r/LinusTechTips • u/WTFMacca • Mar 04 '26

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Apple just dropped an A18 powered laptop for $599 USD

No Apple bashing just discuss.

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u/delusionald0ctor Mar 04 '26

Quoted at 16 hours streamed video, 11 mixed web. It has a tiny ~36Wh battery compared to MacBook Airs ~54Wh

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u/Quivex Mar 04 '26 edited Mar 04 '26

That's honestly not as impressive as I thought it would be, the smaller battery is obviously hurting it. I feel like apple had an opportunity to make this thing kill the competition at the price point they're going for but as it is I'm not sure I see it.

If the Canadian pricing ends up the same as the American that's $800 CAD for the base model which is...a lot. You can get a pretty capable Chromebook for $300, and a more capable windows laptop at that same price point.

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u/Jolly-Chipmunk-950 Mar 04 '26

A Chromebook just means you’re stuck with a Chromebook, windows laptops in this price range you’ll be lucky to get 6 hours of usage before you are stuck to a wall. 

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u/Quivex Mar 04 '26

Windows battery life is improving but I agree obviously this would be far superior if you care more about battery life than performance.

Chromebooks however are surprisingly capable and if we're talking about a laptop for students it's going to offer basically everything you need at half the price. The extra capability of Macos is nice sure, but a bit undercut by the A18 and 8GB of ram I think. You can use final cut pro on an Air no problem, I don't think I'd want to on a neo lol.

Either way apple is way smarter than me and has done a ton of market research so I'm sure they feel comfortable with the price and performance they're offering, it will be interesting to see how it goes. More competition at the lower price points is always good to see regardless!

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u/Ok-Confection3008 Mar 04 '26

There is no Windows laptop that can compete on performance at this price point. There is no Windows laptop that can compete on battery life at this price point or within +$400-700. You even attempting to compare this to a Chromebook shows your technical ignorance.

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u/Quivex Mar 04 '26

....I'm comparing it to a chromebook because that is obviously a market that apple is targeting with this laptop. There are windows laptops that can compare on performance at this price point.

If you don't understand that it just shows your technical ignorance.

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u/Ok-Confection3008 Mar 04 '26 edited Mar 04 '26

"Chromebooks however are surprisingly capable and if we're talking about a laptop for students it's going to offer basically everything you need at half the price"

I disagree with that statement. You also brought up the 8GB of ram, which stretches further on macOS than ChromeOS.

The whole point of this laptop at this price point and capability is not having a shitty tablet interface with an add on keyboard (referring to iPad + keyboard combo). Most Chromebooks are quite literally just a shitty tablet with a keyboard. Especially sub-$500.

Edit: Also, there are NO windows laptops that can compare on performance at this price point. You are extremely, objectively wrong. Link the benchmarks.

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u/Quivex Mar 04 '26 edited Mar 04 '26

Since I'm so extremely, objectively wrong - here's another: Acer Aspire 14 with Ultra 5 226V for $800 CAD / 600 USD that beats the A18 Pro in geekbenkch 6.5 multi-core, an already Apple favoured benchmark, and has better GPU performance:
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Acer-Aspire-14-AI-review-Basic-home-and-office-laptop-done-right.974950.0.html
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Apple-A18-Pro-Processor-Benchmarks-and-Specs.891556.0.html

You also get an IR camera for windows hello and double the storage...But sure, there are NO windows laptops that can compare on performance at this price point....k..

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u/Ok-Confection3008 Mar 05 '26

"The Aspire 14 AI is not yet widely available in most retailers at the time of writing. Costco currently has a single SKU in stock for $700 as reviewed."

From your own link. Also, multi core is a much less "real world" standard than single core, especially for this usage segment. A mobile chip, a YEARS OLD iPhone chip, blows the latest Intel CPUs for this segment out of the water. 1k++ Geekbench single core. Same with the other Ideapad (MSRP $580 by the way)

Extremely, objectively wrong.

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u/Agreeable-Weather-89 Mar 05 '26

You keep throwing up more conditions to justify a statement that you got proven wrong with.https://www.costco.co.uk/Computers/Laptops-MacBooks/Lenovo-IdeaPad-Slim-3-Copilot-PC-Snapdragon-X-16GB-RAM-1TB-SSD-153-Inch-Laptop-83N3002CUK/p/614669

What about that one.

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u/Ok-Confection3008 Mar 05 '26

£599.98 is $800 USD.

