You Can Mod Your Own MacBook Neo ‘Multicolor Edition’ for Under $40
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It seems that Apple’s Self Service Repair store comes with an interesting side benefit for DIYers beyond simply being able to fix your own MacBook Neo. While real repair costs may not be much less than visiting your local Genius Bar, it also opens the door to one thing that your local Apple tech likely won’t do for you: pimping out your low-cost MacBook with genuine Apple parts.
While the MacBook Neo isn’t the first Mac to come in multiple colors, it’s definitely the most affordable one. The blush, citrus, and indigo colors are also a bit more whimsical companions for the silver than those that grace the pricier MacBook Air. More significantly, the different colors mean that Apple needs to provide replacement parts in all four finishes, since even the keyboard is color-matched to the casing of each shade of MacBook Neo.
However, as Macworld’s Roman Loyola discovered, Apple doesn’t seem to care which color of MacBook Neo you own when ordering parts. In fact, you don’t even need to prove you actually own one to order most parts. The logic board requires that you enter a serial number, since that’s the actual brains of the Mac, but for everything else you merely need to confirm that you’ve read the repair manual by entering the ID found at the bottom of the page. It’s kind of like clicking “Accept” to confirm that you’ve read one of those endlessly scrolling online agreements; it doesn’t mean you’ve actually read it, merely that you’ve reached the bottom and found the necessary code.
This means you could technically order enough genuine Apple parts to build your own MacBook Neo dummy model. You’d be lacking the logic board needed to make it function, but if you wanted to try and be really clever you could piece together your own MacBook Neo replica that’s actually powered by something like a Raspberry Pi. We’ll leave that one for the advanced class to figure out.
In more practical terms, you could easily give your MacBook Neo a two-tone look by ordering a new bottom case in a different color for only $34.32. That’s likely less than you’d pay for a good customization job, and you’d be doing it with fully genuine Apple parts.
But why stop there? While a full keyboard replacement will set you back $139.92, you don’t need to go that far if you just want to add a third splash of color. All you need is the keycap kits, which sell for only $39 for a full set. You can even change up the language while you’re at it, as Apple also offers these in Arabic, British, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, and again doesn’t seem to care which MacBook Neo model you actually purchased. That’s precisely as it should be, as swapping for a new linguistic character is a useful modification that goes beyond mere aesthetics.
However, going further than the bottom case and keys will get more costly. The top case costs $175.12, since it also includes electronics such as the microphone. You also can’t purchase the lid separately from the display, and that part will set you back $307.12 up front, although you’ll get $88 of that back if you return the original part. The casings and keycaps don’t offer any return credits, so you’ll be able to hang onto the originals in case you ever want to switch back.
