MacBook Neo in review: The cheapest MacBook – is it really worth it?

At the outset, a brief overview of all the topics we tested:

• Keyboard and Trackpad
• Display, Sound, and Form Factor
• RAM and Performance
• Disk Speed Benchmark
• Safari vs. Chrome
• DaVinci Resolve (Video Editing)
• Developing / Programming
• Gaming
• Office Work
• Local AI with LM Studio
• Windows App & Remote Desktop
• Conclusion

Apple Silicon has proven what is possible when hardware and software come from a single source. The M-series has impressed us in every test. Yet the A18 Pro is not a Mac chip: it comes from the iPhone. What can an iPhone chip deliver in a MacBook?

One of the first things that came to mind was battery life. An iPhone chip should be extremely efficient. The MacBook Neo was unboxed and tested for an entire day of use immediately, without any prior charging. And it held up. From the moment of purchase, without an intermediate recharge!

If you need to work on the go—at university, on the train, or in a café—you do not have to worry about constantly having a power outlet nearby. The MacBook Neo performs very well here and shows that Apple does not compromise on the battery even in the cheapest model. A top-up can conveniently be done with a power bank as well.

The keyboard of the MacBook Neo feels very comfortable. Typing is enjoyable and doesn't tire you out. Apple has stuck with its proven approach here, delivering a good typing experience. If you mainly do a lot of text work or surf the web, you won't really need a MacBook Air.

The trackpad offers haptic feedback and can be pressed physically. The operation is pleasant and meets the expectations for an Apple trackpad. Since then, Apple trackpads have been a benchmark for me. Compared with other MacBook models, it is somewhat smaller and does not offer Force Touch. That won't bother you much in everyday use. All known macOS gestures work as smoothly as usual: scrolling, zooming, swiping between apps — everything runs smoothly.

Anyone who has previously worked with a 16-inch MacBook Pro like I have will initially perceive the display of the MacBook Neo as comparatively (very) small. That's a matter of getting used to it. What distinguishes the MacBook Neo, however, is that it is noticeably more compact and lighter than the large MacBook Pro. For on the go, in the pocket, or while traveling, that's probably a real advantage.

For mobile use, the size is downright ideal. If you have to look at the screen for hours every day, the 13-inch is a bit tight, especially for applications that have a large toolbar or sidebar.

In direct comparison to the MacBook Pro, the sound of the MacBook Neo is somewhat weaker. That is not surprising for a device of this price range and form factor. The tones are clear and understandable, which is enough for meetings, YouTube, or podcasts. What is missing is a bit of bass. Apple has simply set the bar very high with the MacBook Pro.

Here we have to be honest: 8 GB RAM in 2026 is really not much. A part of it is also used as graphics memory, which further reduces the available main memory. Anyone who buys the MacBook Neo should therefore definitely think carefully beforehand about how much multitasking in everyday life is really needed. With a bit of adjustment, you can still gain efficiencies there. For example, many applications (Spotify, Notion, etc.) are actually small Chrome browsers, since many applications are now web-based. These should then be opened in Safari rather than in Chrome to use the little memory as efficiently as possible. If you don’t want to be restricted, you should rather opt for the MacBook Air with 16GB or more.

What the system does cleverly, though: Through swapping to the SSD, a lot can still function. The SSD isn’t the fastest (more on disk speed in the Disk-Speed section), but the response times are low enough to, for example, offload a Safari tab without it feeling uncomfortable.

My tips:

• Keep startup apps to a minimum
• Use Safari instead of Chrome (more on this below)
• Regularly check background processes in the Activity Monitor

With the BlackMagic Disk Speed Test I compared the write and read performance of the SSDs:

The difference is clear: The MacBook NEO reaches about one-fifth to one-sixth of the SSD speed of the MacBook Pro M3. For normal daily tasks, such as opening documents, using the browser, listening to music, this is perfectly sufficient. With very large file operations or video editing, the difference becomes noticeable.

A quick practical test: Copying a large ZIP file (~17GB) from an NVMe SSD took 37 seconds on the MacBook Neo, and 24 seconds on the MacBook Pro. Note: If a USB 2.0 port is used, macOS shows a hint that it is the “slower” port. With longer USB transfers this was noticeable (our ZIP file would have taken over 7 minutes; we aborted!).

For the MacBook Neo, I definitely recommend Apple's Safari. Apple optimizes its browser specifically for its own hardware, and it pays off. Not only in speed, but especially in battery life. Chrome is known for consuming noticeably more energy and also putting more strain on RAM.

Miro, YouTube and Canva ran smoothly in Safari for me, and without any problems. Switching to Safari can take a bit of getting used to, but should be worth it. Especially because of the synchronization with iOS. The well-known add-ons such as AdBlocker or password managers are available for Safari just as for Google Chrome.

From experience, however, I can say that for some Google applications (Google Meet or Google Docs) Google Chrome may be necessary.

For a small editing project, as you might have at school, at university, or privately, DaVinci Resolve on the MacBook Neo is absolutely suitable. Our small sample project ran smoothly, but the screen is already a bit small for longer work sessions.

Our sample project consisted of several 4K videos that we edited, with multiple audio tracks and multiple picture-in-picture to raise the bar a bit. Smooth editing is possible; here and there there is a brief pause to think, but no freezing. The CPU was never fully utilized; the performance cores are used up first by DaVinci Resolve. With proxy media you could probably squeeze out a bit more performance. For occasional edits, the MacBook Neo is absolutely suitable.

