3/13/2026 at 8:54:02 PM
MacBook Neo is going to sell like crazy. In the education market, educators, students, aides... nothing close at this price point. With memory and SSD prices so high I don't see how Dell, Asus and others are going to be able to compete. Unless the build quality is significantly worse than a M1 macbook air not sure budget PC makers will be able to compete.by roody15
3/14/2026 at 11:48:50 AM
I think the major reason for the aggressive price point of the Neo, and for not raising RAM and SSD upgrade prices in the MBP much, is that Apple is willing to give up some hardware margin to have more devices to sell services to. Unless I am mistaken, services have been key to Apple’s recent revenue growth. This isn’t a bad thing at this point, but could auger poorly if they foolishly chase recurring revenue at the expense of hardware quality (their software quality has already slipped in recent years).by avidphantasm
3/14/2026 at 3:02:59 PM
> Apple is willing to give up some hardware marginDid they give up a large chunk of margin, or have they been able to offset some of the higher costs of commodity chips by replacing high margin components with their own in house designs?
Designing and manufacturing your own components (CPU/GPU, Cellular modem, WiFi/Bluetooth, etc.) isn't free, but it's cheaper than paying someone else a markup at Apple's scale.
by GeekyBear
3/15/2026 at 4:54:56 PM
> and for not raising RAM and SSD upgrade pricesI expect a price increase. They had a bunch of hardware releases planned far in advance of the supply chain disruption. It'd be a bad look for their new products if they raised the prices on all these new devices at the same time; that'd be the primary discussion everywhere.
The smart move would be to release all your cool new toys at the traditional price points (or very nearly the same) and then raise prices a bit down the road. This way your reviews are strictly about the hardware / products rather than the prices. Bump them in two months. It'll be a big story, but it didn't prevent all the glowing reviews that were already published.
I think the Neo, possibly the 'e' phone, might be the only device(s) that doesn't increase. Taking a hit on 8GB of RAM might be tolerable for market gains when they're charging a kidney and a lung for higher-end devices.
by alsetmusic
3/14/2026 at 12:28:25 PM
Services? I am not paying for any Apple services.by koakuma-chan
3/14/2026 at 1:17:29 PM
Most of the services revenue is stuff you don’t have a choice not paying.The Google default deal? That’s a massive chunk of services. App Store junk fees? The other massive part of it. The rest of their services are a much smaller part.
by philistine
3/14/2026 at 1:21:56 PM
Interesting. I didn't know that what the default search engine is on iOS is part of "services."by koakuma-chan
3/14/2026 at 12:44:58 PM
Services make up about 24% of apple’s revenue.by keiferski
3/13/2026 at 11:45:19 PM
I don't know. Both of my macs are over 7 years old, and have at least 32GB of RAM. Certainly would not buy an 8GB one now.by auggierose
3/14/2026 at 4:35:23 AM
If you have 32GB Macs, and you had them 7 years ago already, you're not even remotely close to the target market for it.Parent said "In the education market, educators, students, aides... nothing close at this price point".
That has zero overlap with the "felt the need for 32GB 7 years ago" not-exactly-crowd.
by coldtea
3/14/2026 at 6:03:53 AM
>If you have 32GB Macs, and you had them 7 years ago already, you're not even remotely close to the target market for it.that market is already saturated with a zillion decent-spec chromebook style machines. The only reason the Neo market is even slightly different is to cater to crowds that want the apple offerings for OS and fashion/reputation.
The market we're talking about has no real reason to care what kind of chip is in the thing. They just want YouTube/Discord/Zoom/EduWebsites to work right.
by serf
3/14/2026 at 7:35:38 AM
>that market is already saturated with a zillion decent-spec chromebook style machines.Yeah, come back in a year when we have sales numbers for the Neo and tell me how saturated it is.
>The only reason the Neo market is even slightly different is to cater to crowds that want the apple offerings for OS and fashion/reputation.
No, the real main reason is that the "zillion decent-spec chromebook style machines" are half-arsed and/or less powered and with worse build quality depending on the model. The "OS and fashion/reputation" are a bonus.
by coldtea
3/14/2026 at 6:18:28 AM
> a zillion decent-spec chromebook style machinesThe interesting/unique thing about Apple's offering at this price point is the build quality, not the spec.
If you're a school IT department buying these in volume, you want something that actually lasts more than a year before pieces of plastic begin chipping off, hinges start wearing out, etc. And you want something that's easy to clean / sanitize sticky little kid fingerprints off of, and also to undo e.g. residue (from kids who thought it'd be a good idea to stick stickers on their take-home laptop) without worrying about either the adhesive or the thinner permanently damaging the chassis.
In both cases, Apple can actually promise this with the Neo, while none of the Chromebook OEMs can for their equivalent offerings at this price point. (The other OEMs can promise it, but only for offerings at higher price-points schools aren't willing to pay.)
Also, Apple can now promise that you can keep a pile of spares and spare parts, and swap parts between them easily, replace consumables like batteries, etc. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbPCGqoBB4Y). Which is essentially table stakes for the education market, but it's good that they've caught up.
by derefr
3/14/2026 at 8:14:11 AM
While the Neo is a nice notebook, I think you are overestimating it's durability advantages.> If you're a school IT department buying these in volume, you want something that actually lasts more than a year before pieces of plastic begin chipping off, hinges start wearing out, etc. And you want something that's easy to clean / sanitize sticky little kid fingerprints off of, and also to undo e.g. residue (from kids who thought it'd be a good idea to stick stickers on their take-home laptop) without worrying about either the adhesive or the thinner permanently damaging the chassis.
If you manage to break a plastic cover, that amount of force will certainly also dent, bent and/or dislodge the aluminum cover of the Neo.
I've never seen or heard about plastic chipping off due to normal use (i.e. just wear). In the EU chipping-off plastic due to wear (with normal use) would fall under warranty. I have seen aluminum covers on high-end HP notebooks being bent, dent, etc. For example when transported in a bag, with other things in it, aluminum is more likely to get damaged.
All major brands (Lenovo, HP, Apple, etc.) have at some point had issues with hinges. I think it's even fair to say that Apple isn't known for being particularly forth coming about acknowledging problems with hinges and issuing service advisories to repair those under warranty even when it's a known issue.
> good idea to stick stickers on their take-home laptop) without worrying about either the adhesive or the thinner permanently damaging the chassis.
Getting stickers off plastic covers vs getting stickers of macbook covers doesn't really matter in difficulty. If it is problematic for plastic, it's probably going to problematic for aluminum as well. There are a lot of cleaning agents aluminum doesn't like, which cause white-ish stains in it. You can test that yourself by putting an aluminum breadbox in a dishwasher.
> Also, Apple can now promise that you can keep a pile of spares and spare parts, and swap parts between them easily, replace consumables like batteries, etc.
