Apple has made a massive price breakthrough with the launch of the MacBook Neo – a Mac laptop that’s priced from just $899 which will put it within reach of even more customers.
It has a 13-inch Liquid Retina display and is powered by the A18 Pro chip – the same silicon that was aboard the iPhone 16 Pro.
MacBook Neo will be available to buy on March 11.
“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 aluminium design in four beautiful colours; 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 MacBook Neo is made with an aluminium enclosure that’s built to handle day to day use and available in four colours – Silver, Blush, Citrus and Indigo.
And it weighs just 1.23kg so it’s easy to take anywhere.
Up until now the cheapest Mac laptop was the MacBook Air – priced at $1,599 – while a wide range of Windows laptops were available for well under $1,000.
But that has all changed with the release of the MacBook Neo starting at $899 with 256GB storage and $1,099 for 512GB.
The 13-inch Liquid Retina display has a 2408 x 1506 resolution with 500 nits of brightness and the ability to display a billion colours.
It also has an anti-reflective coating to provide a more comfortable viewing experience anywhere and in a variety of lighting conditions.
Under the hood is the A18 Pro chip which allows user to power through everyday tasks like web browsing, creating documents, streaming, editing photos and using AI through Apple Intelligence.
The MacBook Neo is up to 50 per cent faster for everyday computing than the bestselling PC with the latest Intel Core Ultra 5 processor.
MacBook Neo has a fanless design so it will run silently.
Also onboard is Apple’s Magic Keyboard and a large Multi-Touch trackpad. Touch ID is available on the 512GB MacBook Neo.
Users can make video calls through the onboard 1080p FaceTime HD camera.
On the audio side, the MacBook Neo has dual side firing speakers with support for Spatial Audio and Dolby Atmos and dual microphones with direct beamforming that can reduce background noise and isolate a user’s voice.
There are two USB-C ports which can be used for charging and connecting accessories and external monitors. Also included is a headphone jack for wired audio.
The MacBook Neo is priced at $899 (256GB) and $1099 (512GB and Touch ID). Pre-orders have opened today and it will be available in stores on March 11.
