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The MacBook Neo might just eclipse the iPhone Air as the most interesting Apple product in years. This machine offers buyers the full macOS experience, in their choice of fun new colors, for $599 ($499 for “students”). Not so long ago, Apple’s cheapest laptop, the MacBook Air—long priced at $999, but increased to $1,099 with the launch of the current M5 model—felt like a good deal. Now, you can get a machine that includes all of Apple’s latest Mac features for as little as half the price.
Of course, the Neo isn’t a MacBook Air. To get the price of a Neo down to $500 or $600, Apple had to make some concessions, like using a mechanical trackpad instead of a modern haptic one; the absence of Touch ID on the base model keyboard; older USB-C tech, including one USB-2.0 port; and no backlight on the keyboard. These are things many users won’t notice or won’t miss much in light of the price. But what’s really allowing for the lower cost of the MacBook Neo is arguably its most interesting feature: While all of Apple’s Macs now run the company’s M-series chipset, the Neo is running the A18 Pro, the chip Apple put in the iPhone 16 Pro, coupled with 8GB of RAM.
Not only is the Neo running an iPhone SoC, this one has one fewer GPU core than the A18 Pro found in the iPhone, as Apple is using the “binned” version of the chip for this laptop. When chips are manufactured, some come out better than others. The better ones are sold as higher-end chips, while others are sold as lower-performing chips, or “binned” chips. In this case, the MacBook Neo is running A18 Pros that weren’t up to the iPhone 16 Pro standard. You can see that from the Neo’s tech specs: While it has the same six-core CPU as the iPhone 16 Pro, the Neo has a five-core GPU, one fewer than the iPhone 16 Pro’s six-core GPU.
It seems safe to assume that a MacBook running a binned iPhone chip, with 8GB of RAM, no less, wouldn’t fare as well running the latest macOS as a chip designed for the operating system. But the truth is more complicated than that.
MacBook Neo keeps up with some M-series MacBooks in benchmarking
While there aren’t any full reviews of the MacBook Neo quite yet, initial benchmarks, as spotted by MacRumors, are quite promising. The Neo’s first Geekbench tests show the laptop’s A18 Pro chip scores a 3461 in single-core performance, 8668 in multi-core performance, and 31286 in Metal (GPU) performance.
Those numbers don’t mean anything unless they’re compared to other devices, of course. Let’s look at the iPhone 16 Pro first: Despite having one more GPU than the Neo, the 16 Pro has slightly lower single-core (3445) and multi-core (8624) scores. That sixth GPU core likely helps it eke out a win in the Metal test, scoring a 32575. Still, performance across the board is relatively similar between the two devices—despite running totally different operating systems.
Where things start to get really impressive, however, is when you start comparing the Neo’s “iPhone” chip to the Mac chips in other MacBooks. The M1 MacBook Air, for example, scores a 2346 in single-core, 8342 in multi-core, and 33148 in Metal. While M1 beats the Neo in Metal tests, the Neo’s A18 Pro chip wildly outperforms M1 in single-core performance, and even wins out in multi-core by a few hundred points. That means simple tasks that don’t require a lot of processing are going to run faster on the Neo than an M1 Air, as will complex tasks—though not by as much.
What do you think so far?
Even Apple’s M4 MacBook Air doesn’t totally obliterate the Neo. The M4 Air scores a 3696 in single-core, 14730 in multi-core, and 54630 in Metal. Yes, in multi-core and GPU-intensive tasks, the M4 Air smokes the Neo. But for single core tasks, it outperforms the Neo by a smaller margin than the Neo outperforms M1 in multi-core. Simple tasks will likely feel comparable between the M4 Air and the Neo.
The MacBook Neo could be a big win for Apple
Benchmarks don’t necessarily reflect real-world performance, so we won’t really know how the MacBook Neo stacks up against Apple’s M-series MacBooks until reviewers put it through its paces. But these numbers only make me more convinced than ever that the MacBook Neo is going to be a huge success for Apple. Not only is this a great alternative to a Chromebook or a low-end Windows PC, it seems like it’s a good MacBook in its own right. You could buy an older MacBook, say an M1 or M2 machine, or you could buy a brand-new Neo, and enjoy the perks that come with a fresh purchase.
That said, one area the benchmarks don’t measure is multitasking. The Neo has 8GB of RAM, which should be find for single tasks, but once you start running too many things at once, you could choke the system. If you open too many browser tabs, or run too many apps at once, you may start to feel that pain. That’s not an issue if you were between a Neo and an M1 MacBook Air with 8GB of RAM. But if you can find an M1 MacBook Air with 16GB of RAM at a similar price point, that might be the move. You’ll get comparable performance and more flexibility for multitasking—not to mention some future-proofing with the additional RAM, as macOS gets ever more complex.
