8GB - good luck!
Apple's budget-friendly MacBook Neo is bursting with color and compromise
You'll soon be able to get a MacBook that's cheaper than many budget PCs. Apple on Wednesday unveiled the MacBook Neo, a $599 exercise in cost cutting powered by the same silicon as an iPhone 16 Pro. The 13-inch notebook is Apple's most affordable and colorful yet, with a design that closely resembles that of the pricier Air, …
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Thursday 5th March 2026 08:04 GMT Eric 9001
If 99% of what she does uses a browser, why move her to the shackles of a different master instead of GNU/Linux?
You don't even need to purchase new hardware - you can just install it on the existing hardware.
It's simply a matter of installing whatever DE she prefers and I'll be much easier to use than windows.
For the 1%, GNU/Linux has far better software compatibility than macos.
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Thursday 5th March 2026 12:17 GMT marky_boi
hmmmmm ... yeah
LONG time user since Mandrake Linux..... Linux is good for the technical types but regardless of desktop, Linux needs futzing just to keep going. I moved from Linux and Windows at home to Apple, yes a walled garden but careful use makes it a bump in the grass. I still have a SUSE plaything laptop... but I will steer simple users to Apple as it does just work. You can keep your Linux it's a free world but i know where I stand for a simple life where things just work..... 40 years in IT, I think I earned it
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Friday 6th March 2026 00:19 GMT Dave559
Re: hmmmmm ... yeah
I used Linux exclusively for many years, and still do use it an awful lot of the time for various purposes. On a server, it's great, on a literal desktop machine, it's definitely pretty good.
But on a laptop it's sadly still too often the case (certainly not a majority of cases, but still often enough to be extremely annoying if you, or worse, a non-techie friend or relative, has to then try to get it all working) that too many WiFi and/or Bluetooth chipsets aren't "out of the box" supported by a given distro's installer.
You then either have to hope that there are some additional packages somewhere that you can install, either not being part of the minimal base OS install or provided as extras by a helpful packager (if you're lucky), or you have to hunt and jump around various threads on numerous different forums before eventually finding some iffy-looking source code on an equally iffy-looking website (with instructions often not very well translated from Chinese, just to add to things) that you have to try to download, compile successfully and install (your non-techie friend has long since given up by this point), or if you're very very unlucky you get to the "Nobody has worked out how to make this weird-but-it-saved-the-huge-global-manufacturer-$2.53-on-build-costs chipset work yet" situation, and then you're really stuck (although maybe someone will have cracked how to do it in 6 - 12 months' time?).
Apple do make very nice hardware, their laptop keyboards (after a certain well-known very bad period) are very nice, and their trackpads are definitely the best and smoothest that I've used. This new MacBook Neo is still somewhat more expensive than a cheapo Windows craptop, but I would say it is a much better proposition, especially if someone is able to stretch their budget that bit further, and I'm sure they will be quite attractive to some who were otherwise thinking of buying a Windows or Linux laptop. I don't know how the Asahi Linux project is getting on these days, but these could maybe also make a rather nice Linux laptop too one of these days?
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Friday 6th March 2026 02:56 GMT Eric 9001
Re: hmmmmm ... yeah
If the laptop is static, you just use wired networking (you'll need a usb NIC if the laptop is defective and lacks a 8P8C port).
You really shouldn't waste your time with out of tree Linux drivers that are not in source form - the correct solution to garbage Wi-Fi and Bluetooth cards is to either replace them internally, or externally with a USB one.
ath9k mPCIe and M.2 cards work great - I've never had a problem with a mPCIe ath9k card.
AR9271 USB cards are plug and work.
Bluetooth as a technology never works correctly, but there are decent USB cards available that are plug and mostly work.
A decent Wi-Fi card may cost a whole 4£ (if you haven't already been given one), but such trivial amount is certainly better than .
Apple is well known for making seriously defective hardware - but they make sure to make the outside "shiny", so those who don't know better assume that the hardware must be quality.
No matter how smooth it is, a trackpad will always be inferior to a mouse.
The board designs are intentionally defective, with problems like insufficient cooling, under-spec components, a 60V power pin next to a 1.2V CPU pin on a very fine connector and more (Louis Rossmann has found many such defects when carrying out repairs), for the purpose of ensuring that "it just fails" a while after the warranty period, or a few years later, so it's time to buy a new one (software obsolescence sets in long before that, but apple of course ensures that the old version cannot be run forever - as that can't be done if the hardware stops working).
Apple has even approached the gloating stage and has made a bad joke of a laptop - it's even available in "piss-yellow" - but apple knows that the iSheep will pay up just as feverishly.
The amount of proprietary software such laptops run, means that it is clear that apple laptops will never run GNU/Linux properly.
