I personally think that “lapdock” is one of those ideas that sounds really nice when you hear it, but not really practical in real life.
Being always tethered a phone via cable does not feel great when using on a lap.
It adds friction when trying to use a computer.
And users cannot use full desktop operating system.
I’ve never seen a person actually using a lapdock in my life.
Besides, Neo clearly aims education market, like schools buying them at bulk.
You can’t expect children to bring their own flagship phones to use their school provided lapdocks.
So, even if you really like an idea of lapdock, there are some uses cases that separate device with own computing power is practically necessary, like school or work.
Whether Apple should make lapdock is another topic, I think It is a different kind of product compared to an actual computer.
Also if you think that neo don’t have any purpose since it uses phone chip,
then by that logic aren’t every single ChromeBook and cheap windows laptop meaningless too?
There are lots of “laptop grade CPUs” that are significantly less performant than A18 pro.
Granted I haven’t used a lapdock myself because thus far, the only manufacturers offering desktop modes have not been exactly privacy-respecting.
Not all existing lapdock setups require a cable, although a cable does improve latency a bit.
Maybe in some ways, but in other ways it makes your life easier. No need to worry about syncing files/settings between devices or maintaining two separate systems for example.
I don’t think most of the target audience cares much about this tbh. Many of them were using iPads already. Plus Apple could easily allow full desktop os functionality if they wanted to.
Unrepairable more expensive laptops that will last at most 7-8 years? Sounds like a bad idea to me unless you’re getting a killer deal buying in bulk or you need macOS for some reason.
I don’t follow. I wasn’t talking about performance. I was saying it seems wasteful and expensive to require users to pay for something they essentially already have.
That’s a fair point. I never consider this because it is typically such a bad deal with MacBooks, but since there are no upgrade options with the Neo it certainly could make sense. So maybe you’re only spending ~$300 to use a laptop for 1–2 years? Not the worst value by any means.
For me, it’s a laptop I would consider if I need to use any low-end software that’s not compatible with Linux as I do not want to go back to Windows. But non-upgradeable RAM? Bummer!
If Asahi knows what they’re doing (and if they have the resources, I don’t want to presume they can do this in the first place) they’ll prioritize Linux on the Neo ASAP because that would crush the Linux hardware competition tbh, 8GB RAM or not.
This device is really not made for ppl who look at specs and who are thinking about hardware upgrades, the selling point is that it is a cheap yet still capable Macbook.
That being said the 2027 version will likely come with the A19Pro which has 12GB RAM.
It’s really not possible (without blowing the budget).
The RAM is stacked on top of the CPU die and packaged in the same housing. They can only offer it at this price because the SoC is from last year and they probably have quite a few of them in storage + an already existing production line. Any redesign would make it way more expensive.