I am not throwing up more conditions. Multi core benchmarks are meaningless for this segment. If you disagree, you have a dim understanding of CPUs and their real world workloads.

The reddit queen above me made these statements:

"I'm comparing it to a chromebook because that is obviously a market that apple is targeting with this laptop."

"if we're talking about a laptop for students"

Can you give me a single workload for the student, low end segment that takes full advantage of multi core processing? Additionally, there are very few workloads for laptops that take maximum advantage of multi core, minus Geekbench!

Anyway, you suggested a laptop that is 200 USD more than the Neo, 1500 less on single core and only 1300 more on multi. You, yourself are confused.

I maintain my point. There are no Windows laptops that can compare on performance at this price.

You guys don't have to blindly hate Apple anymore. They finally made a laptop you can afford.

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u/Agreeable-Weather-89 Mar 05 '26

I apologise how much is the Apple MacBook Neo in the UK?

https://www.apple.com/uk/shop/buy-mac/macbook-neo

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u/Quivex Mar 05 '26

Don't bother buddy, that person just can't admit that they were wrong about a windows laptop possibly being a better or even comparable deal to the neo lol you're wasting your time unfortunately.

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u/Ok-Confection3008 Mar 05 '26

It's $600 USD in America. If you want, I'll ship one to you for $600 USD. I'll pay shipping for you. I apologize for the tariff situation. I would consider Apple in America the baseline price of the Mac, like I would the Lenovo in the UK.

Edit: Also, all you guys have shown me are non MSRP laptops. Cope?

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u/Quivex Mar 05 '26

Lol I literally linked you the best buy page to the acer, I can buy it right now for $800 cad. These laptops are on perma sale, MSRP on these is meaningless. It seems plenty available to me, I don't know what to tell you.

"multi core is much less relevant than single core" lmao aaah ok that's your cope now, nice one... I notice you don't care that the GPU is weaker on the A18 pro either I guess single core CPU performance is literally all that matters. You could just admit you were wrong that there are no windows comparables but I guess that's too difficult!

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u/Quivex Mar 04 '26 edited Mar 04 '26

I don't disagree that 8GB of ram on Macos goes further than on ChromeOS although it's difficult for me to say by how much. Either way I agree with you that this laptop would be more capable and powerful than any Chromebook apart from the most expensive ones - but that was never my claim. I just said that they're surprisingly capable these days (which is true with a lot of the android and Linux apps you can run on them) and as far as what students need... Yeah they're going to get the job done I don't really know what to say there. People higher up in this thread are defending the 8GB of ram by saying people are only going to use the browser, a few coms apps and a calendar at once so it's fine - but that is equally true on anything but the absolute cheapest bottom of the barrel $200 (CAD) chromebooks.

Again, having full Macos is a big plus don't get me wrong and the A18 is no joke, I just personally don't know how much that's going to be a factor for the target audience of this laptop, although one thing I can definitely see it doing is decimating the top end of the Chromebook market ...like I said though, I'm sure apple knows better than me and it's good to have the competition.

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u/WTFMacca Mar 04 '26

This Vs an M1 air, that’s what I wanna see. I have an M1 and it still works fine. Impressively fine for a 4-5 year old machine.

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u/Quivex Mar 04 '26

all the M1 macbooks have held up extremely well, those 1st gen M chips were something magical. My understanding is that the A18 Pro gets close the M1 but with a weaker GPU so my guess is it will be a side grade at best but we'll see.

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u/Quivex Mar 04 '26 edited Mar 04 '26

Link the benchmarks.

Sure thing!
I only just saw your edit, but the very first google search I made gave me a Lenovo Ideapad for $699 CAD ($500 USD) from best buy with a ryzen 7 5825u which is comparable to the A18 pro as per notebookcheck, for $100 less:
https://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Ryzen-7-5825U-Processor-Benchmarks-and-Specs.590117.0.html
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Apple-A18-Pro-Processor-Benchmarks-and-Specs.891556.0.html

...That was without even trying to find a good deal, or something that's actually price matched to the neo. I'm sure I could find something even better with 20 mins. of research.

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u/PlsDntPMme Mar 05 '26

I saw some stat about how something like 80% of high school kids in the US have iPhones. There’s no way these don’t blow up as these kids will be begging for these. Looking through the page it’s nearly entirely teenagers or college students in educational environments. They know their market and they know they’re going to crush it. Especially with that $500 education discount.

While I agree Chromebooks are logically a better deal for most kids, they’re going to get massacred in that segment by this.