A smartphone chip in a laptop sounds like a mess, but it results in a solid laptop for the money. In retrospect, the Mac Book Neo was Apple getting ahead of the curve. With tariffs and soaring memory prices, the Mac Book Air shot up by $200 to a new baseline of $1,300. Even at its current $700 price tag, the Neo is a comparative bargain.
Of course, the Neo achieves these savings by making compromises. The biggest is the use of a reproposed i Phone processor instead of an M-series chip. The Neo is equipped with an A18 Pro, a processor originally designed for 2024's i Phone 16 Pro, scaled down slightly with five GPU cores. In testing, the laptop handled multiple web browsers, a TV show, photo editing in Pixelmator Pro and Oceanhorn 3 without much trouble. That said, the Neo can struggle with advanced tasks. Its 8GB of RAM means it can't process special visual effects without coming to a crawl. Many apps also require an M1 processor or better, including games like Assassin's Creed Shadows.
The Neo's port technology is extremely limited, too. It's equipped with only a 10Gbps USB 3 port, a 480Mbps USB 2 port and a 3.5mm headphone jack. According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, a 2027 refresh will upgrade the Neo to the A19 Pro chip used in the i Phone 17 Pro, as well as 12GB of RAM. Almost certainly, you should wait for the Mac Book Neo 2.
Source: Engadget · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing