The $599 Mac Laptop Is Finally Here: Meet the MacBook Neo

As expected, Apple saved its most significant new product for the grand finale of a week of rapid-fire announcements that kicked off on Monday with the iPhone 17e and M4 iPad Air. While Apple announced almost its entire lineup of new M5-powered MacBooks yesterday, there was still one more waiting in the wings, and now it has an official name: the MacBook Neo.

Although we’ve known something like this was coming in broad terms since last summer, thanks to the usual assortment of leaks from Apple’s supply chain and various analysts, it wasn’t until a few weeks ago that it began to come into focus, and it was only yesterday that we heard the first hint that actually might give it a new name — in a website slip-up from Apple itself, no less.

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Until that gaffe, everyone was betting on Apple following tradition and resurrecting the no-suffix “MacBook” to describe this new budget laptop. However, it’s clear the company wants to make sure we understand this is something entirely new and different, and hence it’s the MacBook Neo.

While Apple took some time to post a Newsroom announcement, folks at today’s Apple experience — an event that everyone correctly surmised would be about the new budget MacBook — quickly shared the news after things kicked off this morning at 9 a.m. ET, beating Apple to the punch.

Say Hello to MacBook Neo

Nine months’ worth of rumors prepared us for nearly everything except for the name and the price. The new budget MacBook checks off all the boxes we expected, including being powered by an iPhone chip — the A18 Pro — and packing in 8 GB of RAM and an “advertised” 13-inch display. Although the rumors said it would be 12.9 inches, Apple is likely rounding up here, and it’s worth noting that that “13-inch” MacBook Air actually sports a 13.6-inch screen.

The MacBook Neo also comes in at a lower resolution of 2408 x 1506 pixels, but it’s being marketed with the same 224 ppi of the MacBook Air’s 2560 x 1664 display, which supports the idea that the actual panel is slightly under 13 inches. The more significant limitations are True Tone and a Wide P3 color gamut, both of which remain exclusive to the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro.

Apple promises up to 16-hours of battery life on a single charge, but contrary to some recent speculation, there’s no MagSafe charging. Instead, it’s powered by one of the two USB-C ports, like most MacBooks were in the years before Apple returned to the magnetic side port with the redesigned MacBook Pro and MacBook Air models in 2021 and 2022.

However, the biggest surprise here by far is the price. The MacBook Neo starts at $599 — $100 less than what nearly everyone predicted.

That also means the educational pricing is $499. The pundits weren’t kidding when they said Apple planned to take the fight to Chromebooks with this new model. It’s going to be a huge play for the educational market, and will probably make some serious inroads into cost-conscious enterprise fleets as well.

It comes in four colorful aluminum finishes — blush, indigo, silver, and citrus — marking a new palette to go with the “Neo” branding. After all, this is the first new name to come to the MacBook lineup since Steve Jobs pulled out the original MacBook Air on stage at Macworld 2008 — and that MacBook Air was an entirely different beast from the models that bear its name today.

Although some may be tempted to question Apple’s decision to include an A18 Pro chip in this MacBook rather than its M-series silicon, this really just goes to prove how far Apple’s chip engineering has come. Let’s not forget that the A17 Pro can run the same AAA console games as a PS5, and the A18 Pro is a generation newer. That’s more than enough power to handle everything folks should reasonably expect from a $599 laptop — and likely quite a bit more.

Apple states that the A18 Pro is “up to 50 percent faster for everyday tasks than the bestselling PC with the latest shipping Intel Core Ultra 5,” plus 3x faster for AI workloads and 2x faster for tasks like photo editing. The A18 Pro also naturally supports Apple Intelligence with its 16-core Neural Engine. Still, it’s worth noting that Apple appears to be using a “binned” chip here, with only a 5-core GPU compared to the 6-cores in the version used in the iPhone 16 Pro.

The MacBook Neo also makes some compromises on the keyboard and trackpad. There’s no backlighting on the keyboard or Force Touch on the trackpad, but both are otherwise the same as what you’ll find in the pricier MacBook models, including support for multi-touch gestures. In a fun twist, the keys are also color-matched to the outer finish.

There’s also a Touch ID sensor in the usual spot — but with an unusual catch: Touch ID is available only on the pricier 512 GB model. That’s similar to what Apple does with its iMac lineup, where the base model comes with a standard Magic Keyboard without Touch ID; however, at least that can be upgraded later. If you opt for the 256 GB MacBook Neo, you’re stuck permanently living without it.

The other corners that have been cut are in the front-facing camera, which is an older-style 1080p FaceTime HD, rather than the 12MP Center Stage found on the pricier models, and a dual rather than quad-speaker sound system, and an array of two mics rather than three, although both still include Voice Isolation and Wide Spectrum modes. These all seem like more than reasonable trade-offs in a laptop at this price range.

The MacBook Neo is available for pre-order starting today in blush, indigo, silver, and citrus and two straightforward configurations: a 256 GB model without Touch ID for $599 or the 512 GB model with Touch ID for $699. Both come with 8 GB of RAM, but if you want more, you’ll have to step up to the $1,099 M5 MacBook Air. You’ll be able to find the new MacBook Neo in stores starting next Wednesday.