Our preference is more for DaVinci Resolve over Final Cut or iMovie. In terms of functionality, DaVinci Resolve is gigantic, and there is a free version that should be completely sufficient for most needs. If you have an Apple Creator Studio subscription, you'll probably also be very comfortable with Final Cut.

For full IDEs like IntelliJ IDEA, the MacBook Neo is fundamentally unsuitable due to its hardware. There are far leaner tools that can perform better on low-end hardware. However, if you do not want to give up IntelliJ, you have a smart solution: the headless mode.

The actual IDE runs on a powerful remote host. For example, on my setup it runs on a Mac Studio with 64 GB RAM, and only the frontend is run locally on the MacBook Neo. The connection is made via SSH, ideally over a VPN (e.g., Tailscale). A connection like this can be easily set up via the JetBrains Toolbox.

The result: IntelliJ runs perfectly on the Mac Studio, and on the MacBook Neo I can work comfortably and enjoy all the advantages of the Mac Studio. Docker containers can be started, scripts can be executed, and Git commits can be made without any problems—just like a local installation.

But it doesn\'t have to be a full-fledged IDE either. Visual Studio Code is a web-based code editor with all the conveniences. If you need some efficiency, you probably get along a bit better with Zed (Rust-based editor).

GitHub Codespaces is also an interesting alternative here: full development environments in the cloud, directly in the browser or in VS Code, often preconfigured perfectly for the respective repository.

Hytale runs well on the MacBook Neo. With graphics set to Low, the game runs flawlessly with a stable 60 fps. Playing on a server is ideal, as the CPU-intensive world generation is offloaded to the server. Hytale is still in alpha and far from perfectly optimized, yet it is a lot of fun.

And yes, Minecraft also runs, and apparently quite well too. My favorite resource pack (Coven) in 64x resolution runs smoothly at around 100 fps. When the world is still generating, it can hiccup briefly, but afterwards everything runs smoothly. A little Minecraft session is not a problem either.

A little nostalgia moment: When I was still in school, I played Minecraft on a black polycarbonate MacBook with 2 GB of RAM and only around 30 fps. That somehow worked, today with the MacBook Neo things are much better.

Larger triple-A titles will probably not be playable, you should not expect too much here. But a bit of fun now and then is definitely possible.

Of course, Microsoft Office is still the market leader. Nevertheless, its cost should not be underestimated. If you want to replace Microsoft Office in your daily work, you should consider SoftMaker Office. The company is German, has been on the market for a long time, and even offers a free version with FreeOffice. I use the 5 euro per month subscription and would gladly recommend it.

On the MacBook Neo, SoftMaker Office runs excellently. Another plus: SoftMaker also offers fully fledged apps for iPad and iPhone, so documents can be opened seamlessly on all Apple devices.

The compatibility is very good for documents in Microsoft Office format. I always save all my documents in Microsoft Office format, and so far I have been able to open all files sent to me by third parties. Compared with Microsoft Office, SoftMaker uses RAM a bit more sparingly. AI features are available optionally as well; currently a ChatGPT integration is offered.

To add a bit more polish to the office work, we also edited a few flyers with Affinity. Affinity is a suite that is very similar to Adobe Creative Cloud. Only much more affordable, and in my experience also much more performant. Zooming with the trackpad works smoothly. If the screen size is sufficient, you can really manage quite well with the small processor. There has been no lag in the view at all; Affinity is very well optimized in that regard.

That really surprised me: Local AI models run on a laptop with only 8 GB of RAM. With LM Studio I tested Gemma 3-4b by Google fully GPU-accelerated. On an entry-level laptop, completely offline. The results impressed me: German and English, translation, spell checking, code generation and summarizing texts all work well. The speed of the output is tolerable.

For occasional experimentation, without having to pay for an expensive cloud subscription, this is ideal – for example offline at the university, on the train, or on the plane. But one should stay realistic: With 10 open applications, memory becomes tight. A text document, a few browser tabs, and LM Studio running in parallel – that works. Large language models or multiple parallel processes, however, are not suitable for the MacBook Neo.

Installing Parallels Desktop on a MacBook Neo with 8 GB RAM would not have been a good idea. There isn't enough RAM for a memory-hungry Windows 11. However, Microsoft's Windows app offers an elegant alternative: Remote Desktop to other Windows installations or Windows 365 in the cloud.

I use Tailscale to connect via RDP to my Mac Studio, where Parallels runs Windows 11. That way I can conveniently share files and even expose my local printer. RustDesk is an open-source alternative here, but for Windows-specific scenarios I prefer the official Windows app due to better optimization.

In the long run, of course that's more of a workaround, but with 8 GB RAM you have to be a bit inventive.

Working with Windows 365 in the cloud also works smoothly. Especially in a professional environment you can quickly deploy a Windows 365 instance to work long-term with a Windows application.

The MacBook Neo impresses with a good price–performance ratio. For €699 / €799 you get a solid, lightweight, and everyday-capable MacBook with good battery life, a pleasant keyboard, and a performance that is enough for office work, occasional video editing, casual gaming, and even a little AI. A clear recommendation from me, especially for students, casual users, and everyone looking for a reliable device for on the go.

Of course there are limitations: 8 GB RAM are very tight in 2026, and those who run many apps in parallel or work resource-intensive will notice it quickly. With a bit of discipline: Safari instead of Chrome, lean tools, reducing startup apps, it can be worked with very well. If you need more headroom, it's better to opt for the MacBook Air with 16 GB. For everyone else, the MacBook Neo offers a solid, well-made laptop at a fair price.