It appears Apple could in the future decide to command remotely that the laptops only run macos, so clearly it's a terrible idea to use an apple laptop to run GNU.
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Friday 6th March 2026 11:35 GMT Dave559
Re: hmmmmm ... yeah
@Eric 9001, you make some valid points, but, realistically, relatively few people have the skills, inclination or time to open up their laptop to replace the WiFi or Bluetooth cards, and sticking dongles into USB ports is a bit of a bodge, really. I agree that things would be so much better all round if all manufacturers always used good quality chipsets well-supported in Linux/BSDs/etc, of course. We can but hope.
When you are using a laptop away from a desk or table (with it often literally perched on your lap), which is the main reason for having a laptop in the first place, a good trackpad is definitely of prime importance, and a mouse isn't really an option in those situations, so that's not really all that relevant. We have to deal with the scenarios that we find ourselves working in, and hardware that actually does work well in those 'restrictive' scenarios is therefore infinitely better than "But if only I were actually at my desk with my multi-monitor setup, sitting in my comfortable chair…" - well, we're not.
As one of the biggest laptop brands in the world, Apple is perhaps scrutinised more than any other by the iFixit people and the like, and, yes, design flaws are highlighted and pointed out. Hopefully this does lead to a process of improvement in later models (and likewise for other brands).
While Apple doesn't make it easy to run other OSes on their hardware, I'd imagine that there would be legal actions were they to attempt to become too hostile to doing so. There is growing emphasis on "right-to-repair" laws and the usual lobby groups are (rightly) becoming equally emphatic about the growing problem of e-waste caused by manufacturers ending software support for devices and how people should have the right to install a different OS and software to extend the device lifespan.
It's a perfectly reasonable perspective to decide that Apple laptops are not for you, but while you are clearly sneering at those who might consider the MacBook Neo to be suitable for them, I suspect we will all find that there might be rather more people who will find this a reasonable choice for their needs than to buy a £300 generic-PC laptop and then have to, in effect, spend another £200 of their time researching and swapping out WiFi cards to get it to work as expected under Linux (and of course there are dedicated "built-for-Linux" laptop manufacturers, but these sadly tend to be rather more expensive). We all make our own choices and we spend our money accordingly.
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Wednesday 11th March 2026 13:18 GMT Code For Broke
Re: hmmmmm ... yeah
We might consider replacing the entire comment section on El Reg with dave's wise words, "We all make our own choices and we spend our money accordingly."
I understand, though, that for some, $600 is just a inconsequential sum of money. For others, regardless of their means, it is 60,000 pennies, or X hours of toil, or X/1 in a value analysis when comparing to an almost infinite array of similar options.
Those who like to divide the infinitesimal are more drawn to these forums. There is, if not joy, at least a sense of meaning and purpose in measuring the value and counting the raindrops.
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Friday 6th March 2026 03:27 GMT Eric 9001
Re: hmmmmm ... yeah
Misleading the simple towards the abuse and shackles of apple is immoral and seriously wrong - please stop doing that.
"Walled garden" isn't very accurate - it's as a shiny prison, with shiny shackles ("the shackles are only 170 grams!").
It's a proprietary world - Linux is proprietary software after all - I'll keep GNU instead.
Proprietary software and control and abuse is not a life where things ever actually work - it's just that you are only permitted to do limited operations and some effort is put into making most of the limited operations work and unsurprisingly if you only carry out the operations that the developer can think of, in the way they dictate, such operations almost always work.
When it comes to a computer just working, I have only had that experience with free software, without any proprietary software.
There may be bugs (common when you are pushing computing to the limit), but you just workaround it, or you fix the bug.
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Sunday 8th March 2026 09:02 GMT Eric 9001
Re: hmmmmm ... yeah
It's odd that you would suggest I run proprietary software.
To punish you, I'll point out the (intentional) errors in the video (downloaded without running the proprietary software with yt-dlp of course).
- You can run GNU/Linux without any partition table.
- Ubuntu is proprietary software.
- It's pronounced GNU slash Linux or GNU plus Linux or GNU with Linux or whatever - "GNU Linux" would be GNU Linux-libre.
- If you want communism, proprietary software is what you want, not free software (at least the hammer and sickle in on the "Linux", which is proprietary software after all).
- "You don't make a statement by going on the street with a sign"; https://linuxreviews.org/images/b/b7/Rare_old_stallman_holding_sign.jpg
- While some bash scripts are useless, those don't tend to get distributed - the scripts that get distributed tend to work.
> Lists the 4 cancerous games which GNU/Linux doesn't run (a feature, not a bug).
- Bluray is well supported with the free software libbluray+libbdplus+libaacs and the necessary keys.
