Mac Book Neo review: Apple puts every $600 Windows PC to shame

Overview

Mac Book Neo review: Apple puts every $600 Windows PC to shame

A citrus Mac Book Neo on a table outside. (Devindra Hardawar for Engadget)

Details

I really don't know how Apple did it. The Mac Book Neo is a $600 laptop that doesn't feel like an afterthought, which is a curse that has befallen so many cheap Windows notebooks. Sure, it has a slower A-series processor and it's limited to 8GB of RAM. But the Mac Book Neo still feels as deeply considered as Apple's most premium hardware. Its screen, trackpad and overall usability is so far ahead of the competition, every Windows PC maker, including Microsoft, should be ashamed.

I've argued that a cheap Mac Book could be the best for Apple to peel away Windows users, and after spending almost a week with the Neo, I'm convinced it will do just that. It's just fast enough to handle basic productivity work. It's sturdy enough to be tortured by kids in classrooms. And you really can't beat its $599 starting price. Once Windows users learn it's not that hard to switch to mac OS, Apple will likely have another hit on its hands.

The Mac Book Neo is the best $599 laptop we’ve ever seen. The only downside is you’re stuck with low storage and 8GB of RAM.

I'll admit, I laughed at the Mac Book Neo's name at first. It really does feel like a desperately hip name ASUS or Acer would slap onto their machines (in fact, Acer is doing so right now), rather than something Apple would even consider. But the Neo name is more than just a dated reference to the Matrix — it's also a clear signal that this is a new type of Mac Book. It's the first one Apple has ever been able to sell so cheaply. It's the first one powered by a mobile A-series chip. And for many people, it will likely end up being their first Mac.

The Mac Book Neo also marks the first time Apple has built a value-focused notebook under

1,000. The adorable handle-equipped i Book G3 looked like a system geared towards kids, but it launched at

1,599 in 1999. The original Mac Book Air, which Steve Jobs revealed by pulling it out of a manilla envelope, sold for

1,799 in 2008. Mac Books only got semi-affordable when Apple dropped the Air's entry price to

999 in 2014. (The starting price has bounced between

999 and

1,099 ever since.) It dabbled in the concept further by keeping the M1 Mac Book Air around at Walmart stores for

699 in 2024 before eventually dropping its price down to

650 last year. If you were lucky, you could also find it for $499 during some holiday sales.

A citrus Mac Book Neo being held up with one hand. (Devindra Hardawar for Engadget)

While the M1 Mac Book Air was a great value over the last few years, its last-gen Apple design aged quickly. The Neo looks far more modern, with an all-aluminum case that resembles the current Air (it's a bit smaller, but weighs the same 2.7 pounds). Color is the Neo's biggest draw, with bolder options like the greenish citrus and pink blush, along with Apple's typical dark and light case options. The citrus hue is the most unique, as we've seen rose gold Mac Books before. It would have been nice to see other strong colors too, like a brighter blue or something with a hint of purple. The people want personality, Apple!

Under the hood, the Mac Book Neo is a story of compromise, more so than any Mac Book before it. Apple had to find a way to deliver its premium user experience while also cutting costs significantly to reach its $599 price. Relying on the A18 Pro, which powered last year's i Phone 16 Pro, was likely far more cost effective instead of using an older M-series chip that isn't being built anymore. That A18 Pro chip also means the Mac Book Neo has to be fairly limited when it comes to ports: there are only two USB-C connections on board (one is USB 3.0, and the other is USB 2.0). There's no Mag Safe charging connection, which is a shame since the Mac Book Neo will likely end up around trip-prone kids in schools and homes.

A citrus Mac Book Neo's USB-C ports. (Devindra Hardawar for Engadget)

The biggest compromise lies in the Mac Book Neo's RAM and disk space. It starts with just 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD. You can shell out another $100 to get 512GB of storage and a Touch ID button, but there's no way to add more RAM. Typically, my first piece of advice to any prospective computer buyer is to get at least 16GB of memory, as that's the easiest way to see faster performance when juggling tons of tabs, apps and large files. That's particularly true for Mac laptops, since Apple's unified memory is baked into its A-series and M-series chips.

The Mac Book Neo's 8GB limitation shows the precise audiences Apple is targeting with the Mac Book Neo: casual users. Those include people who need secondary machines for light workloads and schools relying on Chromebooks. I'm not reneging on my 16GB RAM recommendation — if the idea of less RAM in your main computer makes your skin crawl, the Neo isn't for you. The Mac Book Air is still around, and it can easily be equipped with tons of RAM and storage.

Apple also deserves credit for squeezing in an impressive 1080p webcam in the Neo, something I haven’t seen in any other $600 Windows notebook. And while the resolution is impressive, Apple’s image processing also manages to deliver sharp and vibrant image quality. It’s usually easy to tell the overall quality of someone’s computer on group video calls based on their video quality. The Mac Book Neo will have people thinking you’re calling in from a pricier Mac Book Air or Mac Book Pro.