Right now the Apple self-repair program is, from a financial standpoint, pretty much a gimmick. The costs are so high, you are better of going to the Apple store. Also the swap-able battery is going to be mandatory in the EU so that's something all notebooks will have. Schools usually aren't that interested in starting a repair shop.
by jsiepkes
3/14/2026 at 8:52:57 AM
This guy [1] that posted about his series of plastic laptops over the years is a telling indictment of what the PC/chromebook value range is about. Hinges easily damage, bits and pieces falling off, can't go from closed to open with one finger, etc. In my region in Australia schools require parents to buy a laptop and the choice is between PC and Mac (Chromebook not allowed); before the Neo getting a Mac would be a budget constraint, especially for their children, but now it is such an easy sensible choice.[1]: https://xcancel.com/mweinbach/status/2032235367961694542
by commandersaki
3/14/2026 at 3:57:23 PM
Yep. Anyone saying a MacBook of any kind is comparable to the average school Chromebook has clearly never touched a school Chromebook anywhere other than in a Best Buy.$200 — or even $500 — plastic computers are different in kind (of parts and materials used) to $800+ computers. It's not anything you'd notice when the hardware is new — not the extreme "deck flex" or anything like that — but it becomes clear after 3–6 months of even light use.
Planned obsolescence is real. But, rather than being a result of malicious adulteration, it is the predictable result of aiming for an MSRP (and therefore COGS) where the only viable parts and materials the OEM can get their hands on to meet that price point, have engineering tolerances far below the use-case they’re applying them to. The makers of $500 Chromebooks know they'll break well before buyers expect them to. But with their middling purchasing power and economies of scale, this is the best they can do.
Apple, meanwhile, can hit the same MSRP not by cheaping out on parts, but rather through economies of scale and manufacturing consolidation. Obviously the A18. But also: buy enough high-quality aluminum in bulk, and stamp the same modular chassis parts out for every laptop you make — and those parts start to get cheap enough to use even in a $500 product.
by derefr
3/14/2026 at 7:55:57 AM
That market has new customers every year. Like the one for bicycles, L-sized clothes, etc.by pfortuny
3/14/2026 at 10:20:39 AM
Not sure why you've been downvoted, but you're absolutely right.Plus, if the OP has 32GB in 7-year-old machines, they're running intel CPUs, which don't compare in how well they use memory and swap to/from SSD.
by spacedcowboy
3/14/2026 at 7:24:23 AM
I daily-drive a base level MacBook Air M1 with 8GB RAM for writing docs and some light coding in VIM/VSCode. Never had any issues.When I need more I offload tasks to a remote VM (usually AWS/GCP). I can easily afford a top spec Mac but chose this because I want to have a “entry level” device that I don’t mind my kids breaking or getting stolen at public co-working space.
Plenty of people will get MacBook Neo and never hit its limitations. Most students/educators and many professionals just use the web all day and never need much RAM.
Having said all that, Apple could easily have made it 16GB cleaned up the market place and nobody would be talking about Neo being under spec’d. But Tim Cook has to be a Tim Cook and squeeze every last penny of profit. ;-)
by nelsonic
3/14/2026 at 8:55:19 AM
Having said all that, Apple could easily have made it 16GB cleaned up the market place and nobody would be talking about Neo being under spec’d. But Tim Cook has to be a Tim Cook and squeeze every last penny of profit. ;-)I think this has more to do with binned A18 Pro SoCs which enables Apple to do this with economies of scale. A later version may get the 12GB variant of the A19 Pro SoCs.
by commandersaki
3/14/2026 at 8:57:31 AM
100% Agree they will release an A19 Pro version in due course. Meanwhile the MacBook Neo with 8GB RAM will sell like hot-cakes!by nelsonic
3/14/2026 at 9:11:18 AM
Could they have even used the same CPU with 16GB? I'm skeptical of italics-easily.by Dylan16807
3/14/2026 at 12:19:56 AM
I haven't bought an 8GB laptop since probably 2012 when I got a Sony Vaio that they upgrade to 12GB for free because of a delivery delay. I wouldn't buy an 8GB device in 2026, but this device isn't targeted at either of us.For a lot of people who are looking at sub $800 laptops, the option to get an Apple will probably be enough to convince them. And apart from the limited memory, it really isn't a bad buy.
I also fully expect most budget devices to ship with 8GB of memory until the end of the DDR5 crisis anyway.
by sspiff
3/14/2026 at 3:24:29 AM
You might be surprised, with NVMe swap 8GB is surprisingly capable. ~1.6GB/s Read/Write.by pants2
3/14/2026 at 6:01:17 AM
Apple has a great zram implementation as well.by teaearlgraycold
3/14/2026 at 7:05:21 AM
Flash has finite write endurance. NVMe swap can burn through it pretty quick. Which is isn't that bad because if it wears out you can replace it... unless the drive is soldered.by AnthonyMouse
3/14/2026 at 10:40:45 AM
Mac SSDs are expected to last 8-10 years, even with high use. though Apple don't publish these values specifically, it's possible to start to extrapolate from the SMART data when it starts showing errors.A good SSD ought to be able to cope with ~600TBW. My ~4.5-year-old MBP gives the following:
smartctl --all /dev/disk0
...
Data Units Read: 1,134,526,088 [580.8 TB]
Data Units Written: 154,244,108 [78.7 TB]
...
Media and Data Integrity Errors: 0
Error Information Log Entries: 0
...
by spacedcowboy
3/14/2026 at 4:04:01 PM
> I'm sure an 8GB RAM machine would use more swap than my 16GB one, but probably not much moreIt's non-linear. If you have a 17GB working set size, a 16GB machine is actively using 1GB of swap, but the 8GB machine is using 9GB. If you have a 14GB working set size, the 16GB machine doesn't need to thrash at all, but the 8GB machine is still doing 6GB.
Meanwhile "SSDs are fast" is the thing that screws you here. Once your actual working set (not just some data in memory the OS can swap out once and leave in swap) exceeds the size of physical memory, the machine has to swap it in and back out continuously. Which you might not notice when the SSD is fast and silent, but now the fact that the SSD will write at 2GB/sec means you can burn through that entire 600TBW in just over three days, and faster drives are even worse.
On top of that, the write endurance is proportional to the size of the drive. 600TBW is pretty typical for the better consumer 1TB drives, but a smaller drive gets proportionally less. And then the machines with less RAM are typically also paired with smaller drives.
by AnthonyMouse
3/14/2026 at 6:10:38 PM
Most people using these things aren't going to be using more than 8GB on an ongoing basis, and if they do, they'll not be swapping it like mad as you suggest, because it's only on application-switch that it will matter.As for 600TB in just over 3 days, I want some of what you're smoking.
by spacedcowboy
3/14/2026 at 7:03:42 PM
> Most people using these things aren't going to be using more than 8GB on an ongoing basis, and if they do, they'll not be swapping it like mad as you suggest, because it's only on application-switch that it will matter.To begin with, a single application can pretty easily use more than 8GB by itself these days.