- Linux only has 1 sound system - ALSA, although there is OSS emulation - pulseaudio, jack and pipewire are added bloat.
- systemd is free software (but I still don't run it).
- The only values Linux has is convenience.
- Depending on the install, it only takes a few hours to install Gentoo-libre.
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Thursday 5th March 2026 16:25 GMT JLV
If Linux GUIs, desktops and configuration were as polished as Linux’s raw OS and terminal experience, yes.
But most Linux desktops and apps compete more on fancy features and gee-whiz graphics than raw, rock-stable, basic user friendliness. GParted (on Ubuntu Cinnamon 24.04), for example, truncates partition labelling info because it doesn’t fit. WTF? Makes you feel warm and fuzzy when responding OK to “Are you sure? formatting deletes all data”.
Changes version to version are frequent and target power users. Change distro? Relearn, grasshopper.
Meanwhile, macos’s configs and settings barely look any different release to release. And the machine will work straight out of the box. Backups? Time Machine is close to idiot-proof both backing up and restoring.
Day-to-day use in browser and email is much more comparable, however.
This looks good for grandma and students and generally dont-care-about-tech people, doubly so for those without a Linux-savvy relative.
p.s. nothing forbids Linux from improving this. And maybe some distros do manage this. Omarchy, albeit for the opposite use case, seems to aim for that. I don’t agree with its choices, but I respect the goal. A lot.
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Friday 6th March 2026 03:11 GMT Eric 9001
Linux has no GUI or terminal.
The terminal experience is GNU - as it's GNU Bash in a terminal emulator.
GNU parted directly shouldn't truncate labeling, but graphical parted is fine too and haven't had any problems with it (it's not that hard to double check that you have the right partition even with a truncated label).
Some GNU/Linux distros may change the DE frequently, but you can just use a sane distro and if for some reason you want to install another distro, you just install the DE that you prefer and then you don't need to re-learn anything.
macos and works are words that don't really belong together - I've made the mistake of trying to get sshfs working on some macos computer and the button to disable the installation restrictions did not work (clearly intentional, as there was of course a workaround documented online to click it with accessibility tools, but of course that didn't work either).
Backing up a /home partition really isn't that hard - an automatic script can do it.
Trisquel GNU/Linux-libre on decent hardware works fine for Grandma, as it just works without any maintenance required - Grandma just clicks yes to the updates, or just doesn't update.
Trisquel not containing any sabotage functionality makes it a lot more reliable than macos.
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Wednesday 4th March 2026 20:49 GMT Alex 72
8GB is double what you need to run macOS if you turn off apple intelligence, I wouldn’t run logic pro or Shake or Maya, pro tools... but audacity /garage band/even reaper, iMovie, shotcut, and possibly davinci resolve(slowly) would all work, I'm not saying I'd choose this spec for them but if it's all you can afford and you get a year of support to make it work that's actually not that bad. Also the average user at this price point will use safari or install chrome or Firefox, The old iTunes broken into Music, TV, Podcasts... and maybe pages or numbers occasionally as well as mail. If they are a non media/it student or this is a personal device that's it if they work remotely they might use citrix workspace or the azure rdp thing or VMware horizon or some browser based client to hook into a desktop as a a service from work, even if they are a linux server admin or cloud admin who gets VPN creds they will use browser GUIs VS Code and terminal. It will not be the most fun mac or even as smooth as a $2000 windows 11 box but it's $600 and it will likely just work. I am not saying I would get this a PC that doesn’t hit the windows 11 spec from eBay or back market with twice the ram for half the money and debian/ubuntu/freebsd or Fedora or Arch if you want it to be a 2nd job would do me fine if i was on a budget but if you want a years support you can extend if you need it and apple logo and to be on one of the 2 commercial platforms nearly everything supports this'll do. And with 8GB RAM rather than 4 you can even turn on apple intelligence I wouldn't but again I am not the target for this thing.
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Thursday 5th March 2026 14:47 GMT Anonymous Coward
You've used it for 5 minutes, or for weeks? You got it new, or were trying someone else's? And slow compared to what? Everyone is entitled to their prefernces, of course, but I just find the comments about RAM and speed disingenuous. When the M1 Air first appeared it was a gigantic leap in performance and battery life. I've been in IT nearly 30 years, and have had to use all kinds of end user devices during the course of my career, so I've had plenty of Window laptops, and have a "game PC" (somewhat aging now) at home, too. But I prefer Macs when I get the choice and own several. They are expensive, but the hardware is very good. I was using a 2017 MBP 13" (Intel) when the I got the M1 in 2020. It totally blew the much more expensive MBP out of the water, and ran most x86 programs faster under emulation than the MBP did natively. It had only 8GB of RAM. It was the cheapest M1 that Apple produced (just under a grand), and has lastet me these last 5 years, and is still perfectly servicable (and better than the Lenovo Win 11 laptop I had to use at one place a year ago). So what are you comparing it to?
