that 8GB of memory is shared between the system and graphics, so loading up more graphically-intensive tasks puts even more pressure on the memory.

If you’re going to be using a laptop for graphically intensive workloads, or you like to multitask and switch between numerous apps, you’d be much better off investing in the MacBook Air (M5) instead, the base configuration of which comes with 16GB of unified memory.

Again, the memory limits of the MacBook Neo can be avoided by keeping in mind what the MacBook Neo has been designed for, and what it hasn’t. Sticking to more basic apps, and only having a few of them open at once, will ensure you have a smooth and enjoyable experience.

If you’re not prepared to do that, then the MacBook Neo simply isn’t for you — but good luck finding at laptop at this price that will be able to keep up with your ambitions.

The MacBook Neo can also play games, though again you’ll need to keep your expectations in check. However, I got it to run Cyberpunk 2077 at a perfectly playable 30fps (frames per second) using the ‘For this Mac’ preset. Usually a stunning-looking game, on the MacBook Neo it wasn’t quite as impressive due to most graphical presets being set to ‘low’, or turned off entirely (such as advanced ray tracing lighting effects); but the fact that it was playable at all on a 13-inch laptop costing $599 was very impressive. You can also play iPhone and iPad games, and those are much better suited to the MacBook Neo’s hardware.

Overall, the performance of the MacBook Neo is very impressive for the price It excels at day-to-day tasks, and is flexible enough for you to run most Mac apps without an issue — but if you want a productivity powerhouse, look elsewhere.

One last thing to note here is that, like the MacBook Air, the MacBook Neo has a fanless design, which means it’s practically silent when in use — another big difference from budget Windows 11 laptops, which often get noisy when the fans whirr into life.

• Performance: 4/5

Apple MacBook Neo: Battery life

• Apple claims up to 16 hours of video streaming
• 11 hours of wireless web browsing
• Hit 13 and a half hours in our tests

The MacBook Neo’s A18 Pro chip is an efficient bit of silicon, which isn’t surprising as it was designed to power a smartphone, and Apple promises up to 16 hours of video streaming on a single charge — that's two hours less than what it promises for the MacBook Air, but still an ambitious target.

In Future's battery life tests it managed to last 13 and a half hours before shutting down, which is more than enough for an entire work or school day, though there are Chromebooks out there that can go for a lot longer.

This makes it a great laptop for students who don’t want to have to hunt for a power socket between lessons, and charging the MacBook Neo is fast using the 20W power adapter that’s included in the box (unless you’re in the UK or EU, in which case you don’t get an adapter).

• Battery: 4/5

Should I buy the Apple MacBook Neo?

Buy it if…

Don’t buy it if…

How I tested the MacBook Neo

• I used it for almost a week
• I ran various apps
• I used it alongside an iPad Pro and other Macs

After seeing the MacBook Neo at Apple’s launch event I was given a unit to thoroughly test. I’ve been using the laptop every day during my review period, using it for a variety of day-to-day tasks such as document creation and browsing the internet.

I also used various apps, including Garage Band, to push the MacBook Neo, and played a bit of Cyberpunk 2077. I also linked the MacBook Neo up to an iPad Pro and my Mac Studio to test out how the MacBook integrates with other Apple products.

I’ve reviewed almost every modern MacBook during my time at TechRadar, as well as other Macs and iPads, plus plenty of Chromebooks and Windows 11 laptops as well, and I've used this experience to help me judge whether or not the MacBook Neo is worth buying for different kinds of user depending on their requirements.

• Read TechRadar’s reviews guarantee
• First reviewed: March 2026

There's a new entry-level MacBook in town: the MacBook Neo, announced as part of last week's launch extravaganza. It's already been awarded a near-perfect 4.5 stars in our Apple MacBook Neo review, and although there are other laptops also joining the lineup (a new MacBook Air and two new MacBook Pros) it's the Neo that's gaining perhaps the most attention. It comes in four fun colors, and is powered by the same chip that can be found in the iPhone 16 Pro, and can be yours for as little as $599.

The Neo will be available in the US from 11 March and if you have one preordered already, you'll want to get a cover sorted so you're all set for when it arrives. It's surprisingly affordable for a MacBook but it's still 600 bucks, you'll want to keep it protected when you're out and about. Below, I've hunted out what I think are the best MacBook Neo cases for the job.

I've included some Neo-specific cases available direct from Apple, plus various compatible third-party options. There are compact sleeves if you need to keep things streamlined, as well as all-in-one storage solutions that include handy compartments for your cables and any other peripherals. I've also snuck in a couple of bag options and a separate cable management pouch to complete the collection.

A quick note on size before we dive in. The dimensions of the MacBook Neo, as given by Apple, are (H x W x D) 0.5 x 11.71 x 8.12 inches / 1.27 x 29.75 x 20.64 cm. It's close enough in size to MacBook Pro 13-inch M2, 2022 (0.61 x 11.97 x 8.36 inches / 1.56 x 30.41 x 21.24 cm) and the MacBook Air 13-inch M5 (0.44 x 11.97 x 8.46 inches / 1.13 x 30.41 x 21.5cm) that most cases designed for those models should also fit the Neo, although perhaps not quite perfectly.

The best MacBook Neo cases