Discussion

Apple Announces $599 'MacBook Neo' With A18 Pro Chip

robinhood: I can totally see many, many students and parents use that machine for daily tasks. Yes, base specs are pretty low: 8Gb RAM, 256 Gb drive - but the price tag is also low in the Apple world. I assume the trackpad will be excellent and the promise that the battery lasts all day is probably true (all day = 6-7h max). Good move from Apple, for once.

romanovcode: > the trackpad will be excellentNope. It is mechanical.

ChrisArchitect: More discussion on release: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/03/say-hello-to-macbook-... (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47247645)

j45: I thought Apple's RAM architecture/speed lets more than 8 GB be addressed, effectively letting it have 50-100% more operating capacity?

throwaway85825: No magsafe seems like a bad idea given the target demographic.

piyh: Doesn't stop it from shitting the bed when you try to run anything like Fusion or Docker

whalesalad: Honestly I am still wondering why tf they brought magsafe back. I thought Apple had turned the corner on proprietary connectors. I charge my M2 air with a usb-c cable.

space_greg: Well, why can’t my 17 Pro run macOS apps when connecting it to an external screen etc?

ruined: i didn't even know usbc2 ports were a thing

klodolph: There are also USB-C 2 cables.

eigencoder: USB-C is the bane of my existence. Everything looks the same, but certain cables won't charge certain devices for seemingly no reason, and other cables won't transfer data, and there's no easy way (AFAIK) to tell the difference

zemvpferreira: A perfectly performant, luxury-feeling laptop with a secure OS for under $500? This thing is going to eat Chromebooks and budget HP shitboxes for lunch. Sure a lot of niceties are missing but compared to the experience most people have with their $500 laptops, this is going to be night and day.

Geonode: It's $600, unless you're a school.

jurmous: Geekbench CPU single/multi and GPU Metal scores.- M1: 2,347 / 8,342 / 32,377- M2: 2,587 / 9,669 / 44,712- A18Pro: 3,539 / 8,772 / 32,288So Neo is really comparable with the M1, although it has quite faster single core speed.

testing22321: I’m using a used M1 air as my daily for editing tens of thousands of photos, tons of 4K video editing, web and light dev work.It’s still the fastest computer I’ve ever used. (No Tahoe for me)

ijl: I think anything compiled against the M1 (-march=apple-m1) will work on an A18 Pro ( ARMv8.4-A and ARMv9.2-A), and Apple doesn't have any Intel-like instruction differences in parts, right?

noname120: Will it be true macOS or will they use this excuse of using an “iPhone chip” to lock down everything like they do on iPads/iPhones?

ajaimk: A18 Pro offers 44% better single thread performance and similar multi-thread performance as the M1 processor.The Neo should offer similar if not better performace as the first round of entry level Macbook Pro/Mini/Airs that Apple launched in 2020 with the M1 chip.

dmoy: Was this meant to respond to a different comment?

ajaimk: Really want Apple to launch the Mac Mini version of this (yes, I really want an updates Apple TV)

testing22321: The day I tripped over the cord and smashed my netbook I suddenly appreciated MagSafe a lot more.

jeffbee: You can't kill Chromebook with hardware. Apple needs software if they want more share of that market.

bubblewand: What software do they need to compete with chromebooks? It has a browser (it could have several browsers, if you want). I personally prefer all their productivity software to Google’s or Microsoft’s, and it’s not a close race, but you can use those on it too. Accessibility, I was shocked to find is kinda awful on Chromebooks when I had to try to configure it, considering their target markets are kids and the elderly, while Apple’s the gold standard at that.

zardo: It's a big selling point for the slice of laptop buyers that are replacing a machine they just broke by tripping over the power cord.

jeffbee: You misunderstand the market. Chromebooks are bought by bureaucrats. They want provisioning, deployment, management. They want a kid to be able to throw a broken Chromebook into a big garbage bin and grab another one off the shelf and be up and running in 5 seconds.

cestith: It looks like a good value if you can get by with 8 GB of RAM. This is a market niche that will sell, but it doesn’t replace the Air. The Air has 16GB standard and can be ordered with up to 32. I’m also curious about the benchmarks between the A18 Pro and the M5, although for a lot of people that’s going to be less important than the RAM.Good on them for bringing back bright colors, and for including a 3.55mm audio jack on their new lowest end laptop.

dawnerd: 8gb was standard not that long ago and was just fine for most people.

bubblewand: It’s great if you run max two “web apps” at a time. More, and it’s heading into “may be a problem” territory.I’ve seen a Gmail tab eat 2.5Gb of memory all on its own… just sitting there. And you need some headroom for content and file caching and such to keep things feeling snappy.

danaris: They don't have a "macOS Lite", and if these were running anything less than full macOS, you can be sure Apple would be positioning them as a new product (or part of the iPad line) rather than as a Mac.And maybe, just maybe, that fact, once it becomes clear, will make at least a few of the people who assume that Apple desperately wants to lock down macOS realise that that's bullshit and always has been...

tedd4u: [delayed]

tverbeure: They brought it back because it's a fantastic feature for clumsy people like me.

eigen: > certain cables won't charge certain devicesnot sure how you can make a cable that doesnt connect power from end to end. I can see if it doesnt charge as fast as others if it doesnt have the bits required for higher current support. and if a device requires >5V to charge, thats on the device not the cable.> other cables won't transfer dataagain, not sure you can make a cable that doesnt connect the USB2 pair from end to end. but if device doesnt use USB2 and requires something else without mentioning it then that again seems to be on the device not the cable.

dhosek: USB c cables aren’t merely wires and connectors but have some electronics embedded on them.

craftkiller: The first USB type C device was a usb 2.0 device: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_N1

tom_: Already discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47247645, and here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47247649

dang: Comments moved to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47247645. Thanks to both of you.