The MacEbook Neo Makes use of An iPhone Chip, And It’s Simply Good Sufficient

In retrospect, the MacEbook Neo was Apple getting forward of the curve. With tariffs and soaring memory prices in impact, the corporate will need to have identified there was solely so lengthy it may maintain the price of its earlier entry-level laptop computer — the MacEbook Air — at an affordable degree. Sure sufficient, simply three months later, the Air shot up by $200 to a new baseline of $1,300. Even at its present $700 price ticket, the Neo is a comparative cut price.

Of course, the Neo achieves these financial savings by making compromises. The greatest by far is using a reproposed iPhone processor as a substitute of an M-series chip like these present in different fashionable Macs, in addition to the iPad Air and iPad Pro. Until the Neo launched, I had critical doubts about how properly a telephone chip may deal with a desktop-level working system.

The excellent news is that it handles macOS much better than you may assume. There are some notable limitations, however these are largely to be anticipated. The actual query is whether or not it’s best to look ahead to the anticipated refresh, which might be a giant deal if it isn’t priced out of the finances sphere.

The Neo is provided with an A18 Pro, a processor initially designed for 2024’s iPhone 16 Pro. In truth, it is scaled down barely on this case. Whereas the 16 Pro’s chip had a six-core CPU paired with a six-core GPU, the Neo drops to 5 GPU cores. You’re getting inferior graphics efficiency, regardless of scaling as much as a 13-inch show and probably extra demanding workloads.

What’s unusual is that for essentially the most half, it isn’t a giant deal. In our personal testing for our MacBook Neo review, the laptop computer was capable of juggle a number of net browsers, a TV present, picture modifying in Pixelmator Pro and the sport Oceanhorn 3 with out a lot bother. Arguably, this speaks to how overpowered iPhone chips have been for a while.

That stated, the Neo can wrestle with superior duties. While it is able to vanilla 4K video modifying, for instance, its 8GB of RAM signifies that it could actually’t course of particular visible results with out coming to a crawl. Many apps additionally require an M1 processor or higher, together with video games like Assassin’s Creed Shadows. Remember that minimal necessities are simply that, and never a assure of greatest efficiency. If you need a actually clean expertise, you will be much better served by the MacEbook Air. Its newest iteration sports activities not simply an M5 chip, however at the very least 16GB of RAM, which is the reasonable baseline on today’s best laptops. 

The Neo’s port expertise is extraordinarily restricted, too. It’s outfitted with solely a 10Gbps USB 3 port, a 480Mbps USB 2 port and a 3.5mm headphone jack. While you possibly can plug in a 4K, 60Hz DisplayPort monitor through that USB 3 connection, there is no help for daisy-chaining or any type of Thunderbolt accent. The MacEbook Air has a significant win by upgrading these USB ports to 40Gbps USB 4 (with Thunderbolt 4), plus a devoted MagSafe energy connection.

Almost actually. According to Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman, a 2027 refresh will improve the Neo to the A19 Pro chip used within the iPhone 17 Pro, in addition to 12GB of RAM. While 12GB nonetheless is not 16GB, an additional 4GB could also be sufficient to clean out a few of the edge instances the place the present mannequin falters. Remember that you may’t improve the RAM in right this moment’s MacEbook post-purchase, so it is higher to plan forward now than get bottlenecked sooner or later.

That eager about longevity particularly applies within the present market. While the A18-based Neo is likely to be adequate for many apps right this moment, there is no assure that would be the case 5 years down the street. Apple is rolling forward full-steam with AI options in macOS 27, a few of which already require an M3 chip and 12GB of RAM. The second-generation Neo will nonetheless solely get a slice of what Apple has deliberate, so it isn’t as if it will likely be an ideal match for, say, heavy AutoCAD use. Yet you will be in a barely higher place if you happen to look ahead to the A19 {hardware}.

If you want a Mac instantly, the first-gen Neo will do. If an app works right this moment, it most likely is not going to fall out of help anytime quickly, because the laptop computer was solely launched in March 2026. We recommend you go hunting for a refurbished model to avoid wasting a couple of {dollars}, although.