But suppose you are using multiple applications at once. If one of them actually has a large working set size -- rendering, AI, code compiling, etc. -- and then you run it in the background because it takes a long time (and especially takes a long time when you're swapping), its working set size is stuck in physical memory because it's actively using it even in the background and if it got swapped out it would just have to be swapped right back in again. If that takes 6GB, you now only have 2GB for your OS and whatever application you're running in the foreground. And if it takes 10GB then it doesn't matter if you're even running anything else.
Now, does that mean that everybody is doing this? Of course not. But if that is what you're doing, it's not great that you may not even notice that it's happening and then you end up with a worn out drive which is soldered on for no legitimate reason.
> As for 600TB in just over 3 days, I want some of what you're smoking.
2GB/s is 8200GB/hour is 172.8TB/day. It's the worst case scenario if you max out the drive.
In practice it might get hot and start thermally limiting before then, or be doing both reads and writes and then not be able to sustain that level of write performance, but "about a week" is hardly much better.
by AnthonyMouse
3/14/2026 at 7:51:10 PM
Yeah dude, "Rendering, AI, code compiling,..." is not the target market for this device. It's just not.> 2GB/s is 8200GB/hour is 172.8TB/day. It's the worst case scenario if you max out the drive.
Right, which is completely and utterly unrealistic. As I said, I want what you're smoking.
I have an 8GB M1 mini lying around somewhere (I just moved country) which was my kids computer for several years before he got an MBP this Xmas. He had the sort of load that would be more typical - web-browsing, playing games, writing the occasional thing in Pages, streaming video, etc. etc. If I can find it (I was planning on making it the machine to manage my CNC) I'll look at the SMART output from that. I'm willing to bet it's not going to look much different from the above...
by spacedcowboy
3/14/2026 at 9:16:35 PM
> Yeah dude, "Rendering, AI, code compiling,..." is not the target market for this device. It's just not.None of the people who want to do those things but can't afford a more expensive machine will ever attempt to do them on the machine they can actually afford then, is that right?
> Right, which is completely and utterly unrealistic.
"Unrealistic" is something that doesn't happen. This is something that happens if you use that machine in a particular way, and there are many people who use machines in that way.
> He had the sort of load that would be more typical - web-browsing, playing games, writing the occasional thing in Pages, streaming video, etc. etc.
Then you would have a sample size of one determined by all kinds of arbitrary factors like whether any of the games had a large enough working set to make it swap, how many hours were spent playing that game instead of another one etc.
The problem is not that it always happens. The problem is that it can happen, and then they needlessly screw you by soldering the drive.
by AnthonyMouse
3/15/2026 at 8:44:03 AM
> The problem is not that it always happens. The problem is that it can happenAh. So, FUD, then. Gotcha.
“This ridiculously unlikely scenario is something I’m going to hype up and complain about because I don’t like some aspects of this companies business model”.
600 TBW in 3 days. Pull the other one, it’s got bells on.
by spacedcowboy
3/14/2026 at 10:21:51 AM
I’ve never had an SSD crap out because of read/write cycle exhaustion, and I’ve been using SSD almost exclusively, for over a dozen years. I’ve had plenty of spinning rust ones croak, though. You don’t solder those in, so it’s not really a fair comparison.I did have one of those dodgy Sandisks, but that was a manufacturing defect.
by ChrisMarshallNY
3/14/2026 at 7:19:48 PM
But how much RAM did you have?If you have 24GB of RAM and a 12GB working set then it's fine. Likewise if you have 8GB of RAM and a 4GB working set. But 8GB of RAM and a 12GB working set, not the same thing.
by AnthonyMouse
3/14/2026 at 2:35:27 PM
Most flash memory will happily accept writes long after passing the TBW 'limit'. If write endurance would be that much of a problem I'd expect the second hand market to be saturated with 8Gb M1 MacBooks with dead SSDs by now. Since that's obviously not the case I think it's not that bad.by bzzzt
3/14/2026 at 4:18:40 PM
> Most flash memory will happily accept writes long after passing the TBW 'limit'.That's the problem, isn't it? It does the write, it will read back fine right now, but the flash is worn out and then when you try to read back the data in six months, it's corrupt.
> If write endurance would be that much of a problem I'd expect the second hand market to be saturated with 8Gb M1 MacBooks with dead SSDs by now.
That's assuming it's sufficiently obvious to the typical buyer. You buy the machine with a fresh OS install and only newly written data, everything seems fine. Your 30 day warranty/return period expires, still fine. Then it starts acting weird.
by AnthonyMouse
3/15/2026 at 11:01:10 AM
> That's the problem, isn't it? It does the write, it will read back fine right now, but the flash is worn out and then when you try to read back the data in six months, it's corrupt.SSD firmware does patrol reads and periodically rewrites data blocks. It also does error correction. Cold storage is a known issue with any SSD, but I don't have any insight in how bad this problem is in reality. Of course it will wear out eventually, but so will the rest of the system components. There's nothing to be gained by making SSDs that last 30 years when the other components fail in 15.
> Then it starts acting weird.
Is that speculation or do you have any facts to back that up?
by bzzzt
3/14/2026 at 6:07:16 AM
the slowest DDR4 is capable of 12.6GB/s~ish per channel .nowhere near the same performance.
by serf
3/14/2026 at 9:15:30 AM
The ratio between RAM speed and SSD speed is unimportant. Useful swap just needs a fast drive.by Dylan16807
3/14/2026 at 12:52:07 AM
If people want to emulate what it is like to have low memory on your current mac, you can run `memory_pressure` on the cli.by y1n0
3/14/2026 at 10:35:46 AM
Or disable SIP and sudo nvram boot-args="maxmem=8192"I tried, DaVinci Resolve still works :)
by 05
3/14/2026 at 5:20:54 AM
Is it relevant with 5-15 year old RAM?by DANmode
3/14/2026 at 3:22:15 AM
So, you are not in the market for a $600 computer then. Agreed?by LeFantome
3/14/2026 at 12:59:50 PM
I am not in the market for any laptop with 8GB of RAM that costs more than $300.by auggierose
3/13/2026 at 11:50:54 PM
Going to guess you aren’t a studentby Gigachad
3/14/2026 at 10:52:34 AM
I have a teenager at home. Between freaking electron-powered Discord and Chrome, she's basically at the limit of her 12GB RAM (on windows 11)by fpaf
3/14/2026 at 3:22:32 AM
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47372989by mgh2
3/14/2026 at 2:30:03 AM
Even if your only use case is using Chrome?by cj
3/14/2026 at 6:56:10 AM
Especially if that is my only use case.by auggierose
3/14/2026 at 9:20:03 AM
Strange. I'm still using a i5 powered 8gb ram Pixelbook for day to day browsing. Honestly works great.But I'm also not one of those people who feel the need to keep 300 tabs open all the time.
