Apple shipped 1.1 million MacBook Neo units in the first quarter of the year, according to IDC, making it one of the strongest Mac debut performances in recent memory (via TechCrunch). The figure is particularly striking given that the laptop was only available for roughly three weeks of the period, having gone on sale in mid-March. Shipments began spiking from early April, suggesting the March tally understates underlying demand.
Their mobile chips are actually quite powerful, they might not be gaming beasts, but for simple laptop work they’d be very capable.
Apple could make a desktop OS for their phones that triggers when you connect it to a monitor with a USB C to HDMI cable like on Android, but if they did it well, itd just eat into laptop sales vs sell more phones.
But they could sell some more dongles/peripherals that way and possibly make bank.
Travelling? Don’t bring the laptop, just bring a small portable monitor and your phone.
Edit: they could even make a laptop shell you slide your phone into so you can get the whole laptop experience without paying for all the hardware in the phone a 2nd time.
Depends what your real tasks are. If they involve writing, researching, watching videos, filling out web exams, etc., yeah, very capable. If you’re compiling massive codebases, editing composited video, or recording several audio channels, obviously not. But that’s the pitch. If you’re a student and want a well built machine at a competitive price with a long battery life, they’re tough to beat.
Single core performance is better though, but with 4 fewer cores it falls behind in multi core.
My M1 is not laggy at all even in 2026 and I do an IT degree. It’s my primary machine and it dutifully does everything I throw at it. The only qualifier to my experience is I’ve not updated to macOS 26 (Liquid Glass) as 15 works just fine and I still get security updates.
My personal opinion is the Neo would be perfect for anyone going through college, with all sorts of productivity apps open and browser tabs, but don’t expect more from it.
Since it uses a mobile chip is it any good for real tasks or is it very limited?
Their mobile chips are actually quite powerful, they might not be gaming beasts, but for simple laptop work they’d be very capable.
Apple could make a desktop OS for their phones that triggers when you connect it to a monitor with a USB C to HDMI cable like on Android, but if they did it well, itd just eat into laptop sales vs sell more phones.
But they could sell some more dongles/peripherals that way and possibly make bank.
Travelling? Don’t bring the laptop, just bring a small portable monitor and your phone.
Edit: they could even make a laptop shell you slide your phone into so you can get the whole laptop experience without paying for all the hardware in the phone a 2nd time.
It’s around the performance of an M1 Mabcbook pro. So like a 10th Gen. i9, but using basically no power.
Depends what your real tasks are. If they involve writing, researching, watching videos, filling out web exams, etc., yeah, very capable. If you’re compiling massive codebases, editing composited video, or recording several audio channels, obviously not. But that’s the pitch. If you’re a student and want a well built machine at a competitive price with a long battery life, they’re tough to beat.
My main computer is an M1 MBA and the performance of the Neo is overall about 15% worse than the original M1 MBA https://www.techradar.com/computing/macbooks/i-put-the-macbook-neo-through-the-same-tests-as-i-did-the-macbook-air-m1-i-think-the-results-will-surprise-you
Single core performance is better though, but with 4 fewer cores it falls behind in multi core.
My M1 is not laggy at all even in 2026 and I do an IT degree. It’s my primary machine and it dutifully does everything I throw at it. The only qualifier to my experience is I’ve not updated to macOS 26 (Liquid Glass) as 15 works just fine and I still get security updates.
My personal opinion is the Neo would be perfect for anyone going through college, with all sorts of productivity apps open and browser tabs, but don’t expect more from it.
I would describe it as limited.