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Thursday 5th March 2026 19:12 GMT Loudon D'Arcy
The M1 is no slouch
The Mac mini I owned in 2018 was an Intel Core2Duo model with 6GBytes of memory, which I used to develop Rails apps. (It wasn't super-fast, but it simultaneously ran a web server on a Linux virtual machine, a text editor and a copy of Chrome. There wasn't much of the 6 gigs left after that.)
The Mini which replaced that was a 2012 model with the quad-core i7 processor and 16GB which worked well for pretty much anything I threw at it—although it would get very hot when playing YouTube videos full-screen. (I'll mention here that its multicore geekbench score was 2150)
Now I have an M1 mini with 16GB.... multicore geekbench score is 8441.... so approximately four times faster than the 2012 model. As FIA says, it's no slouch.
Interestingly, the A18 Pro chip in this new MacBook Neo has a multicore geekbench score of 8550, which makes it about as fast as an M1 mini.
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Wednesday 4th March 2026 21:58 GMT mickaroo
Never look a gift-horse in the mouth
My wife has a really old Intel MacBook... 8GB RAM and 256GB SSD.
The battery is shot ($500 to replace?)
The power supply died (using an old Dell USB-C brick now)
It only has one USB-C port (not two)
So for those budget-minded among us, this may be an interesting option.
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Wednesday 4th March 2026 22:31 GMT Loudon D'Arcy
Re: Never look a gift-horse in the mouth
@Mickaroo: Third-party replacement MacBook batteries can be bought on eBay for £60 or £70. And the older your wife's MacBook is, the easier it is to replace...
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Thursday 12th March 2026 17:41 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Never look a gift-horse in the mouth
The description of having only one USB-C port would suggest that it's the 12" model from 2015/16/17, The batteries in those are an absolute bastard to replace as they are heavily glued to the bottom of the case. Seem to recall that after battery replacement some process involving initially connecting with a maximum 5v power adapter is needed, otherwise the board gets fried.
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Thursday 5th March 2026 18:21 GMT Charlie Clark
Re: Never look a gift-horse in the mouth
It's not like for like. I've got a selection of older Macs: MBP 2010, MBP 2016, MBP 2021 all Intel, and an Air 2024 on ARM.
The performance of the Intel machines did improve over time but not really that much, especially single-process work. As hardware ages you have to expect more components like capacitors to fail that can be difficult to replace. The newer ARM SoCs are noticeably better, especially on battery. But there are also plenty older ARM Macs available second-hand.
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Wednesday 4th March 2026 22:28 GMT DS999
8GB is fine
For the market it is targeting - students, and casual users who basically use their PCs only for browsing and email.
I think Apple felt it was more important to hit the $599 price point than to satisfy everyone's complaints about the amount of RAM, lack of P3/TruTone, missing fingerprint reader, and so forth.
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Saturday 7th March 2026 04:44 GMT Tim99
I'm in my mid 70's. A 13" MacBook is now too small for writing/debugging and large spreadsheets. As well as a couple of Raspberry Pis, I spend most time on an M3 iMac (replaced on old Intel). The screen is good. If I need portability my 13" M5 iPad is excellent (8th generation -12GB RAM) but pricey - it replaced a 4th Generation 13" Pro with 6GB of RAM which was OK - If I really need to see small stuff, double-tap zoom is convenient. I'm sure that for a large number of users the Neo, even with 8 GB is fine. I might recommend the 512SSD though, particularly as it has TouchID (same as on my iMac).
As an aside, elderly (like me) people's fingerprints change, the ridge patterns fade and "wrinkles" increase - If you were a criminal when younger and have fingerprints on file you might now be OK :-)
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Thursday 5th March 2026 17:47 GMT Anonymous Coward
MacOS is a heck of a lot more frugal with memory than Windows, and even if it runs out it's also a bit more intelligent with swapping.
The only way you can be more frugal with RAM is using Linux which you can pare down to rediculous numbers if you don't care too much about UI decorations. Which makes me wonder if this thing could be convinced to run Linux too. Hmm :).
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Saturday 7th March 2026 12:53 GMT Tim99
Re: Swap
When I was travelling, and not expecting to need a proper computer, I sometimes took a lightweight HDMI cable and Apple adapter, small travelling Bluetooth keyboard and mouse. This allowed me to use my iPhone as a make-do computer that I could connect to a hotel TV. Not ideal for serious work, but good enough for writing a document, emails, and web browsing.