by cj
3/14/2026 at 10:18:55 AM
Well, I am just saying it is not for me, and neither for anyone else who is not a newbie. It for sure is a great first laptop for kids or students (in the humanities).by auggierose
3/14/2026 at 12:00:49 PM
It's not a great look when you need to put other people down as a way to defend your viewpoint.> Well, I am just saying it is not for me, and neither for anyone else who is not a newbie
Objectively, no, that's not what you're saying if you read the 2nd part of your sentence.
by cj
3/14/2026 at 12:45:33 PM
I don't think I am the one trying to put anyone down here. Just telling you how it is. I stand by every word. I mean, I wouldn't exchange my 7 year (!) old laptop for this. It seems also to be Apple's opinion (Macbook Newbie, I mean Macbook Neo).by auggierose
3/14/2026 at 12:55:16 AM
That was all x86_64, but even if aarch64 is more memory efficient, it can’t be too drastic, and 8GiB was borderline unusable even 10 years ago.Nowadays it must be a teeth-grinding tight fit for a browser and couple Electron apps, held together on a prayer next website doesn’t go too crazy with the bells and whistles and wasn’t vibeslopped with utter disregard to any big-Os.
by drdaeman
3/14/2026 at 1:33:15 AM
> even if aarch64 is more memory efficient, it can’t be too drasticWhy not? All the other advantages of M processors (performance, battery life) have absolutely been drastic
by pastel8739
3/14/2026 at 3:20:50 AM
Because look around - same code compiled for x86_64 and aarch64 is not that drastically different in size, save for some special cases (like NumPy). Data structures are going to have even less differences. Then, assets are the same.I’ve cursorily checked few programs and difference seemed to about 10-20% (with some exceptions), so 8GiB RAM on an aarch64 is like 10GB on x86_64. Significantly nicer, not a life-changing nicer - you’re still very limited.
Edit: Next comment has a very good point about memory and SSD bandwidth increases, allowing faster swap and compressed RAM performance. That’s something I haven’t considered. So maybe it’ll feel closer to a 16GiB old machine or something like that…
by drdaeman
3/14/2026 at 2:30:31 AM
Yeah. Also the bandwidth of modern soldered-on Mac SSDs is insane compared to where it was in the Intel era. The performance impact of moving applications in and out of swap should be much lower than it was a few years ago.by josephg
3/14/2026 at 7:09:56 AM
> Also the bandwidth of modern soldered-on Mac SSDs is insane compared to where it was in the Intel era.This is because they're newer, not because they're soldered. PCIe 5.0 NVMe drives can do ~15GB/s without being soldered.
by AnthonyMouse
3/14/2026 at 3:24:07 AM
That’s a fair point, I totally missed this factor, mostly thinking about binary sizes. You’re right, it would be different because of this.by drdaeman
3/14/2026 at 5:53:58 AM
Why are you flexing like this?What's your purpose?
by ulfw
3/14/2026 at 12:20:08 AM
If yours are all over 7 years old you really have no idea what a modern Mac can do with 8-16GB of ram…by happyopossum
3/14/2026 at 12:34:58 AM
8GB of RAM. Not 16GB. And oh yes, the modern Mac shares those 8GB with the video RAM...by auggierose
3/14/2026 at 12:44:11 AM
> And oh yes, the modern Mac shares those 8GB with the video RAM...The Unified Memory Architecture is why these Macs are so fast—no wasted cycles moving data between RAM and GPU. And the data is compressed in real-time so less data has to be transferred and there's less ware and tear on the SSD, which is directly to SoC [1].
by alwillis
3/14/2026 at 2:08:09 AM
UMAs aren't made for speed, but for power savings. You are ignoring the fact that a discrete GPU accesses VRAM and caches at much higher bandwidths (and power) than an iGPU does RAM. Shared mem also comes at the cost of keeping it coherent between CPU/GPU. So you can't just look at one part of the system and then claim that UMAs must be faster because there are no data transfers.And by the way, even on UMAs, the iGPU can still have a dedicated segment of memory not readable by the CPU. Therefore UMA does not imply there won't be data transfers.
by yunnpp
3/14/2026 at 6:08:37 PM
In the case of the A18 Pro in the Neo, the memory is integrated directly into the package which is shared between the CPU, GPU and Neural Engine.Naturally it's faster to have all of this in the same package, with memory bandwidth up to 400 GB/s.
Intel and AMD are heading in the same direction.
by alwillis
3/19/2026 at 7:57:51 PM
I had not picked up on these guys doing 400 GB/s; that's nearing discrete levels of bandwidth.by yunnpp
3/14/2026 at 12:59:38 AM
Well yes it's still only 8GB shared between macos, the VM and the graphics buffers. On a mobile chip.by wolvoleo
3/14/2026 at 8:02:31 PM
> On a mobile chipThat's not really a thing with Apple Silicon. The A series chips and the M series have the same CPU and GPU core designs.
Because you don't need to support Thunderbolt 4/5 controllers, PCIe lanes for NVMe storage, ProRes encode/decode engines (on Pro/Max/Ultra tiers) and multiple external displays in a device like a phone, Apple TV, or a HomePod these features are absent from A series chips.
The A17 Pro corresponds to the M3, the A18/A18 Pro corresponds to the M4 and the A19/A19 Pro corresponds to the M5. Same core design, different implementations.
It's not like Intel where there are many server processors, desktop processors and mobile processors. Apple uses the same core design they scale up or down as needed, for example the S series chips in the Apple Watch. The S9 is a scaled down A13 or A15.
by alwillis
3/14/2026 at 9:54:38 AM
I don't think Apple has used "desktop chips" in a looong time. With the lone exception of the Xeon Mac Pros.by nottorp
3/14/2026 at 3:27:47 AM
People whip out “mobile chip” like this thing is going to crawl. It is faster than the Apple M1 (and runs the same software).by LeFantome
3/14/2026 at 12:01:08 AM
This is Apple's "Nintendo moment" when they realize they can package old hardware and win on polish and ecosystem.by lubujackson
3/14/2026 at 12:28:53 AM
> This is Apple's "Nintendo moment" when they realize they can package old hardware and win on polish and ecosystem.The A18 Pro isn't even two years old yet; it debuted in iPhone 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max September 2024. What's funny is none of the PC laptops manufactures can match the speed and quality of the Neo.
