Apple Launches $599 MacBook Neo With A18 Pro Chip, Promises All-Day Battery Life
Apple is clearly hoping to disrupt the affordable laptop market with the launch of the MacBook Neo, its most affordable MacBook ever with a starting price of $599. The caveat is that it's powered by a smartphone chip, and specifically the A18 Pro found in the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max. However, combined with the other features, it may be enough to attract budget buyers away from entry-level Windows laptops and Chromebooks.
The other thing working in Apple's favor is that modern mobile silicon is light years ahead of where smartphone chips used to be. And for the record, Apple is making some big claims in regards to performance comparisons with Intel.
"MacBook Neo with A18 Pro is up to 50% faster for everyday tasks than the bestselling PC with the latest shipping Intel Core Ultra 5.And for more demanding activities, it’s up to 3x faster for on-device AI workloads and up to 2x faster for tasks like photo editing," Apple says.
A peek at the fine print suggests those are a mix of intriguing and dubious claims. For example, the 50% faster figure appears based solely on Speedometer 3.1, which tests browser performance. That's not super interesting. However, the on-device AI performance claim is based on applying various effects in Photoshop 2026.
Suffice to say, we'll be curious to see how all-around performance actually fares. For the record, the A18 Pro is comprised of a 6-core CPU (2 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores), 5-core GPU, and 16-core Neural Engine with Apple Intelligence support.
As for the design, despite the aggressive pricing, Apple is sticking with a premium aluminum chassis, offered in several color options including Silver, Blush, Citrus, and Indigo.
"We’re incredibly excited to introduce MacBook Neo, which delivers the magic of the Mac at a breakthrough price," said John Ternus, Apple’s senior vice president of Hardware Engineering. "Built from the ground up to be more affordable for even more people, MacBook Neo is a laptop only Apple could create. It features a durable aluminum design in four beautiful colors; a brilliant Liquid Retina display; Apple silicon-powered performance; all-day battery life; a high-quality camera, mics, and speakers; a Magic Keyboard and Multi-Touch trackpad; and the intuitive and powerful features of macOS. There is simply no other laptop like it."
The display is a 13.0-inch Liquid Retinal panel with a 2408x1506 resolution and 500 nits of brightness, specs that are higher than many laptops in the same price class. Apple also says it's using an anti-reflective coating on the 13-inch display. Note that the display is a tad bit smaller than the newly minted 13.6-inch M5 MacBook Air.
There are two variants of the MacBook Neo. One pairs a 256GB SSD with a Magic Keyboard, and the other is a 512GB model ($699) sporting a Magic Keyboard with Touch ID support. Both feature just 8GB of unified memory (boo!) and promise up to 16 hours of battery life (not too shabby).
The MacBook Neo is available to preorder now and releases on March 11.