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Thursday 5th March 2026 08:09 GMT Eric 9001
Re: Swap
4Gbit is indeed quite a lot of memory - 476.83716MiB or 500 million bytes - if a program isn't doing some serious number crunching on huge sets of data, such wastage is a concern.
But, the proprietary software developers cannot help but to make the programs need more than 8GiB (~8.5 BILLION bytes) of memory to run slower than ever before.
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Thursday 5th March 2026 18:27 GMT Charlie Clark
Re: Swap
Depends what you're doing but MacOS has had compressed memory for over a decade. Most applications will run fine, but you might not want too many browser tabs open at once and MS Teams is definite no.
The hidden penalty is that the 8GB is shared memory – shared between CPU and GPU. Those of us who remember when PCs came with this will know that this can be fun if the CPU and GPU are competing for RAM. But there's a big difference between systems with only 16MB of RAM to share and those with 8 GB!
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Wednesday 4th March 2026 22:38 GMT Loudon D'Arcy
Re: Down with the cool kids
If you don't mind refurbished, MacBook Airs starting at £365 and MacBook Pros starting at £425...
https://www.hoxtonmacs.co.uk/collections/refurbished-macbook-air
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Thursday 5th March 2026 20:14 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Down with the cool kids
My son's laptop was my old one, which I bought in 2019 - the last i9 Mac with the function key strip.
He used it all the way through University, and I received it back when I gave him an M4 Air as a present. I sold it the i9 to someone a month ago, still looking pristine.
Why? It had a screen protector and a decent shell, so all I needed to do was wipe the keyboard, peel off the screen protector and bin the shell. Also still worked beautifully (and could update to Tahoe - the buyer wanted it - I would have advised against it).
In my experience you should avoid any screen coatings. If those scratch you can't fix it. A matte screen protector on a glossy screen is much better - if that scratches you just replace it, done.
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Thursday 5th March 2026 12:26 GMT marky_boi
Re: Down with the cool kids
Are still living in Mom's basement. Do you wash. I'm sure you have a GNU friendly laptop with that weirdo bios ? no, well you may be a bit of a two faced supercilious wanker. People are free to choose what suits them... I've used many OS over the years, Linux, BSD, UNIX Apple, windows and HP-UX.... you use the OS that suits you... I've ditched Linux mainly becuase I am fuc&*^ing tired of fiddling around to keep it working.... Happy to pay Apple to make it work, Smart enough to not be fully hemmed into the walled garden..... and I can go on and do other things that bring me pleasure away from PCs... restoring the Triumph TR5 comes to mind
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Thursday 5th March 2026 20:25 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Down with the cool kids
I saltue you - I haven't seen HP-UX mentioned in quite a while :).
Last time I used that was on a 10 month project in Singapore. Was OK for me, not so much for one of th eteam who didn't like Asian food. On the plus side, he lost quite a bit of weight :) :).
As for your motives to switch to Apple, exactly the same here. Stable platform, yet still able to hook up to Linux and use a lot of the very useful tools of that platform. And yes, also have a Linux box around as a server as that isn't something for MacOS - the joy of Open Standards (which Macs support out of the box) is that you can use what is best for the use case.
Interesting is that I have never felt any need to switch back to Windows. I use it at work where it has utility, but even there I now also have a Mac which, to be honest, I much prefer because I can actually get things done - in terms of faffing around and wasting my time, Windows is a lot worse than a Linux desktop, and the latter is at least stable once you have it configured..
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Friday 6th March 2026 03:33 GMT Eric 9001
Re: Down with the cool kids
I could do with a basement.
I do wash.
Yes, I do have GNUbooted ThinkPads.
There is freedom of choice, like the freedom of shooting your feet, but it's seem that I am not free to point out that shooting your feet is uncool?
Once you get GNU/Linux-libre working, it continues to work forever without fiddling.
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Sunday 8th March 2026 02:01 GMT Tim99
Re: Down with the cool kids
"GNU/Linux-libre working, it continues to work forever without fiddling" - Including Kernel updates? Don't know - just asking...
I'm retired. Started with DEC/DG minis; various proprietary "NIXs, and BSD, then PCs, but turned my last version of Windows off 26 months ago. These days to get stuff done, an iMac and iPad. For fun and some pro bono work, a few Raspberry Pis - surprisingly capable and burning a new image and running a couple of install scripts is easy.
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Sunday 8th March 2026 09:16 GMT Eric 9001
Re: Down with the cool kids
Every time you update software, something will break - but if you don't update, it'll continue to work forever without fiddling (fine for something not reachable over the internet).
Once I get a working GNU Linux-libre .config, it continues to work with later versions without any modifications other than `olddefconfig` and maybe reverting malicious changes (for example, olddefconfig once went and disobeyed me and enabled CPU slowdown, when the option was explicitly set to =n previously) - I only ever modify it further if certain functionality needs another kernel module enabled.
