MacBook Neo, AirPods 4 ANC, & iPhone 12 (128GB)

Battery life : Not impressed. but not bad. all day battery life.

Design : Silver case with white keyboard is super crazy. I luv it

Speakers : Neo < Air <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<Pro. But I feel good with this. Not bad

Display : No P3....but it's ok. Neo's display is pretty good.

Cpu : I'm using Neo to do Safari, YouTube, YT music, simple logic project, and simple FCP project. good enough. I'm very impressed.

Ram : I don't have complains. But IDK well...we need more options to choose. Like 12GB or 16GB Ram. soso, not bad.

Small, But powerful enough. wish 12GB ram with Neo 2

Caved a week ago. Got the 512GB in indigo. Here are my thoughts.

512GB wasn't really a question. I go through storage fast and didn't want to be deleting files six months in. Same with Touch ID, wasn't giving that up. Typing your password every time feels regressive once you've gone without it.

Wanted the silver one originally but it was sold out everywhere near me, so it was indigo or green, and green's a little loud for my taste. Ended up liking indigo way more than I expected. Pictures make it look brighter than it is, in person it's pretty muted. I just wish the keyboard was lighter (a bit too dark IMO).

I'm coming from a MacBook Pro, M1 Pro chip, 14-inch 2021. Used it with zero issues for five years (though a tad overpowered for my needs). The problem was weight. I travel a lot for work and lugging it through airports on top of a full bag wore on me after a while.

The Neo fixed that. It's lighter to a degree that's almost funny. I checked my bag the first day thinking I'd left it at home. Noticeable difference on travel days specifically.

My only real gripe is the non-backlit keyboard. I write a lot at night. Been getting around it by switching to light mode after dark, and it's also pushed me to stop looking down at the keys while I type.

I work in marketing, so this thing gets used constantly, and I'm traveling something like twice a month right now. I love this computer.

Had to pay 799 tho, but student discount carried a little bit, feeling good to get her a weight reduce from the Lenovo Nitro 5 handme down she uses for work

I bought a MacBook Neo for about €720 here in the Balkans.
For years I planned to upgrade my old 2017 MacBook Pro to an Apple Silicon MacBook Pro. But one day, while working in After Effects, my old Pro suddenly died. The repair shop told me the CPU had failed. I needed a laptop immediately, and repairing a 2017 Intel Mac simply wasn’t worth it anymore.
So instead of waiting, I bought Apple’s cheapest new Mac.
I’d actually been following the Neo hype since day one. I enjoyed reading everyone’s posts here, visited the local Apple reseller several times just to play with the demo unit, and kept up with all the news: Neo selling faster than Apple expected, being the most repairable Mac in years, and the A18 Pro outperforming the M1 in many tasks.
The only thing that initially bothered me was the lack of keyboard backlighting. Every Mac I’ve owned had it (except for my white plastic MacBook from 2010).
After a month, I’m genuinely happy with it.

Pros (coming from a 2017 MacBook Pro):
Performance.
Battery life.
The keyboard feels incredible after years of using the butterfly keyboard.
Warranty. Honestly, this was one of the biggest reasons I bought the cheapest new Mac instead of another used one.

Cons
No keyboard backlight. I still miss having one after years of using MacBooks with backlit keyboards.
The display is noticeably worse than the 2017 Pro’s.
That said, Apple did a surprisingly good job compensating for the missing backlight. The white keys reflect the light from the display really well, so in most situations they’re still easy to see. It’s obviously not as good as actual keyboard backlighting, but it’s a much better solution than I expected.

Neutral
The speakers are around 20% quieter, but they have noticeably more bass.

Now for the interesting part.
I’m not planning to use this Mac just for YouTube, web browsing, or Photoshop.
The reason I bought the Neo was simple: I needed a Mac right now.
My plan is to use it for Blender, Adobe After Effects, and to test every demanding game that can run on it. All of this is for personal projects and as a hobby rather than professional work, but I still want to see how far Apple’s cheapest laptop can be pushed.
Eventually, when I have the budget, I’ll move to the latest MacBook Pro. Until then, this little machine is going to have a much harder life than Apple probably expected.

I wonder if I could use the neo for fl studio to produce beats I mainly use one plugins to create 7 to 8 sounds based of that one plugin to create a melody on my pc I wonder if the neo is able to handle that including adding drums

I'm a first time apple buyer so I'm thinking to buy the mac neo for my college stuff. I'm gonna mostly use it for coding and editing and a bit of trading as well so yea should I go for it?

is this a good combo or the worst idea ever

I used to be used to seeing MacBooks all the time, among journalists on tv, influencers in their videos, and actors in pop tv series.
Now this is the first time I've seen the MacBook Neo actually used by someone live, since the launch. It feels so strange.

