Macbook Neo

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Apple released a cheaper laptop, might be the perfect fit for students or people that do care about some simple things[1].

MKBHD did a basic yet quite accurate impression video on it

  1. àla Chromebook ↩︎

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I mean, do whatever you want with it, but this seems like e-waste to me.

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I think it’s a very good product that’s going to sell like hotcakes. I would buy it if I didn’t already have an M1 Air that still holds up with its updates. When Apple drops support for it (in a year or two), I’ll either install Asahi Linux or buy this computer. After all, it works perfectly for office and multimedia tasks.

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Sounds like a more private alternative to Chromebooks. I can definitely see people who would get good use out of these laptops. Precisely people who need top notch security and do web browsing mostly. But then again there are business-grade laptops that can be bought for a fraction of this MacBook’s price with more capabilities and performance.

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I don’t think there are cheaper products with greater performance and energy efficiency. Could you give an example?

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Sorry, I meant second-hand laptops. You probably can’t beat the MacBook’s price to performance ratio if you look for brand new laptops.

With that said, I can easily get a more capable laptop for my use case by buying a used Thinkpad, upgrading storage, maxing out RAM, etc.. all this for cheaper than the MacBook’s price.

Regardless, I do agree that this MacBook is really appealing.

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Do you know any 500€ laptop that is not e-waste?
This is probably less waste than any basic cheap Lenovo/Dell/etc if we’re honest.

Especially if not logging into an AppleID yes! A Mac Mini laptop pretty much. :ok_hand:t2:

Ah? What am I missing?
Never heard of powerful AMD/Intel laptops that do have a decent battery life and good UNIX support. :thinking:

By that logic you can get a 2nd hand Macbook Neo. :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

As said in the video, the target audience here is more of a “I know nothing and do not care” kind of people whose daily needs are solved 100% in a Chrome browser. :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

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Looks neat, but man I can never get used to their self-congratulating marketing holy smokes.

I wish I could slap Fedora Linux on it.

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That’s the thing, maybe Asahi might support it?

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After multiple unexpectedly early death of non e-waste class laptops, I have very little faith in non-commerciall class windows laptops.

I have good experience with MS Surface series though.

I agree Mac is potentially a magnitude better than windows counterparts at this price point, not for performance, but for reliability reasons.

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Genuine question (because I haven’t used OSX/macOS in a while); is 8GB of memory truly useable in a desktop OS these days? Like, can you have at least a dozen Safari/Firefox/Brave tabs open? My iPad Mini has 8GB and even with half that amount of tabs in Safari, it’ll reload them at least twice a day[1]. I assume that macOS will keep the tabs in memory regardless, but would that mean you’re hitting the swap partition already?

  1. a liquid pain if you’re in private browsing mode, since you’ll have to re-login and apply site preferences all over again. ↩︎

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For the absolute basic needs for which some people need laptops, it can be.

Mostly older parents and kids in school. And for how long Apple will support this, this is a fantastic deal - for all your basic computing needs.

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My understanding is Asahi Linux is for apple silicon, the Neo is running an A18 Pro. I doubt it, but I don’t know much about linux or asahi linux in particular so correct me if I’m wrong.

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I think there is still no official support for several chips because reverse engineering is required. I believe the only chips that are currently supported are the M1 and M2. This A18 Pro will surely receive support from the Asahi team in a few years if the project continues moving forward (after all, the A-series chips share the same architecture as the M-series).

But they need support and love.

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? macOS famously has the worst length of software support of any desktop OS and the total lack of repairability makes this problem even worse. I agree at this price point it’s compelling to certain people, but let’s not go crazy

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Apple’s laptops aren’t the most repairable but there are not your no-name brand with a 30% failure rate kind of QC in general. :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

I do agree that cheap chinese Windows laptops are literal overheating, bloated and under-spec’ed e-waste devices dead on delivery.

Depends on what you do on your computer and how many Electron apps are running on your computer.
Most people are over-estimating their needs but it’s a it depends situation really.

Moreover, if you disable most of the crap like Apple Pntelligence etc, it will free up some of your RAM for sure too. :+1:t2:

As for the tab power saving mode + swap partition, it depends on the RAM consumed by the webapps themselves too.

Hence why I said maybe. :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:
Mostly saying that because the FOSS community might start start asking for that if it gets popular. Not sure if technically achievable tho, haven’t used Asahi myself[1].

Where do this stat comes from?
After some quick research for numbers on my side, Apple apparently provides 5 years of feature updates[2] + 2 years (on top) of security.
Hence, if you buy a Macbook, you could expect it to last for 7 years total.
Realistically, people will update their device much sooner than this limit because:

  1. they want to upgrade
  2. they broke their device

If they do not check any of the 2 points above then they’re probably just using their browser for emails + text typing and would realistically not need to buy anything else unless they do reach those 7 years.