The rest of the GNU packages tend to be far better at making things not break on update.
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Wednesday 4th March 2026 20:51 GMT Headley_Grange
I use an iPad when I'm travelling. The battery is just about shot and I've been looking at buying a new one. I'm off to the Apple shop this weekend to have a look at the Neo as a potential replacement instead. It's chunkier, obviously, but it's a proper PC, with a proper keyboard and it will be mostly used for browsing - and it's about the same price. If it came with a SIM it could be perfect as a travel PC.
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Wednesday 4th March 2026 21:22 GMT Headley_Grange
I looked at an iPad with the Folio Keyboard last week (I'm deep in the Apple garden, no escape for me yet). It was OK-ish, but not sure about using it on my lap and the keyboard is £250. So the cheapest iPad (128GB, no SIM) + keyboard is £578. For another £20 the base Neo starts to look good. I need to see it in the flesh, but I don't think I'll buy one soon. I prefer to be a late adopter to make sure that Apple haven't cut too many corners on build quality, particularly the keyboard. Lack of magsafe puts me off a bit too - but now I'm comparing it to a Mac instead of an iPad.
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Thursday 5th March 2026 12:33 GMT I ain't Spartacus
Headley_Grange,
I've got the iPad Air 13" with a rather nice Logitech keyboard thingy (about £120). I really like the Apple keyboard's, but I wasn't willing to give them £250 for a keyboard and a stick. However nicely engineered. My Mum's got the smaller iPad Pro and their stand though.
I have used it on my lap, and it does work. And because the stand is quite small, it makes it nicer to use than some laptops. However, it doesn't feel all that secure, because it's top heavy. Also, because the keyboard is heavier, it's also not the most comfortable or portable of iPads when used as a case.
It's a compromise, but quite a decent one. Mum uses one of those lap trays with a bean bag underneath, that I bought her. I don't, and am comfortable using it on my lap on an armchair, for short periods (and being careful), but wouldn't feel safe trying to use it on my lap on a train.
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Sunday 8th March 2026 02:10 GMT Tim99
As an iPad Pro user (an iMac and Raspberry Pis as well). I have found the expensive Apple Magic Keyboard was a good buy for me. It sits on my desk, and is also convenient for heavier work when travelling. Away from the desk, I just lift it from the keyboard and use it on my lap; and often for travelling don't need the keyboard - just slip it into my (protected) backpack.
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Thursday 5th March 2026 03:35 GMT doublelayer
Re: Why would it need a SIM?
I've seen many which put limits on the tethering, which can be an important factor. The cheap plans I use don't tend to limit tethering, but they also don't come with lots of data. When tethered, I'm using things that tend to consume more, so those cheap and unrestricted plans will run out quickly, and one downside they tend to have is that data above the cap is more expensive. For example, the plan I currently use reduces the speed to 64 Kbps when the data cap runs out, but even if I wanted to continue tethering and use that speed, it also blocks me and only lets phone-native traffic use that slower option. Then again, if you had a plan like that, having the laptop connect directly probably wouldn't be any better and a better though more expensive plan would probably be the best solution.
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Thursday 5th March 2026 19:37 GMT DS999
Re: Why would it need a SIM?
Well you're swimming against the tide wanting cellular built in to a laptop. Now that Apple has their own modem they could have easily added optional cellular to Macs, maybe not one selling for $599 but they don't offer it even for the highest end Macbook Pro. The people who want this are going to have it add it via either USB key or hotspot.
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Wednesday 4th March 2026 21:40 GMT blu3b3rry
Not a fan of MacOS...
....but if I still used Apple kit I could definitely see the appeal of a lightweight fanless laptop. If I was shopping for a new device $599 doesn't look too bad when compared to a premium-priced Chromebook, without all the tied-to-google cloudy stuff.
Curious to see what repairability score it gets on iFixit, though!
Not sure how heavy Apple's latest OS release is but if it's footprint is similar to Ubuntu GNOME then 8GB ram is likely enough for the average user. This thing is effectively a 13" iPad with a keyboard and hinge glued to it to make it into a laptop. Personally I prefer that form factor over a tablet and still miss Netbooks.
Apart from a totally dead battery and being rather crap with modern bloated websites my 10" Samsung NC10 can still be a very useful lightweight travel machine for stuff like document writing. I power it off a USB-C powerbank via an adapter, and at 18 years old it's hardly worth nicking.
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Thursday 5th March 2026 00:02 GMT saltycupcakes
Is it 2012 again?
16 GB has been the minimum for at least the last 5 years, go on Amazon and type in laptop and most things costing more than £300 have at least 16 GB, hell most phones these days have more than 8 GB.
