MacBook Neo vs old MacBook Air: Good luck

My first thought when Apple The MacBook Neo was announced today It was “Okay, but why don’t you get an older air?” If you’re thinking so too, you might be right. If you can find one.

The Neo’s price starts at $599 with an A18 Pro processor, 8GB of memory, and 256GB of storage, and ends at $699 with the same specifications plus TouchID and 512GB of storage. It has two USB-C ports (not Thunderbolt), a nice-looking screen, a mechanical trackpad instead of touch, and several other cost-saving measures. It’s the cheapest new MacBook you can get right now.

The new M5 MacBook Air starts at $1,099 with 16GB of memory and a much faster 512GB of storage, a larger and brighter screen, a better webcam, better Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, more speakers, Thunderbolt 4, a faster charger, and so on. It’s $100 more than last year’s model, probably because of the Neo. Or you can get MacBook Air M4, priced at $1,000with a slightly slower processor than the M5 (but still faster than the Air), and otherwise roughly the same specs.

If you can still get a new M1 Air from Walmart for $700, it’s going to be a pretty tough call between that and the Neo. This machine was released in 2020, but it’s still better in most ways. Unfortunately, we have been out of stock since last month – Probably because Of the new ones – that’s the end of it. Maybe you can find a renewed one. Same with the M3 and M4: if you can find one for around the same price as the Neo, especially with 16GB of RAM, you should get one of these. But they are very thin on the ground, and I expect them to get even thinner. (Keep an eye on Apple’s renewal site, though – A refurbished M4 Air for $750 is very good.)

The modern Air is undoubtedly a better computer. The thing about $1,000 is that it’s a much larger sum than $600. $600 is already more than most non-Mac people want to spend on a laptop, but it’s significantly less than the Air, and the gap between the two is large enough that it’s hard to justify that jump unless you know you’ll need more than 8GB of RAM, if you’re going to use Thunderbolt, etc. I wouldn’t buy a Neo for myself.

However, Neo is not meant to compete with Air. It’s aimed at first-time MacBook buyers. It’s Apple trying to appeal to the cheap Windows laptop crowd who are upset about Windows. With its $499 education price tag, it’s also an attempt to break the Chromebook’s stranglehold on the K-12 market, to turn iPad kids into MacBook Neo teens into airborne adults. Heck, when it comes time to hand out school-issued Chromebooks to my kids, and I have to choose between a Chromebook, a Windows laptop, and a MacBook Neo for them? That would be interesting.

This is how they get you!

I honestly don’t think the Neo vs Air debate would be that difficult for most people, if only because most people don’t spend a thousand dollars on a laptop in the first place. The processor will likely feel the same as the M1 Air, which means fast enough for most things. The hardest parts will be figuring out whether you’re satisfied with the 8GB of RAM (almost!), whether you really need Thunderbolt (maybe not?), and whether you care about that fancy (eh) webcam. If you already know the answer, you already know the answer. And maybe you should get that fresh air while you can.

A cynical part of me thinks Apple is trying to get MacBooks into the same upgrade cycle as its phones. If you bought the cheaper MacBook Air six years ago, it’s probably still pretty good. If you buy the cheaper MacBook Neo today, will it feel as good in six years? maybe! Or maybe you’ll decide you need to get up for air next time. And it goes to the top of the funnel.