In comparison to any other laptop device within that price range, it’s unbeatable[3].
Sure, you could have a decent stable Debian distro running on some Lenovo/other hardware but the overall experience, battery life and quality when it comes down to durability might not be the same.

Moreover, nobody will bother getting into repairing a 500€, they’ll probably buy a new device or deal with its state as it is.
Overall, perfect device for students or lightweight users that is a nice replacement to a Chromebook (with an Ubuntu distro on it) when it comes down to a combo of security + performance.

Moreover, you’re not limited to only FOSS software but could also run some proprietary stuff (if you need it for your job[4]) that might be too hard to hack when it comes down to the same Ubuntu low-end powered device.

I’m saying that because I spent quite some years doing exactly that kind of hacky setup for people that couldn’t afford anything else than 400€ for their laptop.
And sure, a mini PC from Beelink/alike will be better but it doesn’t come with monitor + keyboard and might be a show-stopper for most people.

  1. and it is quite a magic trick hacky distro based on fragile foundation as a whole :sweat_smile: ↩︎

  2. not like they are anyhow groundbreaking overall, especially if not using the native MacOS default apps, I mean some people do care about those for some reason… :man_shrugging:t2: ↩︎

  3. Frame.work does a great job because repairable/upgradable but it still won’t reach battery/quality-parity here ↩︎

  4. or just like some decent quality apps that are Mac-only ↩︎

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… and on linux you get 10+++ years and Windows is similar. If Windows does some TPM type shit again you can always switch to linux if need be, but I’ve only ever seen them pull that once.

This is exactly my point. You can’t upgrade or repair this laptop, which also means you won’t be able to keep it for as long. Needs change and suddenly you need more ram? New laptop. Battery starts to degrade after a couple years? New laptop. Dropped and the screen cracked? New laptop. This is the Apple experience (and realistically the experience of most electronics these days).

Maybe a new laptop. But precisely because other desktop OSs do a much better job than Apple at providing long term software support and because you can find much more repairable/upgradable machines, you can buy a similarly capable used machine for a similar price and keep it for many years.

This is a separate conversation

The value of the initial machine is there but you’re kidding yourself if you think longevity is a strong point for this laptop.

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If this is your concern, then Mac’s are not for folks to think this in the first place. That’s the deal with Apple. You buy upgraded so as to ensure longevity if you know you’re going to need higher specs later if not today. People go into Apple knowing this (or al least ought to).

Also, macOS is supported for many years. Plus you get added security updates even after new versions no longer are installable on your old Mac. I don’t know what made you say what you said and how else you’re thinking about it nor have you made your expectations clear for why you have such an opinion. Please clarify.

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One of my buddy told me that it is 10 years for security updates apparently.
I mean, don’t quote me on that I made a quick research without going too deep on the topic.

Still, do you know a lot of people that do keep a 500€ laptop for 10 years?
The hardware will die far sooner than that or you will be leftover by potential hardware incompatibilities. :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

Moreover, if your upgrade cycle is 500€ every 7 years, I’d say we’re quite above the 99% of modern users given today’s tech usage.

And no, I do not consider that running some super slow and insecure system is a good enough justification. You shouldn’t tether yourself to such just because of principles.

Realistically, if you need to repair or upgrade, you might consider a desktop in the first place. :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:
Hence poor purchase decision to begin with if you hit that wall.

I do love and have a framework myself for exactly the reasons you listed above.
Yet most companies do not allow you to repair things and moreover, at some point you will pay more money repairing your stuff while it won’t be brand new.

TLDR: just don’t drop your stuff and be careful with it in the first place.
Or sit at a desk with a desktop if you cannot take care of your high-tech properly.

I’m waiting for a decent competitor when it comes down to:

  • brand new device
  • good raw performance in terms of CPU
  • repairable/upgradable
  • a portable laptop
  • as good quality wise (battery, screen, keyboard, touchpad)
  • 500€

I’ll be the first one to buy such a device.
And yes, I’ll make the concession on not being able to fix the PCB by soldering some parts if it’s meant to be a laptop.

I don’t see why this is a different conversation.
The software is quite an important part of what you’ll be running on the machine, on a daily basis.
You can’t say that your thing is performant, fast, repairable and badass while it can only run OPNsense with no GUI apps or anything. :joy:

A laptop that stays alive for 5 years and performs well all around is an excellent longevity device from my POV especially given the price. Especially for people that would never in their life crack their laptop open to even upgrade the SSD.
Because those people are exactly the target audience here and not your kissu-DIY build-your-own-rig kind of persona.

It’s an absolute no-go when it comes down to a desktop machine tho, on that we do agree very much.

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Additionally, it should be noted that the data on updates and security patches represent the minimum years of support. Apple almost always supports its products for more years than that. And these chips, being completely controlled by Apple, are expected to last considerably longer.

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