I really like my little m4 mac mini but even it struggles with only 16 GB, if I have more than about 30 tabs open for too long it can cause the entire system to lock up if I dont close the tabs quickly enough when I notice it stuttering.
8 GB is pretty much ewaste unless you only use it like a phone/ipad with one tab/window open at a time, but that kind of defeats the purpose of using a computer over a phone/ipad. Its even worse if you consider how much swapping its going to be doing to a very small SSD with a limited endurance and that software is only going to get more demanding, especially with all the vibecoded slop. Its a real shame they aren't offering a 16 GB variant, they did that with the 11" macbook.
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Thursday 5th March 2026 00:59 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Is it 2012 again?
What browser are you using? I’m still using an M1 8GB from 2020 for everything, and, being lazy, easily have 70-80 tabs open over several windows (FF), as well as VSC, Zed, Signal, Messages, Music, Mail, etc, etc, with no issues, and no reboots outside of updates. 8GB really is fine outside of large VMs or compiling.
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Thursday 5th March 2026 03:29 GMT doublelayer
Re: Is it 2012 again?
Let's be honest here. Phones with more than 8 GB of RAM exist, but they're far from normal. Plenty of people use low-end phones with 4 GB and they are fine. You need to get to flagship and recent flagship level at that to exceed it. The Google Pixel had at most 8 GB until the Pixel 9 last year. The iPhone didn't get 8 GB until the 15 Pro and the non-Pro 17s still have 8 GB. Most phones do not have more, in fact most phones in current use have less. Laptops are more variable, but there are also a lot of 8 GB laptops around there, both ones you can purchase and ones that are still in use because they're just fine.
I'd want more as well, but you underestimate how mostly fine 8 GB is for a lot of tasks. Browsers will use lots of RAM, but they can also detect when it's low and reduce their usage acceptably, though some browsers do a better job than others. Based on your reference to 2012, I'm guessing you tend to need more RAM than the average, and so do I, but it isn't what everyone needs.
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Thursday 5th March 2026 09:28 GMT Chz
Re: Is it 2012 again?
I suppose the question here is if Apple have done something to fix the issues with the original 8GB M1 Airs swapping all the time (which wasn't terribly noticeable with a fast SSD) and absolutely hammering the lifespan of the disk. There are quite a lot of 8GB M1s out there with failed disks. The calculus is that so long as you're a light user, you're not going to make the disk fail before the rest of the laptop is junk. But heavy users saw how responsive the 8GB units could be and tried to get away with saving a bit of cash. That tended to end poorly.
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Saturday 7th March 2026 20:23 GMT gnasher729
Re: Is it 2012 again?
"I suppose the question here is if Apple have done something to fix the issues with the original 8GB M1 Airs swapping all the time (which wasn't terribly noticeable with a fast SSD) and absolutely hammering the lifespan of the disk. "
I think they just waited a few months. Seems like a common scenario that Apple has a new product, "influencers" find totally unacceptable faults, and little bit later, without any changes, the problems just disappear because they don't attract page views anymore.
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Thursday 5th March 2026 04:50 GMT IvyKing
You can do other things with the port that's used for charging
I had a 2017 model MacBook Pro that just had 2 USB-C ports, though both were USB 3.0. One of the dongles purchased for that MBP was a multi port AV adapter that had an HDMI socket, a USB-A port and a USB-C port for the power cable. Seems to me that this should work just fine with the Neo. The 2017 MBP was replaced with an M3 MBP that came with Magsafe, 3 USB-C/Thunderbolt ports, an HDMI socket and an SD card reader meaning the only dongles needed were USB-A to USB-C and an Ethernet adapter.
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Thursday 5th March 2026 08:03 GMT b1k3rdude
Ah another pro-apple fluff piece...
This POS only has 8GB of ram and a 256gb SSD, this was never enough on the original macbook air in 2008, so Why the fck do Apple its fcking acceptable now...???!!! And there is no 16GB version, but as fcking usual they want silly money for the bigger SSD, another £100 for 512Gb version.
So doing a 30 second look on dell.com/uk/ they have a budget inspire with 16GB/512GB for £549 - https://www.dell.com/en-uk/shop/laptops-2-in-1-pcs/dell-14-laptop/spd/dell-dc14250-laptop/bndc1425009sb
So no Apple, as a consumer and enterprise user, hard fcking pass.
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Thursday 5th March 2026 09:16 GMT werdsmith
Thanks but a budget Dell Inspire is not a great choice for me and will not do any basic user stuff better.
I went to the supermarket the other day and some nasal voiced creepy twat sneered because I bought some nice tomatoes. Apparently there were some ethylene processed tasteless one available for 30% less.