The benchmarks for the A18 Pro are impressive; its Single Thread Performance beats all mobile processors [1]; remember this processor was created for a phone:
Apple A18 Pro 4,091
Apple M1 8 Core 3200 MHz. 3,675
Apple A15 Bionic 3,579
AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme 3,546
AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 230 3,538
Apple A14 Bionic 3,382
Intel Core i5-1235U 3,090
Apple A13 Bionic 2,354
Intel N150 1,902
Intel N100 1,893
AMD Ryzen Embedded R1505G 1,820
by alwillis
3/14/2026 at 1:38:28 AM
Outside of some specialized benchmarks only Geekbench 6 is more or less usable for comparisons between generations or manufacturers.by TiredOfLife
3/14/2026 at 6:52:07 AM
out of curiosity, what makes Geekbench 6 better?by tkzed49
3/14/2026 at 9:28:04 AM
Differences in score correlate to differences in performance across platforms and generations.by TiredOfLife
3/14/2026 at 2:22:05 AM
They already had that exact strategy between 2012 and 2020.by saithound
3/14/2026 at 12:12:04 AM
Apple have historically moved forward minimum requirements for macOS and apps a bit aggressively. They need to slow that down now if they want us to take the macbook neo seriously.by kzrdude
3/14/2026 at 2:35:19 AM
Good. So many software developers have gotten so lazy with RAM usage in the past few decades. I hope the Neo is a kick in the pants to get everyone in the Apple ecosystem to take memory usage seriously.More efficient software benefits everyone.
by josephg
3/14/2026 at 5:28:12 PM
> So many software developers have gotten so lazy with RAM usage in the past few decades.Fewer developers want to write ASM or C, today. Slower to market, slower to roll out features, etc. While that may seem like a good thing, and probably could be, the market doesn't like it.
Developer choose heavy weight frameworks or don't make use of modern features in said frameworks to improve performance. And in some cases, performance can be 'good enough'. If I pretended to be a developer, if my app performs well enough, it's not my problem what else is running on your system. Besides, the OS governs it all regardless.
That said, macOS has a terrible memory leak _somewhere_ that impacts even OOTB apps and this hasn't been corrected for the last two major releases.
by p_ing
3/14/2026 at 9:32:54 PM
You don't need to program in ASM or C to write a memory efficient program. Swift, Go, Rust, C++ and C# are all reasonably memory efficient at the scales we're talking about.Usually you just have to actually look at memory usage and trim the obvious fat. But so many developers these days treat memory as an infinite resource, and don't have a clue how to use profiling tools to even investigate memory usage. That and, maybe stop shipping a copy of Chrome with your application.
I'm hopeful that LLMs will improve the state of application development. Claude can write sloppy code, but it also knows how to write rust and swift, and it knows a lot of tricks for optimisation if you prompt it.
There's 3rd party libraries which know how to interact with spotify. I wonder how many claude code tokens it would take to make a simple, native spotify client. Or discord client. Or client for Teams or Slack.
by josephg
3/14/2026 at 4:35:01 AM
It's really quite bad. 'Telegram Lite' is using 1.16GB with just a single chat vs Signal using 193MB. Somehow vscode (including their renderers) manages to come in pretty low compared to even Apples native apps.by dawnerd
3/14/2026 at 6:45:01 AM
> Somehow vscode (including their renderers) manages to come in pretty low compared to even Apples native apps.Because the issue isn't electron, it's not freeing resources which you can do in any language/platform.
by m-schuetz
3/14/2026 at 9:11:08 AM
> vs Signal using 193MBThat’s still an order of magnitude worse than it should be. You don’t need 200mb of ram for a chat app.
by josephg
3/14/2026 at 5:31:45 AM
I’d disable major OS updates and stay on Tahoe, and only upgrade if other Neo owners report it’s ok to do so. Ive been burned by iOS updates that made the phone sluggish enough times.Not necessarily a reason to avoid the Neo, for the right use case. If I had secondary school kids they’d get one of these, but something to bear in mind.
by simonh
3/14/2026 at 1:13:54 PM
Except I can buy two or three Switches with Neo's price tag.Nintendo Switch - 279 euro
Nintendo Switch 2 - 489 euro
Neo with a proper SSD size - 800 euro.
by pjmlp
3/14/2026 at 2:36:55 AM
Except you have to run Tahoeby bogantech
3/13/2026 at 9:40:19 PM
In the US, cheap ThinkPads like E14 sometimes sell for a bit less when you factor in all typical discounts. They are good machines that run Linux well and can be repaired.In EU, and I imagine other markets, there's nothing remotely close. I hope this puts some pressure on Lenovo and the rest of manufacturers to be more competitive.
by nextos
3/13/2026 at 10:54:27 PM
In the EU it costs $200 more so it's more like a low to mid range laptop.I have a feeling these are aimed at the same sector as the Framework 12, school provided laptops for kids meant to be bought in bulk by institutions. But there they're competing against $150 Chromebooks and neither is even close.
by moffkalast
3/13/2026 at 11:25:30 PM
In the EU, you don't need to buy an extended warranty, since existing consumer protection laws require the sort of extended repair coverage Americans have to pay extra for.Taxes are also included in the EU price, but not the US price.
by GeekyBear
3/14/2026 at 1:10:51 AM
The lack of reflection indicated by "US prices are so much cheaper! Why are our electronics so expensive?" vs "What do you mean, you can't take it back to the store where you got it for an on-the-spot replacement a year and a half after purchase if it breaks?" has amused me for quite some time. Not that both come from the same person, but don't they ever talk to each other?by devilbunny
3/14/2026 at 1:08:00 AM
Yes but be aware this only goes where Apple is the actual seller. If you buy it in another shop you only have Apple warranty for one year and the shop has to sort out the second one. So buying from Apple directly is better.by wolvoleo
3/13/2026 at 11:30:00 PM
But sales taxes are significantly lower and easily lowered or even avoided by driving a half hour.No one does this, because they're low enough to begin with.
by rngfnby
3/14/2026 at 9:18:27 AM
I always wondered why nobody's ever tried to reach me about an extended warranty despite it being such a meme. I guess that's why, pretty fucked up ngl.by moffkalast
3/14/2026 at 9:33:47 AM
After factoring in sales tax, paying 25% extra for a moderately nice two year warranty sounds like it would be an awful deal for me.by Dylan16807
3/13/2026 at 9:47:15 PM
> and can be repairedThe Macbook Neo is highly repairable too [1]. Not _quite_ as repairable as some Thinkpads with a 10/10 score, but still pretty respectable at a 6/10 with easily replaceable batteries and stuff.
