Score an AMD Ryzen Laptop for $219 Less Than a MacBook Neo

The MacBook Neo is such a popular item that Apple is sold out of inventory for the month of April. Not without good reason, the MacBook Neo is the most affordable MacBook ever, and while the specifications are not mind blowing, it proving capable for general purpose computing and even some content creation chores. Even so, if you'd prefer to stay within the Windows ecosystem, you have affordable options.

One of those options is this 15.6-inch HP laptop that's on sale for a low $379.99 at Best Buy (save $220). This is advertised as Best Buy's deal of the day (meaning it expires tomorrow) and it is $219 less expensive than the starting price for the MacBook Neo, or $119 less expensive if comparing to Apple's education pricing.

Either way, it costs less and hits an attractive budget price point that borders on impulse buy territory. Just understand what you're getting before taking the plunge.

The reality is, you're not going to get a powerhouse PC in this price range, or even necessarily one that is better than the MacBook Neo. What you can get, however, is a Windows-based alternative. In this case, HP's laptop sports a 15.6-inch IPS display with a 1920x1080 resolution, 300 nits brightness, FreeSync support, and touch support (something that no Mac yet offers).

It's powered by an AMD Ryzen 5 7520U processor, which is an older 4-core/8-thread Zen 2 chip with a 2.8GHz base clock, up to a 4.3GHz boost clock, and 6MB of cache (2MB L2 + 4MB L3). The laptop also features 8GB of LPDDR5-5500 memory and a 512GB solid state drive (SSD).

We're not too stoked about just 8GB of RAM, especially on a Windows machine. But again, this laptop is one of the cheapest around before venturing into Chromebook territory.

For more budget options, see our recent roundup of 6 affordable Windows PCs to buy instead of the MacBook Neo, if that's the direction you want to go.

If you're indifferent to Windows versus macOS and have a bigger budget to throw at a laptop upgrade, the MacBook Neo is definitely worth considering. It's also available for slightly less than Apple's MSRPs—over on Amazon, the 256GB model is listed for $589.99 ($10 off MSRP) and the 512GB model with Touch ID is priced at $689.99 ($10 off MSRP). And from what we're seeing, all four color options (Blush, Citrus, Indigo, and Silver) for both models are in stock and ready to ship.

The MacBook Neo is built around a version of Apple's A18 Pro chip used for the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max. Despite being a mobile phone processor, it's still an Apple Silicon design, and it's flexing enough muscle to impress early adopters of the MacBook Neo. It's also easier to repair than many people would have guessed, given Apple's track record.

One thing to note is that Intel recently unveiled its Core Series 3 processors, otherwise known as Wildcat Lake, which will power an upcoming wave of lower priced Windows PCs to compete with the MacBook Neo.