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Thursday 5th March 2026 09:19 GMT Mishak
My Dad has an Air that he uses for a few spreadsheets, some basic documents and online banking (though he uses his phone for most of that these days). He'll never get anywhere near using 256GB.
He switched to Apple because he was totally frustrated by the endless issues he had with Windows, compounded by the fact that he has no technical skills (though he does have me as "IT support"!).
The Neo would have been ideal for him, and it's about half the price. My daughter is considering getting one for her A-levels and uni, as it would be an ideal device to have for taking notes and writing up "stuff".
Not everyone is a developer or power user, and many will find the Neo more than good enough for what they need.
Not for me though as I am a power-user, so I'll be looking to get an Air or Pro to replace my 2018 Pro (which said daughter also has her eyes on).
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Thursday 5th March 2026 14:31 GMT keithpeter
I imagine the family members you describe are exactly the market segment this laptop was aimed at. Offspring will qualify for the student price of course. I think that they will sell very well (I've just spent the morning fighting a classroom full of Windows 11 desktop PCs so students can actually log into a Web site and interact with it).
The A18 and its locked bootloader means no Linux after-life once MacOS support ends. It will be interesting to see how system updates go on these low end machines, perhaps MacOS will get snappier with a large installed base of basic devices like this?
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Thursday 5th March 2026 09:40 GMT doublelayer
If this is the first time you're learning that Apple machines are always more expensive than comparable machines, at least if you shop around a little bit, then welcome to the world, new child. Perhaps it's worth it for something Mac OS does better. Perhaps someone is willing to pay for the pretty Apple logo. Or perhaps it's "idiot tax" as El Reg coined. What it shouldn't be is at all surprising.
By the way, the original MacBook Air in 2008 had a 64 GB SSD or 80 GB spinning rust and 2 GB of RAM. That was not enough for many people then, and this won't be enough for many people now, but why pretend that they were the same specs? It does not help make points when it's so easy to point out that you were either unaware of the points you were relying on or you were lying.
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Thursday 5th March 2026 08:53 GMT Bebu sa Ware
AUD897.00 for an Apple logo ;)
I recall back in PowerPC days grabbing a silver Apple logo stick·on that came with a user's high end titanium macbookie thingy - the knee cooker model (from memory. )
Just for he hell of it, I stuck the logo on to the lid of a Toshiba laptop that was born crappy and went on to be unusable. Possibly a little morphic resonance between that Toshiba craptop and Apple's Neo - branding is a powerful and insidious force… for enshittification.
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Thursday 5th March 2026 10:33 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: AUD897.00 for an Apple logo ;)
Yeah, at least with Frank's RedHot (original) 'I put that s*** on everything!' the performance of my meal right takes off like a rocket, instantly! ... nothing such with those fruity stickers ... ;(
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Thursday 5th March 2026 09:01 GMT Anonymous Coward
Not daft
They could sell a lot of these in schools who are buying a lot of Chromebooks and ipads.
We're not the market here, it's not for power users it's for people who want a basic laptop /tablet with keyboard and are already in the Apple ecosystem.
I run Linux where I can but the rest of the family are on Apple, my daughter will need a device soon and this would be ideal.
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Thursday 5th March 2026 11:12 GMT Anonymous Coward
Goodbye Windows
This is perfect timing for the many people not wanting to downgrade to Windows 11 from 10 and otherwise being forced to buy a new Windows 11 laptop, or else figure out which of the hundreds of Linus distros and GUIs they might use, especially if they already own an iPhone which some 30-50% Yanks and Britons do.
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Thursday 5th March 2026 13:07 GMT Anonymous Coward
Apparently the average age of a Technology business employee is 40.
I would suggest that 40 is far too old to be using the parlance of todays youth (and listening to BBC Radio 1).
Dear El Reg, please consider the increasing decrepitude of your reader base and avoid using 'street speak'. It makes us sad. Literally and figuratively.
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Thursday 5th March 2026 20:02 GMT Michael Strorm
In mitigation of my linguistic clunkiness- is "clichedom" even a real word?!- I did throw that one together somewhat quickly during a spare couple of minutes on my phone while I was trying to put into words quite *why* I disliked "rocks"/"rocking" (in that particular sense) so much...!
Let me put it another way- "rocking an [X]"- is the sort of overused, pseudo-casual language that now borders on having a "generative AI" vibe. Not least because I've actually seen one use it in *exactly* the way you'd expect. However, even *that* is probably a function of how it's been overused in actual, human-generated writing in recent years.
It's a PR man's "safe" choice of a slightly-too-calculated yet slightly-too-obvious attempt at sounding casual.
Am I getting to the nub of it yet? I really don't know.
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