MacBook Neo Review: Hype or Flop? Can It Replace Your Windows Laptop?

This article is all about MacBook Neo, Apple’s most affordable, most hyped laptop, and now it’s finally out. And the internet is divided. On one side, you have people claiming Apple built the best laptop ever, like people are saying this machine can edit, do VFX, and whatnot. Whereas on the other side, people are getting MacBook Neo to get too hot while just backing up Apple Photos. So what’s the real truth? 

And keeping all of that aside, I feel a lot of Windows users are more interested in MacBook Neo than existing MacBook users. So we compared these two Windows laptops to the MacBook Neo. Also, MacBook Air M4 is available at 80–85,000. What extra do you get here? This is the most in-depth, detailed video you will see on the internet. A lifetime Windows user switches to the budget MacBook to tell you if the hype is real. Is this actually a Windows laptop killer? 

Pros about the new MacBook Neo:

Now, before we get to the cons, let’s talk about the pros. I think the major concern of people is MacBook colours. So we got the citrus colour, and the colour detailing is so good that even the keyboard has a lighter tone of citrus colour. And to be honest, it looks cool. Like personal preference, but if you take this out in college or in the office, you get that attention. And I believe for the first time Apple has gotten so many colors for a MacBook.

Usually, you see these funky colours in an iMac. And one thing which people missed, unlike iPhones where Apple doesn’t have the same colour for pro iPhone and base iPhone to differentiate them, now Apple doesn’t do that with MacBooks. With MacBooks, Apple tries to make MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, or even this MacBook Neo look similar to each other. You’ll always get silver, indigo, or midnight black colour in every MacBook series.

Design of MacBook Neo:

Now again, classic MacBook design. It has a proper full-body aluminium build. It feels so solid and premium, and it has a good hinge. I usually judge a laptop hinge by doing this test. See, this is a Windows laptop, and if I hit the lid, there’s this shake. It feels like slapping someone. But if I do it with a MacBook Neo, no issues. So ideally, if you’re using the laptop on your lap while typing, there’s no screen wobble. And that also shows the good build quality of the hinge material. 

Now the MacBook Neo is slightly smaller than the MacBook Air M4, although they have made the Neo slightly thicker. So the Air and Neo have more or less the same weight. And I’ve heard people say this is better built than a Windows laptop. I’m not sure what Windows laptop people use, but in 80,000, you also get an Asus Zenbook, which is also very sleek and well-built.

Speakers of this device:

Another area where I feel MacBook is better than Windows is the good quality speakers. For the first time, MacBook has side-firing speakers. And funny story, when I unboxed the Neo, the side speakers looked like SD card slots to me and I got excited for a second, then realised nope. Disappointment aside, I compared the speaker quality with a couple of Windows laptops I daily drive. 

Now Neo sounds richer, and since the speakers are on the side, even if you keep the laptop on a bed or sofa, the sound doesn’t get blocked. But on the other Windows laptops, the dialogues are audible, but the sound gets muffled if you keep it on a sofa or bed.

Webcam:

Now the second pro has to be the webcam. And honestly, webcam is a very niche usage. It only matters if you are on a lot of video calls and you are that person who turns on their camera. And the Windows laptop that I’m daily driving, I found both the MacBook and this laptop's webcam quality to be similar. 

One small thing that you should know is that the MacBook Air has Centre Stage, so if you move around, it crops and keeps you in the centre. MacBook Neo doesn’t have Centre Stage, mostly because Apple has used an inferior camera. Like in Neo, they are cost-cutting in small places. If you have never used a Mac, you wouldn’t even bother about Centre Stage, so this is a fine compromise.

keyboard and trackpad:

The third pro here is the keyboard and trackpad. The MacBook Neo comes with a magic keyboard, and the moment I switched to it, I could feel it. Typing on Neo feels better. In terms of laptops at any price, this is straight up one of the best keyboards you can get. And it’s not just the keyboard; even the trackpad here is really good.

 Now the difference is MacBook Air has a haptic trackpad, whereas Neo has a physical one. But in real life, it doesn’t affect much. Apple has tuned this really well. You can click almost anywhere on the trackpad, and it registers perfectly. A small thing to note here is that there’s no backlight on the keyboard. This is just Apple cost-cutting. And in low light, it becomes annoying when you can’t see the keys properly.

All about the OS:

Now the fourth pro has to be macOS. Before you comment on anything, hear me out. Windows, in recent years, have become cluttered with pop-ups, widgets, and unnecessary suggestions. But macOS feels clean. The only thing the device requires to get started working is opening it and just entering your password, and you are done and good to start the work now. 

You will be able to work without any distractions or spam. Everything functions perfectly. I wouldn't expect Windows to produce a product as good as an Apple-created product, and I have experienced both types of products. Another feature that I liked about Neo is the ability to easily enable or disable AI features in the settings area. To round things up, Neo's overall software experience was much cleaner, smoother and less of a distraction from what I've previously experienced.

The performance king or what?

Let's start with performance: The MacBook Neo features an A18 Pro chip similar to what is found in an iPad 16 Pro. While unusual upon first glance, the A18 Pro is based on ARM architecture, just as all other MacBooks, so performance and functionality don’t change much regardless of the device. Compared to the other MacBooks, the Neo features the most limiting factor: only 8GB of RAM, and you can only choose between 256GB and 512GB of storage; otherwise, they are identical in performance. 

Benchmarking indicates that the Neo excels in single-core applications at very good rates, but does not do as well (vs user expectations) in multi-core applications. If you use the Neo for light daily activities such as browsing, writing, and some multitasking, it will function smoothly. However, if you do high-demand activities such as video editing and coding, the A18 Pro chip is very penalised for its inability to provide sufficient power to the device. The limitation of 8GB of Memory is what primarily docks the MacBook Neo's performance.

The cons:

Now let's move on to the negatives. The principal issue with the Neo is charging. When the Neo is charged with a 20W power adapter, this is so slow for charging a laptop that it takes approximately 4 hours to reach 100% capacity from 0%. If you did have a higher-watt power adapter, it would take approximately 2.5 - 3 hours to reach 100% capacity. While the battery gets you through the day (average of 8–10 hours), this long charging time is disappointing. 

The second negative is the display. While it does feature a 13-inch liquid Retina Display, the display bezels are too thick, and the display resolution out of the box is low; therefore, you must go in and manually change the resolution to have a greater sharpness of the display image. It’s good for casual usage, but not for professional colour work, as it only supports sRGB.

Another issue is limited ports. There are only two USB Type-C connections available to you, but one supports high transfer speeds. You're also going to need to get adaptors for many of your peripherals, such as an external keyboard or mouse. And the most disappointing aspect of this system was its memory limitations; there is no option (nor likely to be) for anything greater than 8GB of RAM, which isn't enough for any of the planned (but no real date set) AI applications or things like heavy computational work. 

The base unit also lacks Touch ID, a major peeve for me. If you decide to upgrade to 512GB of internal storage, expect a large bump in price from the base unit to the upgraded version; at that point, you'll find better options like the MacBook Air M4.

Final conclusion:

Ultimately, if you're a student, a working person, an author or just someone in need of a laptop/PC to do basic computing tasks (such as web browsing, note taking and video streaming), then this system offers reasonable value. It will become more attractive if purchased during sales periods. 

On the other hand, if you intend to do anything that remotely resembles video editing, programming, CAD or any sort of heavy multi-tasking, there are much better products you should be looking at. The MacBook Air or a high-end Windows laptop are two options worth considering instead. That said, MacBook Neo will definitely push Windows laptops to improve.