On Wednesday, March 4, 2026, Apple held a special event in New York, London, and Shanghai. Among other announcements, including the new M5-series MacBook Air and MacBook Pro, Apple revealed the new MacBook Neo, a budget laptop, which was made available for pre-order on March 4 and fully released the next week on March 11. Making a budget laptop is an uncommon choice for Apple, who mainly manufactures high-end products.

The MacBook Neo was announced to be $599, at almost 50% of the price of the MacBook Air, Apple’s next cheapest laptop, which is $1099. Apple has never released a laptop with a price this low. The Neo’s cost and features are similar to many Windows laptops, making the MacBook Neo a formidable competitor to those computers. With this low of a price, however, the Neo also has to sacrifice many features found on other MacBooks.

One of the most important features that was downgraded from other MacBooks is the chip used on the computer. While the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro use the Apple Silicon M5 chip, the Neo is using the A18 Pro chip, which was also used on the iPhone 16 Pro. Putting a smartphone chip, albeit a very powerful one, into a computer will certainly have its drawbacks. The Neo’s RAM is also only 8 gigabytes, compared to the Air’s base RAM of 16 gigabytes, meaning it can’t handle anywhere near as much data at once. While the Neo should still function well for basic tasks like web browsing and video calls, it can’t do as many high-performance tasks, such as gaming and video editing. For example, while you can do your math homework on the MacBook Neo, your Fusion 360 projects might run a lot slower than they would be on a computer with 16 gigabytes of RAM. Personally, my laptop has 8 gigabytes of RAM, and while it can run things like Google Docs without many issues, it is quite slow for more advanced apps. With the $599 price point, the Neo might not be the best choice, since there are many Windows laptops around the same price with 16 GB of RAM. In addition to those downgrades, the Neo also has a smaller screen and less storage space than the Air and Pro, which are less significant drawbacks but are still something to consider.

So why did Apple make the MacBook Neo? Well, the simple answer is to attract new customers, primarily college students and other people who don’t want to spend as much money on a new computer. Even though the Neo is significantly less powerful than the Air and Pro, it is still enough for everyday tasks, which is what most people need in their laptop. Apple also announced this new computer at the same event as their new budget cellphone, the iPhone 17e. Apple may be hoping that customers who prefer budget products buy both products at the same time, which would be quite beneficial for the company. Apple isn’t only drawing customers away from Windows computers: The Neo is also significantly better than Chromebooks, another competitor in the budget laptop sphere. The Chromebook, in addition to being significantly slower, can’t run most apps that other laptops can. With the release of the Neo, students and schools may also be drawn away from the Chromebook to the Neo.

Overall, the budget-friendly MacBook Neo is, in my opinion, a good computer. While it can’t perform many advanced tasks smoothly, it is still a good choice for less data-consuming tasks and should be enough for most people, especially for people who already own Apple products as the Neo offers smooth integration with other Apple devices. For HSMSE’s engineering classes, however, it might not be the best choice, as the engineering programs we use consume a lot of data that the MacBook Neo might not be able to handle so smoothly. Even with a budget around the price of the Neo, it is possible to find a good Windows laptop with enough RAM to run those programs smoothly. If you don’t need to be able to run those programs, though, the Neo is quite a good choice.