Forget the iPhone Duo – the MacBook Neo is set to be Apple’s biggest win of the year

I did the smart thing and picked up my MacBook Neo within days of its release.

As it turned out, that was a good move, because the MacBook Neo became an immediate success, and for weeks it was virtually impossible to find one anywhere.

Sure, the Neo launched just as the storage shortage was starting to bite hard, but the MacBook Neo still caught the imagination. For a time back in the Spring, the Neo had a real buzz.

Desirability

I remember being in town for a phone launch and pulling out the Neo while stopping off for lunch. The waiter, a drama student, was beside himself to see the Neo; he’d heard all about it but couldn’t lay hands on one! He just wanted to hold it and feel it.

For a time, the Neo had that kind of cult status!

To make the purchase a bit easier, I decided to trade in my M3 MacBook Air. The Air was supposed to be my travel Mac, but I’d started to lean into the iPad Pro by that time instead, so the MacBook Air had become redundant.

I know that the MacBook Air was a better-spec’d and more competent machine, but if for whatever reason I wasn’t using it, then the specs mattered little.

The MacBook Neo, on the other hand, does travel with me – a lot! You only need to see the dings and scratches that it’s accumulated over the months to see that this Mac has seen some action.

I’m the kind of guy that likes everything pristine and perfect, but for some reason I don’t mind the state of my Neo – it seems to have added even more character to it.

Another odd fact is that even though it weighs the same as the Air, it feels lighter & way more portable. If you go into a store and pick them both up, you’ll see what I mean.

The thing with the Neo is that it has the X-factor that I just mentioned. How or why, I have no idea, but it oozes character. It’s the kind of Mac that you want to pick up and use. It’s hard to explain, but this Mac has bags of personality!

Similar to when the iMac first came along and became a Mac within reach of everyone, the Neo has done the same. It’s still relatively affordable, which means that professionals and students alike can lay their hands on it. There’s no barrier to entry for owning a new Mac. You can now grab yourself a brand new Mac for £700 – and it’s no plaything either!

If the MacBook Neo were a car, I swear it would be a VW Beetle!

When you add in the affordability, performance, and desirability together, it makes it easy to understand why the MacBook Neo was such a success.

The MacBook Neo’s masterstroke

When the Neo was first launched, we were all surprised by the fact that it was running the A18 Pro chip.

That blindsided everybody. I was at CES only a few weeks before the Neo came out, among the great and the good of the tech world, yet no one had any clue this was coming.

Under Cook’s leadership, Apple became experts at repurposing inventory and drawing every possible drop of profit from whatever was left in the parts bin. Such is the power of the A18 Pro chip that even though the Neo began its life by using a binned version of it, it’s still more than powerful enough.

Apple aren’t fools, and the moment they sniffed that the MacBook Neo was starting to catch on so widely, they immediately ramped up production from the planned initial 5-6 million production run in its first year to 10 million units.

There was no way Apple were going to miss out on this bonanza!

The only minor hiccup along the way was that the first run of the Neo had used up all the original A18 Pro chips.

The devil is in the detail here, though. That first batch of chips was based on the 3nm architecture, but TSMC has no spare 3nm capacity to allocate, as by that time AI customers were sucking up nearly all of the available output.

The new 2nm chips in the Neo are premium, almost better than new, but that comes at a price!

Coupled with that is the fact that DRAM prices have also hiked in price considerably since the first run of the MacBook Neo and its that which accounts in the most part for the £100 price increase the Neo received in June.

Apple managed to keep up with demand, but at a price.

There were rumblings just before the summer price hikes that Apple may drop the 256GB model to ease supply and demand issues, but luckily those rumours never materialised.

Still in demand

I’ve just looked at Apple’s website, and even now, over six months after its release, there is still a three-week lead time on the MacBook Neo. When I was in New York recently, I asked the guys in Apple’s Fifth Avenue store about the Neo, and they told me that it’s still by far their most popular Mac.

I’m sure Apple had to pinch itself over the success of the Neo. I bet they’d originally simply seen it as an entry-level Mac. They were just ticking a box and using up inventory. And yet…

It just goes to prove that innovation at a good price point is still a winning formula. All the power and grunt of the high-end MacBook Pros are all well and good, but the Neo is the Mac for everyone.

And that’s important to Apple, as they know once they have their claws into you, you’re more than likely to buy into the entire ecosystem and remain loyal to Apple. The Neo is almost a gateway Mac!

Apple got the Neo right on every level. It’s pretty, affordable, practical, and it has that X factor that I mentioned. I’m sure it will end up going down as one of the defining Macs of this decade.

Not a bad way for Cook to sign off, huh?

The travel-friendly Mac

When I travelled recently, it was the MacBook Neo that came with me.

I love my iPad Pro, but there are still times that I rely on macOS. Having the Neo with me was a one-stop solution, and it meant I could do everything that I needed, including basic video editing on one machine.

It was a little gem!

Initially, I had concerns about the battery on the Neo, but that is no longer an issue. After one or two charge cycles, it began to behave more as I’d have expected.

One point no one mentions is the standby battery life of the Neo. Trust me, that’s just as impressive as the on-time battery life. It’s little details like that which you only come across through using this Mac.

These days, assuming I’m just doing general work on it, the kind of work that the Neo was designed for, it’ll easily last me a day in town.

I’ve recently installed Golden Gate on the MacBook Neo, but it’s too early to tell yet if that is going to make any difference to its battery performance. Speaking of Golden Gate – what are your thoughts on it? I haven’t really come across any standout new features, but I’d love to hear if I’ve missed something!

Winning

These days I’m back to a MacBook workflow.

I’ve just switched back to using my M1 Max MacBook Pro as my main machine, and the MacBook Neo is my travel Mac. It’s a winning formula. My M4 Pro Mac mini is still here in the studio, but it’s the two MacBooks that see the brunt of the work.

For my workflow, on day trips, the only extra bit of kit I need to pack is an SD card reader. With that in my bag along with the MacBook Neo, I have a complete workstation with me.

The speakers are decent enough that, when I was away, they didn’t offend and were beefy enough to fill my hotel room; the keyboard and trackpad feel fine to use for long stretches, and the display is a typical Apple display.

I remember I moaned a bit about the keyboard not being backlit, but you know what, on second thought, I’d rather have the extended battery power than a backlit keyboard.

I like the fact that Apple has kept things simple with the Neo. The only choices you get are between the four colours and the two storage configs. There are no 13-inch or 15-inch choices to be made and no other RAM options.

The MacBook Neo got lots right and showed that Apple can still nail it and surprise us.

I bet when we look back on the year, it will be the Neo that will have been Apple’s jewel in the crown over the iPhone Duo. I’ve recommended it to at least two people this year who were in the market for a new Mac, and they’ve both been delighted with it.

The MacBook Neo is a gem. Grab one now and thank me later.