[1] https://www.ifixit.com/News/116152/macbook-neo-is-the-most-r...
by porphyra
3/13/2026 at 10:15:09 PM
8 GB RAM and 6/10 "respectable" repairability.by sourcegrift
3/13/2026 at 10:21:16 PM
RAM has no bearing on repairability? And yes, sure stuff is soldered to the motherboard, but everything is basically modular outside of it, you can replace every big part pretty easily, and no glue, even for the batteryby nar001
3/13/2026 at 10:34:49 PM
The RAM being soldered is a hit against repair ability, you can't expand it or if the ram has issues you can't replace it, you will just be forced to throw out the entire machine. What else is modular here anyways? Can I swap out the CPU, the screen, the keyboard, ports...anything?by mylies43
3/13/2026 at 10:48:22 PM
Repairability and upgradability aren't quite the same concept.by wtallis
3/14/2026 at 1:26:44 PM
Why are the Thinkpads getting 10/10 when the math coprocessor can’t be replaced and the N2 cache is inside the CPU as well?We culturally decide what parts can or cannot be replaced. Apple solders their RAM on the CPU for performance reasons. It’s coming to PCs at some point, if they ever decide to compete on performance ever again.
by philistine
3/15/2026 at 11:44:28 AM
> Apple solders their RAM on the CPU for performance reasons. It’s coming to PCs at some point, if they ever decide to compete on performance ever again.Are you assuming that the PCs do not compete with Macs for performance? People built Hackintoshes that are more powerful than the highest spec Mac Pro - and for cheaper, too
by bean469
3/15/2026 at 1:33:08 PM
On laptops, which is something between 80-90% of the market for computers, you'd be hard pressed to find a laptop that's competitive with Apple. Can you find a laptop chip that's as good as the M5 Max? Or the M3 Max for that matter.Laptop PCs are starting to lag behind Apple, just like the fastest Android phones have a hard time competing with three year old iPhones.
Of course on the desktop, you can just pump more power into a disappointing x86 chip to eke out better perf but that market is marginal and Apple basically ignores it. Laptops might not be a problem for you specifically but this situation, where a company has advantages but is inadequate for the needs of the market, is how so many chip manufacturers just disappeared in the 90s.
by philistine
3/20/2026 at 7:35:57 AM
> Can you find a laptop chip that's as good as the M5 Max? Or the M3 Max for that matter.Most people, including me, do not need the most powerful chip. Most of what 99% of laptop users do does not require the SOTA. The only task for a laptop that I have that requires more compute is gaming. My 3 year old laptop still performs much better in games compared to the M5 Max, according to benchmarks for the games that I play, not to mention the compatibility advantages
> Of course on the desktop, you can just pump more power into a disappointing x86 chip to eke out better perf but that market is marginal and Apple basically ignores it
Apple has desktop computers for sale, they do not ignore the market. The latest Mac Mini is actually a great value for the money, especially for businesses
by bean469
3/13/2026 at 11:34:14 PM
Soldering RAM isn't for compact size or cost or to keep you from upgrading, it's for speed. Soldered RAM can be physically closer with a faster bus than removable RAM.by colechristensen
3/14/2026 at 8:30:38 AM
It's for power efficiencyby heavyset_go
3/13/2026 at 11:51:40 PM
With old style DIMMs I can understand this excuse, with LPCAMM though, it doesn't fly.by okanat
3/14/2026 at 12:35:43 AM
Yes it does. LPCAMM path is still dozens of millimeters. Soldered on is one mm or less.by dmitrygr
3/14/2026 at 2:37:41 AM
Yep. Even the framework seems to be moving to soldered on ram.by josephg
3/14/2026 at 9:26:53 AM
If you mean the desktop, there must have been something wrong with that AMD chip. Existing designs with LPCAMM are just as fast.by Dylan16807
3/18/2026 at 9:35:19 PM
Yeah, I got downvoted but the people arguing against have no idea of the speeds of the standards. LPCAMM2 offers the same exact speeds as LPDDR5x. It is dumb as a consumer to just accept soldering as an excuse from tech companies.by okanat
3/14/2026 at 10:34:21 AM
Neo's RAM is Package on Package, it is literally soldered on top of the A18.In fact, Neo's Mainboard is in the same ballpark as a Desktop RAM DIMM, which means replacing the whole Mainboard is in the same as replacing the RAM on a Desktop from an environmental perspective.
by nolist_policy
3/14/2026 at 1:27:47 PM
That Neo board is so tiny!by philistine
3/14/2026 at 8:24:47 AM
[flagged]by herbst
3/13/2026 at 10:35:37 PM
I have a Neo and 16GB Thinkpad and the Neo smokes it.by jxdxbx
3/13/2026 at 11:28:41 PM
What configuration on the ThinkPad?by nextos
3/13/2026 at 11:22:27 PM
Have you owned an M-series MacBook?by DauntingPear7
3/14/2026 at 1:15:57 PM
For those that feel like paying 700 to 800 euros for Neo, not all EU countries are living the life.And then there is the rest of the globe.
by pjmlp
3/13/2026 at 10:50:55 PM
PC makers are going to stop some of the artificial segmentation they used on the lower price devices, and that is going to hurt the sales of their higher-end lines. There is no reason they kept pushing 70 percent srgb panels on even the mid tier Thinkpads when the Neo has a good display.by wolpoli
3/13/2026 at 11:31:18 PM
I can't imagine the low end materials actually save that much cost anyway.There's a tremendous amount of Bill-of-Materials inflation where a part that cost $5 more translates to $50 retail price increase when the actual work and engineering cost is exactly the same. This is one of the terribly annoying facts of product design, the incredible premium you have to pay for good parts that don't actually cost very much at all.
by colechristensen
3/14/2026 at 5:27:14 AM
I wonder if it’s less about price and more about supply chains. Are there enough manufacturing capacity to allow every laptop maker to secure enough supply?In advance of the neo’s release, Apple probably invested billions in ensuring the supply chain was ready.
by simondotau
3/14/2026 at 12:55:03 PM
Are there really 70 percent srgb laptops at $600?by redox99
3/14/2026 at 2:18:57 AM
That sounds great and like capitalism is working for once in terms of increased competition causes companies to produce more for lessby lovich
3/14/2026 at 1:54:14 AM
I'm glad Apple's caring about the education market again – people forget how it (and DTP) sustained Apple through the lean years of the 90s, until they came out with iMac and iBook.by nxobject
3/14/2026 at 3:51:06 AM
Ironically probably one of my biggest reasons against buying one is it's obvious desirability.I've already once in my life been in a situation where I can say with certainty the only reason my laptop wasn't stolen is that it wasn't a MacBook(despite having equal or above retail purchase value). I wouldn't be surprised if there's more that I never knew about.
by jonp888
3/14/2026 at 5:43:14 AM
How easy is it to flip a macbook tied to an apple id? i'd imagine you'd have to sell it for parts.Granted, selling this one for parts might literally be easier.
