My wife is using a fancy new air for 2500€, which is way better. But I still think of the good old MacAir times, they'll try to bring up again.
Too bad that performance is (still) locked in the walled garden and cannot be used as a small Linux server.
Interesting metrics, though I'd add that if you count storage and memory as metrics, it'd be hard to find a worse PC laptop. And I don't see why we should artificially exclude ARM PC laptops from the comparison.
https://www.bestbuy.com/product/asus-vivobook-14-wuxga-lapto...
2x the RAM and 2x the storage isn't meaningless to a lot of people.
The PC has a single-core geekbench around 2100 single / 10,000 multicore. The Neo is apparently in the range of 3600 / 9,000 multicore.
No arguments on the Mac's screen being way nicer though. However, the low-end computer market - unlike most of us on HN - has never cared about pixel density, color accuracy, or really any screen specs other than size (Looks like the Asus has the Mac by an inch on that spec).
Bottom line, for a high-end Chromebook replacement (literally everything is done in the cloud, so storage doesn't matter, and only running a browser, so RAM isn't a big deal), as long as it's for someone who will take care of such a delicate device, the Neo is pretty great. For everyone else, it's debatable.
> And certainly not software quality.
This is most definitely only a little true in that Windows has jumped the shark lately with ads and various enshittification, and thus ties with Mac OS. Tahoe is without a doubt the worst Mac OS ever released. It's both poor quality and poorly designed.
Users on the other hand, they definitely care about display quality more than they care about RAM. The display is the part you look at!
If you're in store and there's a Neo with a crisp 200 PPI screen and a Windows laptop with a cheap screen but more RAM, the vast majority of consumers will choose the laptop with the better display. People make purchasing decisions based on feels and the Neo has great feels.
Quality speaks for itself, and the way that people buy computers is through their eyes and fingertips, not their heads.
Go to the Apple Store and just observe how people make their buying decisions. They don't just look at the spec sheet, they lift, type on, caress the computers. They want to know how it will feel to own one.
Go into a non-Apple space though, where money is not "no object," and see how many people would choose a 16-17" 1920x1080 screen over a 13" MacBook Neo purely because of the big screen, nevermind that the Mac has roughly 4x the number of pixels. I guarantee you, it's more than you think.
My only point was that yes, the MacBook Neo wins on quality construction and aesthetics (but I'll argue NOT on durability since plastic laptops can take a lot more incidental bumps than Macs will), cool factor/perceived eliteness, and screen quality. I am sure there are plenty of people who care about those things, but I think most of those people are already buying a Mac today.
I suspect we'll actually see a modest cannibalization of those casual but cheap Mac users from the MacBook Air, since most people don't really understand how to evaluate RAM and storage size, but a lot of them will have a bad experience after filling the disk.
As an ARM enthusiast who has tried a lot of WinARM, I think at this point I really struggle to believe MS has a single care in the world for improving quality of life for WinARM users. They sure do market it, and the laptops do work most of the time. I've just never had any other computers shit the bed when it comes to graphics drivers like a Qualcomm powered PC. Website with too many video/gifs playing? Screen whites out/all the video boxes go pink and explorer resets. Open up the gif search in Discord? Basically a coin flip chance its going to kill the graphics driver and reset explorer again. I had a Dell Inspiron with the Qualcomm 8CX Gen2 that could reliably be crashed just by quickly scrolling twitter on a video posting heavy day.
I would rather take a Mediatek powered Chromebook any other day until the Neo showed up and started to approach the sub $500 ARM chromebook price point.
However, I think that two will bring sour tastes to people’s metaphorical mouths much more than expected: the RAM and drive space.
There should have been a 16Gb option. Nosebleed the price if you have to, or include a SODIMM slot if needed, but the option should have been there to expand the memory to 16Gb either on spec or at a later date. Because each version of MacOS gets weightier and more demanding of hardware - Windows isn’t the only resource hog out there - and at 8Gb the pain will begin to be felt long before the 7-year usability cycle comes to an end.
There should have been a 1Tb option. Not because people use that much drive space - many don’t - but because 1Tb is the level which provides enough cells in parallel to properly saturate the PCIe bus, ensuring maximum performance. Not always at that 1Tb level, and not on every machine. But typically 1Tb or above, rather than below. Even if it required a hairdryer to unstick the original due to the constrained space not permitting a lock-down screw, the drive should have been either replaceable or with the size as (again) a nosebleed-price option at provisioning.
Because while I see every other compromise as acceptable, it is those two which make me hesitate on getting this as a long-term secondary/casual system.
Other than that, this is a laptop which can only goose Apple’s further adoption among students and casual users.
Why do you think the cheapest MacBook available should be one that costs more to support power users. Apple has the MacBook Air for those users.
Not as obvious as the author implies. Apple has some docs out, IIRC, explaining how it is implemented. Worth a read...