Meet the MacBook Neo, Apple’s long-rumored low-cost Mac. Powered by the A18 Pro chip from the iPhone 16 Pro series, the $599 MacBook Neo is Apple’s first attempt at delivering a genuinely affordable Mac laptop. (Ironically, it comes after Apple raised the base prices of the new MacBook Air M5 and MacBook Pro M5 Pro/Max.) It’s well below the $1,099 MacBook Air, but Apple didn’t skimp on the design.

There’s still a sturdy aluminum case, with no cheap plastic to be seen. It includes a 13-inch Retina display, a 1080p webcam, two USB-C ports, a headphone jack and Touch ID. The side-firing speakers support Dolby Atmos playback. And the MacBook Neo comes in four colors than usual: silver, indigo, blush and citrus.

And while its mobile chip isn’t nearly as powerful as the Air’s M4, it’s still fast enough to handle many productivity tasks without much trouble. As we argued last week, the Neo could just be the cheap MacBook to tempt over Windows users disgruntled with Microsoft’s AI obsession.

It’s easy to view the MacBook Neo cynically as a sign that Apple is running out of ideas. But given how many PC options there are between $500 and $1,000, it simply makes sense for Apple to offer something in that range. The company experimented with a low-cost offering by selling the the older M1 MacBook Air at Walmart for $700 in 2024, which later went down to $650 last year. The only question now is how long Apple can maintain its prices, as the AI-induced RAM shortage will likely lead to some increases this year. HP claims RAM now accounts for a third of its PC costs, double the amount from last year.

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This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/laptops/the-599-macbook-neo-is-apples-cheapest-mac-laptop-yet-141028666.html?src=rss