by throwaway27448
3/14/2026 at 1:24:33 AM
As someone who has been working in IT support for years, for most people a Windows laptop in the $400 range is cheaper if you add on-site IT support, parts replacement, and a longer warranty period. I wonder where Apple stands here.by todotask2
3/14/2026 at 1:44:33 AM
> parts replacementFor a $400 laptop?
by DaiPlusPlus
3/14/2026 at 8:22:29 AM
You throw a $400 thing away when a small component breaks? Like you buy a new phone when the cable breaks?by herbst
3/14/2026 at 9:08:16 PM
I wonder how long before Apple has to raise the price of them due to RAM and nand flash shortages? Especially at the $499 price with student discount.by kristianp
3/13/2026 at 10:58:51 PM
Apple is going to cannibalize their own laptop market.by amelius
3/13/2026 at 11:12:28 PM
M1 macbook air has been available at Walmart priced at $600-650 for years (8gb, 256 ssd). Why did that not cannibalize Apple's laptop market?by operatingthetan
3/14/2026 at 1:19:07 AM
> Apple is going to cannibalize their own laptop market.As long as you buy a Mac laptop, Apple is fine with that, regardless of which one. That’s because they know who their customers are.
The Neo is in its own category; the $599/$699 Neo doesn’t compete with a 14-inch MacBook Pro with a M5 Pro, 24GB of RAM, and 1 TB SSD at $1899. If you know you need more RAM and storage than Neo, the M5 Mac Air is $1099. But if you need to stay under $1000, the decision is clear.
If anything, the Neo is more competitive with the entry-level iPad with 128 GB of storage at $349; with Apple's keyboard at $249, the total is $598, $1 less than the entry-level Neo.
For someone who wants a "real" laptop with more flexibility than an iPad, getting the $599 Neo is a no-brainer.
by alwillis
3/14/2026 at 12:46:53 AM
I think this is actually the reason the Neo has 8 GB of RAM (non-upgradable). It’s their anti-cannibalization strategy.They’re relying on the huge portion of their existing laptop market who self-identifies as “tech-savvy” or “enthusiast” and thinks 8 GB of RAM is a non-starter.
Those folks will keep buying Mac laptops at double (or triple, quadruple, …) the price.
by tshaddox
3/14/2026 at 9:01:03 AM
It has 8gb ram because the A18 pro chip has that baked in. They won't spend money on redesigning.If next iteration has A19 pro chip in it - it will have 12gb.
by NookDavoos
3/14/2026 at 1:38:15 AM
> I think this is actually the reason the Neo has 8 GB of RAM (non-upgradable). It’s their anti-cannibalization strategy.It has 8 GB of RAM because they wouldn’t be able to hit the price point of $599 with more; their target audience doesn't need more. It's also why the SSD is slower than a MacBook Pro or MacBook Air; it's the only device in the lineup other than the entry-level iPad with a sRGB display; the other devices have P3 Wide Color Displays. No Thunderbolt ports, only supports 1 external display and only at 4K. No Wi-Fi 7.
These are some of the compromises they made to keep the price down. They're also using a binned A18 Pro with 5 GPU cores instead of the 6 core version in the iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max.
There are lots of potential customer for which a Mac laptop was out of reach; it's a lot more affordable at $49.91 /month for 12 months for the $599 model.
Its display is better than PC laptops in the same price range, but that display is a non-starter for graphic designers, video editors, etc.
That's why cannibalization is a non-issue.
by alwillis
3/14/2026 at 5:14:02 AM
> It's also why the SSD is slower than a MacBook Pro or MacBook Air;It's actually not that much slower, at least if you compare machines with the same amount of storage. The M2 and M3 MacBook Air with 256GB comes in at 1700 MB/s[1], while the Neo with 256GB is... drumroll... 1700 MB/s[2].
Yes, Air and Pro machines with more storage are faster. I have not seen any benchmark of the Neo with 512GB, so maybe it lags behind the Air and Pro there. But I've not seen anyone publish a benchmark which actually demonstrates that.
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/mac/comments/1gvovdt/the_ultimate_g...
[2] https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/macbook-neo-has-up-to-8...
by labcomputer
3/14/2026 at 6:37:15 PM
I should clarify that I was referring to the memory bandwidth. Compared to the 100 GB/s of a M3 MacBook Air, the 60 GB/s of the Neo is 40% slower. My M1 Pro MacBook Pro's memory bandwidth is 200 GB/s; that's 3.33x faster than the Neo.by alwillis
3/14/2026 at 2:50:40 AM
They are just covering all the market segments. This is for people who didn't want to shell out $1000 for a laptop for their kid, or have another one just to browse the web. Or they have an iphone but not a mac laptop, but now they might want one cause it's even cheaper than a phone. This will be pushed into schools probably as well.by rdtsc
3/14/2026 at 2:00:31 PM
I had a look at one in the Apple Store and think I'll probably stick with the Air for my next laptop. The Neo is cool and that but looks quite cheap and cheerful alongside the Airs.by tim333
3/14/2026 at 9:15:00 AM
They famously ate their iPod market. It was the most successful consumer electric product ever and they destroyed it.The iPhone has done well.
by lostlogin
3/14/2026 at 11:07:03 AM
The smartphone destroyed the iPod. If Apple artificially made the iPhone not capable of playing songs, then people would just buy a Samsung phone (which could play music).by amelius
3/16/2026 at 3:52:52 AM
Yes. And Apple led the way.by lostlogin
3/14/2026 at 1:10:01 PM
Not in many countries outside US, or similar salary levels, unless it comes bundled with some offer like a cable TV contract.by pjmlp
3/13/2026 at 10:59:39 PM
Mac doesnt run their spyware, they wont use it.by devwastaken
3/14/2026 at 10:33:04 AM
Unless the screen cracks again because of crumbles.by croes
3/14/2026 at 1:57:48 AM
My 13 year old mac desktop is sitting here with 14.82gb used with nothing but messages and firefox. Really dount that 8gb will cut it.by pxmpxm
3/14/2026 at 2:02:41 AM
This is really not the right comparison to make. An OS will use memory liberally. Give it more and it'll use more. Give it less and it'll swap to disk. So the real question is how long a given workload takes to complete, or whether you can multi-task without shitting out to/from disk every time you switch windows. "My OS uses X amount of RAM" is an entirely meaningless and irrelevant statement.by yunnpp
3/14/2026 at 10:08:19 AM
> the real question is how long a given workload takes to completeThe memory eaters most people are complaining about are not workloads, but shitty communication apps that keep all those cat pictures from the last 4 months uncompressed in ram...