When I first demoed the Mac Book Neo at Apple's launch event, its keyboard felt a bit flimsier than those on the Air and Pro. But I may have just been distracted by the crowd and noise. My review unit's keyboard feels just as accurate as the Air's, allowing me to type at full speed (near 100 words per minute) without any issues. There's none of the weird input problems I noticed on Dell's far more expensive XPS 14.

The Mac Book Neo's trackpad is similarly responsive and accurate for swiping and gestures. That's particularly surprising, since Apple isn’t using a haptic Force Touch trackpad like all of its laptops for the past decade. The Neo's pad clicks down mechanically — and yet, it doesn't feel as muddy as similar trackpads we see on budget PCs. It's also notable that Apple was able to make the Neo's trackpad completely clickable, whereas PC mechanical options often only click along their bottom half or third.

A citrus Mac Book Neo on a table outside. (Devindra Hardawar for Engadget)

I didn't expect much from the Neo's A18 Pro processor and limited specs, and yet it still managed to surprise me. It easily handled having dozens of tabs open across multiple browsers, a show playing on the TV app, photo editing in Pixelmator Pro and running the new Apple Arcade title Oceanhorn 3 without any significant slowdown. There's clearly some swift memory management going on, delivering just enough RAM for the task right in front of you.

The Neo's RAM usage typically hovered between 80 and 85 percent when I was trying to stress it, but it never went beyond that range. And if you're curious, the Neo typically used around 50 percent of its memory just to run mac OS, even with no other apps running.

I'd bet most people wouldn't see a major performance difference between the Mac Book Neo and the Air for basic tasks. Even their screens look similar: The Neo's LCD panel has only a slightly lower resolution than the Air's, but its smaller 13-inch screen size gives it a similarly rich pixel density. The screen looks bold and colorful indoors, and it's also bright enough to use in direct sunlight outside. That's not something you usually see on $600 laptops.

Oceanhorn 3 on a Mac Book Neo. (Devindra Hardawar for Engadget)

During a demo at the Neo's launch event, I saw its screen compared side-by-side to a $600 HP laptop. The difference was literally night and day — the HP's display struggled to show the vibrancy of daylight photos, while the Neo's made photos pop off the screen. Similarly, the Neo's side-firing speakers sound significantly better than the tinny garbage HP stuffs into its discount machines. The Neo's speakers are ideal for watching videos and streaming content, but they definitely lack the clarity and low-end bump from the Air and Mac Book Pro's upward firing speakers.

Microsoft Surface Pro 12-inch (2025, Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus)

I was definitely trying to push the Mac Book Neo harder than a typical user, but it simply kept delivering. In Geekbench 6's CPU benchmark, the Mac Book Neo sits between the M2 and M3 Mac Book Air for single-core tests, and below the M2 for multi-threaded work. Apple's hardware still manages to put Intel and AMD to shame, with single-threaded Geekbench 6 scores that are higher than the latest hardware from both companies. But of course, that's just one benchmark — beefy CPUs with active cooling will still be more performant overall.

What’s most impressive about the Mac Book Neo is that it manages to be a functional and well-rounded notebook at just

599. Microsoft’s “low-budget”

800 Surface Pro 12-inch was cute, but we found its performance incredibly underwhelming (and you still had to pay more for the keyboard). The 2.2-pound Zen Book A14 was impressively light, but again it was just too slow to be useful. Apple probably could have worked harder to make the Mac Book Neo a tad lighter, but it’s still easy to hold and travel with. I’d much rather Apple kept it at the Mac Book Air’s 2.7-pound weight, instead of making the Neo less powerful or more expensive.

The only time the Mac Book Neo completely failed was when I tried to run complex games meant for Apple's M-series chips. Lies of P installed just fine, but upon launch it just stopped as it tried to load shaders. Honestly, I'm surprised I was even able to install it in the first place. The most gaming you'll do on the Neo are things built specifically for Apple Arcade and the company's mobile chips, or cloud streaming options like Ge Force Now or Xbox.

During our battery test, which involves looping a 4K video, the Mac Book Neo lasted 12 hours and 15 minutes. That's far below the 18 hours and 15 minutes I saw on the M4 Mac Book Air, but it's still enough to last you during a typical work or school day. Again, Apple also had to sacrifice plugging in a bigger battery to keep the Neo's costs down.

A citrus Mac Book Neo on a table outside. (Devindra Hardawar for Engadget)

It's rare for Apple to genuinely surprise me these days, but the Mac Book Neo did just that. It's a

599 computer that can handle basic workloads just fine, all the while looking like one of the company's more expensive notebooks. Most importantly, it delivers more speed, a brighter screen and an overall better user experience than any competing

600 Windows PC. It's so good, I think it'll make many people wonder why they've stuck with sub-par PCs for so long.

Key Takeaways

Mac Book Neo review: Apple puts every $600 Windows PC to shame
A citrus Mac Book Neo on a table outside
I really don't know how Apple did it
I've argued that a cheap Mac Book could be the best for Apple to peel away Windows users, and after spending almost a week with the Neo, I'm convinced it will do just that
The Mac Book Neo is the best $599 laptop we’ve ever seen