ASUS Calls Apple's $599 MacBook Neo A Shock To The PC Market

Apple is poised to disrupt the lower-cost laptop market with the launch of its MacBook Neo, a $599 notebook that is the cheapest MacBook ever released. It will take some time to gauge the full impact of Apple's foray into more budget laptop territory, but here in the early going, the aggressive price point is drawing attention by Apple's competitors in the Windows space, including ASUS.

During an earnings call with investors and media analysts, ASUS Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Nick Wu talked a little bit about the Neo and Apple's strategy, calling the launch a "shock to the entire market."

"Given Apple's historically very premium pricing, launching such an affordable product is certainly a shock to the entire market," Wu said, according to a translated transcript.

There is a bit of confusion over who exactly said what, as multiple media outlets quote ASUS Co-CEO S.Y. Hsu as the one who made the remarks, with slight differences in the translation to boot. According to the transcript posted at SeekingAlpha, however, it was actually Wu who answered a question about the MacBook Neo.

It hardly matters which ASUS executive made the comments, as the broader implication is that ASUS recognizes the potential impact Apple's new MacBook  may have on the PC landscape. Wu (or Hsu) pointed out that the MacBook Neo is likely more focus on content consumption compared to other mainstream laptops, and in that sense, it is sort of like a tablet.

He also pointed to the hardware limitations of the MacBook Neo, which is based on Apple's A18 Pro chip found in the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max, and just 8GB of RAM. Even so, he concedes that it can still get some work done, and that Apple has the attention of the industry at large.

"So I believe all PC vendors, including upstream vendors like Microsoft, Intel and AMD, they're all taking this very seriously, seriously discussing how to compete with this product in the entire PC ecosystem. So I think there are a lot of ongoing discussions about how we can -- or how they can compete with the Neo. But of course, the actual impact on the overall PC market still needs some time to resolve," Wu (or Hsu) added.

It's an interesting perspective, and not unexpected. The comments are also reinforced by a spattering of MacBook Neo reviews that are starting to populate the web, as the ones we've seen generally speak favorably of the device.

We're working on getting one in for a review as well, so stay tuned!