by nottorp
3/14/2026 at 2:02:34 AM
Browsers use available RAM for cache, but they don't require that much. Firefox officially supports running on Macs down to 512MB of RAM. It will just be slower.by smallerize
3/14/2026 at 11:08:38 AM
Try opening a google spreadsheet in 512 Mb ram.by nottorp
3/14/2026 at 4:32:33 PM
Interesting, what happens?by smallerize
3/15/2026 at 7:54:25 AM
Whatever happens will take a while, since the one google docs spreadsheet that I keep open - which isn't complex - uses 399 Mb just for its own tab.by nottorp
3/14/2026 at 2:01:24 AM
Macos will try and keep available memory used.Launch a few more applications and you'll see everything sort of still keeps working at an acceptable responsiveness.
by fooker
3/14/2026 at 2:04:11 PM
I've been using the 8GB M1 Air for years and had very few issues.by tim333
3/14/2026 at 9:18:39 AM
That would put your mac as an Intel one, as ARM only came out in 2020.Intel doesn't even remotely compare to ARM. Even an M1 8GB would far outperform what you have now.
by EagnaIonat
3/13/2026 at 9:13:37 PM
ITs going to sell like crazy not because of specs, but because its apple, and its a cheap. Cause god forbid you pull out a chromebook in a starbucks and be seen as a peasant.If you know what you are doing and don't want to spend a lot of money, its really not that hard to buy a refurbished thinkpad, swap in more ram, and install your linux disro of choice, for a lower price and get very similar usable performance.
by ActorNightly
3/13/2026 at 9:58:27 PM
MacBooks are a far superior product, not just a status symbolby mountainriver
3/15/2026 at 3:29:52 AM
Only if what you want to do fits neatly within the walled garden. I personally like my freedom to tinker, and get great performance, functionality, and stability with Linux.by MrDrMcCoy
3/15/2026 at 9:20:26 PM
I love linux, but I really love the feel and build of Macbooks, I haven't found any alternative that feels the same. Really wish there was!by mountainriver
3/13/2026 at 10:25:09 PM
[flagged]by ActorNightly
3/13/2026 at 9:16:57 PM
And run what on the Chromebook exactly?by raw_anon_1111
3/13/2026 at 10:23:50 PM
Web browser and youtube. You know, what people mostly do on macbooks.by ActorNightly
3/13/2026 at 11:09:14 PM
Aside from gaming, I can do basically everything on Mac that I can on Linux or Windows. That's a hell of a lot more than a Chromebook. Take it from someone who has owned both a Chromebook and a Macbook; suggesting that they are in the same league is silly.Also, used != new. I'm surprised people need to be reminded of this.
by hodgehog11
3/14/2026 at 12:30:59 AM
> That's a hell of a lot more than a Chromebook.It appears most people - even on Hacker News(!) - are unaware that Chromebooks have a one-click Linux VM (currently Debian Trixie is the default). It is well-integrated into the Chrome desktop/launcher, and any Linux app can even be pinned onto the taskbar, next to your browser. Any Linux package you can `apt get` or `curl | sh` can run on Chromebooks made in the last 5ish years.
by overfeed
3/14/2026 at 1:35:18 AM
Yep, I've been using ChromeOS/ built-in Debian VM for light VS Code, web dev and terminal stuff on a 150 dollar Lenovo ARM Chromebook with 4GB RAM for the last 2 years as my couch PC. I just disabled Android apps because that pushed it over the line.Gets about 10 hours battery life, touchpad is way better than my $799 Lenovo Ideapad (ChromeOS is weirdly good with even cheap touchpad hardware) and does an incredible job of suspending idle tabs without being noticeable. No rooting, jailbreaking, etc required and unlike my M1 Macbook I can actually install apps without the ridiculous click app->can't open unverified app->settings->security->open anyway->click app second time-> open anyway song and dance.
Would I recommend it as your primary development device? Certainly not, and Neo would be a much better experience for sure but it also costs 4x as much so shrug.
I bought it entirely because I wanted the cheapest modern ARM Chromebook I could find with good battery life since my m1 Macbook is pretty much always tied to a dock and but pleasantly surprised by how much it could actually do beyond just web browsing.
by ewoodrich
3/14/2026 at 3:12:31 AM
Yes because normal people want to run Linux just like normal people would rather “build such a system quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem. From Windows or Mac, this FTP account could be accessed through built-in software.”Instead of using iCloud
by raw_anon_1111
3/14/2026 at 8:42:01 AM
Nice strawman.Normal people won't even know there's a VM in the background, Linux apps launch and behave like any other ChromeOS app. The integration is very well done, and its evident you've never used it, or even seen how it works in practice and youre hallucinating non-existing complexity. All one has to enable a setting, and they can double-click a Linux app flatpak or AppImage to launch it.
by overfeed
3/14/2026 at 6:33:34 AM
I have a newer model work issued MBP.My personal laptop is my phone which is a Samsung S25 ultra with Dex that I use with a lapdock.
When I travel and need to do work (i.e coding), I don't even bring my mac because I can do everything on my phone with a VPN. VSCode runs as a local web app, python works. The only thing that doesn't work is pytorch with pip install, but I don't need it for work and I could get it to work easily if I compiled it myself.
The UI is fast, I have twice the ram of the Neo, all my apps in one place, my phone lasts longer because lapdock charges it, and I can easily multitask between work and personal all on one device.
And thats with the "limitation" of android. Before I got that setup, I had a $300 ebay refurbished Thinkpad (don't even remember the model, just one where I could get a ram stick to get it to 32gb), and I ran with #!++ linx and i3wm. It booted up faster than my work macbook, was way more responsive, and I didn't have to jump through MacOS bullshit like permissions and all the other crap when trying to do stuff.
The simple truth is that Macs never were, are not, and never will be worth it for anything. Anytime you try to argue this, you out yourself as an obvious fanboy thats wants his shiny new metal laptop to feel like he as some sort of better tool.
by ActorNightly
3/13/2026 at 10:24:55 PM
But that’s all you can do on Chromebooks.by raw_anon_1111
3/13/2026 at 11:04:29 PM
In 2012, that would be true! :)by emilbratt
3/13/2026 at 10:27:24 PM
Are you sure about that?by ActorNightly
3/13/2026 at 11:11:06 PM
You can do more if you have a lot more RAM. Otherwise you really are that restricted.In the country I live in, there is no comparable Chromebook spec-wise on par with the Neo at a similar price point. You're basically stuck with 4GB RAM.
by hodgehog11
3/14/2026 at 4:30:38 AM
Justifying having 8gb as a good amount, while downplaying 4gb as not enough is pretty hilarious. Chromebooks run fine with 4gb of ram, especially if you install linux and use zram+swap.You can get a regular laptop and have even more ram with Linux. Not sure why you are stuck on the Chromebook.
by ActorNightly
3/13/2026 at 10:04:20 PM
What school IT director does this?by incanus77
3/13/2026 at 9:17:08 PM
The Chromebook would be slow and run worse software. So… but also yeah nobody wants to look like a peasant.by gigatexal
3/13/2026 at 9:59:35 PM
[dead]by assaddayinh