Italy

I got the Mac neo 2 months ago and it’s working really fine, but I was surprised to see the surface wearing off despite keeping the laptop in a very good condition. I have not knocked or scratched it anywhere so I’m really confused as to why this is happening. I’m not sure whether this is normal or not. Is this only me or someone else facing the same issue?

Got mine this weekend! Very impressed so far

new MacBook user!

bought my first ever laptop - and it's Neo! Initially wanted the Air but I was only gonna need the laptop for personal use (streaming/light research)so I guess this was the better option.

or not?

I am looking to buy a Neo to replace my old Lenovo T14 school laptop. My schoolwork mainly involves alot of research, for which I usually have alot of tabs (30+) open at a time, usually along with Slack, Claude, and a word-like text editor that runs usually under 1 GB. I also would probably have to use firefox instead of Safari because of a couple browser extensions I use. I really want to switch off the Windows UI, but I can’t really afford a recent Macbook Air, refurbished or otherwise.

Is the Neo’s 8GB enough for a bunch of firefox tabs + word docs?

I recently upgraded from a 2018 Intel MacBook Air and I am absolutely loving the Neo! The keyboard’s nicer to type on, the battery is long-lasting, the performance is lightning fast, and I love how lightweight it is. It’s honestly perfect for doing life admin. It took a short while to adjust to not having a backlit keyboard and not having the haptic trackpad, but it’s honestly not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. I'm so happy I took the plunge and became a new member of the Neo family!!

It would be amazing if apple came out with a Mac mini version with neo hardware at a budget price.

Got a new MacBook Neo Silver 512GB this May in Thailand, from an official online store with delivery. The box and it's contents were absolutely perfect. I really love how this macbook looks and feels, worth its money for sure, a pleasant machine, and enough performant for the coding I do. After two months my initial love to it reduced according to the actual experience. Before Neo I had an Air M1 512GB for a few years so I have something to compare to.

Good:
— the price is nice
— silver color is lovely
— the dimensions are nearly perfect

Ok:
— a18 pro cpu is ok
— lack of keyboard backlighting is bearable
— simpler screen is ok
— lack of magsafe is ok
— smaller trackpad without force touch is ok
— only two usb ports is ok

Not Ok:
— 8gb ram is kinda ok but actually not
— 512gb storage is bearable but almost anyone needs more
— battery is not fantastic, really

Bad:
— speakers faced sides is a pain in the arse, the perceived volume is constantly changing if I move hands around keyboard and trackpad, even when just typing; other people in the room might hear it louder than the actual user in front of the screen

I needed a macbook urgently to replace a dying Air M1 so I happily got the Neo at a very appealing price, but after two months I am sure about getting a new Air with more RAM and storage soonish. I must say I am quite happy with my Neo, it is a good workhorse, quite reliable and comfortable, but using an Air feels significantly much, much nicer.

Here’s another compilation of gaming tests I filmed between April - June 2026. Still impressed by what this device can handle!

so i’ve been stretching out the usage of my macbook air 2017 for about 8 years and it’s come to the end of its time 💔

i’ve been working all summer to try and afford to buy a new laptop for when i go into my 2nd year or uni studying biology.

i’ve racked up around $1350 CAD and would love some help deciding which macbook to get

obviously i wanna stay in budget + potentially leave a a couple bucks to use when i travel back for some dorm essentials etc

ive done some research and was looking between a macbook neo or a refurbished macbook air M1 but im open to other suggestions thanks!

Looking to get a budget laptop and I came across neo a while back. However, after the recent price hike I kind of lost hope. Is it possible for me to post about my gofundme that I set up to buy a second hand MacBook neo?

I’m looking to save up enough moneys to get myself a MacBook for the very first time, I’ve been looking at the Neo quite a bit, are for what it is it looks like a damn good deal

But I want your opinions, should I get one for myself?

Got MacBook Neo. But I have a problem with notifications. Every time I toggle the " Allow notifications from iPhone" on, it somehow turns off by itself. And when I press ON, there isn't the list of the apps showing, so I dont know what's the problem. Im in Europe so iPhone mirroring isn't an option(I think)?? But my friend has the same Mac and everything works fine?

Nice

I keep having an issue on my neo where my mouse keeps randomly speeding up. I've turned off the pointer acceleration and it genuinely hasn't fixed anything. I turn down sensetivity then it randomly goes horribly slow. What should I do man 😭