Apple just shipped a MacBook that costs less than an iPad Air with a keyboard. The MacBook Neo, announced during Apple’s Special Experience event on March 4, starts at $599 and runs on an A18 Pro — the same chip inside the iPhone 16 Pro. It is the cheapest MacBook ever made, and it makes the iPad’s pitch as a laptop replacement functionally dead.
An iPhone Chip Inside a MacBook
The Neo breaks a rule Apple established when it ditched Intel in 2020: every Mac runs on an M-series chip. Not this one. The A18 Pro packs a 6-core CPU and 5-core GPU, roughly half the silicon firepower of the M5 MacBook Air’s 10-core configuration. Memory bandwidth sits at 60 GB/s versus 153 GB/s on the Air — two and a half times slower.
Apple claims the A18 Pro delivers 50% better performance than Intel’s Core Ultra 5 for everyday tasks. That is a carefully hedged statement. For web browsing, document editing, and streaming, the Neo will feel snappy. For anything beyond that — video editing, heavy multitasking, development environments — the 8GB of non-upgradeable RAM and phone-class silicon will hit a wall fast.
“The biggest difference is that inside the Neo is an A18 Pro iPhone chip instead of an M-series processor Apple typically uses in its laptops,” noted The Verge’s Antonio Di Benedetto in his hands-on review.
The Compromises Are Real
The spec sheet reads like a masterclass in cost engineering. The base model at $599 ships without Touch ID — you unlock it with a password, in 2026. Touch ID requires the $699 512GB configuration. One of the two USB-C ports is USB 2.0, a standard from the year 2000 that transfers data at 480 Mb/s. There is no Thunderbolt, no MagSafe, no Wi-Fi 7, no P3 wide color gamut on the display, and no backlit keyboard.
The trackpad ditches Apple’s haptic Force Touch system for a mechanical click — the first time Apple has done this since the 2015 MacBook. The battery is 36.5 Wh versus 53.8 Wh on the Air, and the included charger delivers just 20 watts. Apple’s claimed 11-hour battery life assumes modest brightness and light usage. Real-world endurance will likely land closer to 7 or 8 hours.
The 13-inch Liquid Retina display hits 500 nits with anti-reflective coating — perfectly adequate, but missing True Tone and the richer color accuracy that creative professionals expect.
The iPad’s Identity Crisis Just Got Worse
At $599 for the Neo versus $869 for an iPad Air before adding a $349 keyboard, the math is brutal. The iPad Air M4 with a Magic Keyboard costs $1,218. The MacBook Neo runs macOS, includes a real keyboard and trackpad, starts at 256GB of storage, and costs $599.
Apple spent a decade trying to convince users that the iPad could replace a laptop. The MacBook Neo is the company’s own admission that it cannot. The Neo targets students, first-time Mac buyers, and anyone who needs a portable machine for basic productivity. It is not a creative workstation. It is not a development machine. It is a $599 gateway into the Apple ecosystem, and at that price, nothing else in Apple’s lineup — or anyone else’s — comes close.
A Week of Announcements, One Clear Winner
The Neo capped a week-long product blitz. Monday brought the iPhone 17e at $599 with the A19 chip, MagSafe, and Apple’s C1X modem. The iPad Air M4 launched the same day at $669. Tuesday delivered the M5 MacBook Air at $1,119, MacBook Pro models with M5 Pro and M5 Max chips starting at $2,499, and two refreshed Studio Displays — including a mini-LED XDR model at $3,499 with 2,000-nit HDR and 120Hz.
All products are available for preorder now, with shipments starting March 11. The MacBook Neo will move units. Whether those buyers outgrow its 8GB ceiling within two years is the question Apple is betting they will not ask until it is time to buy another Mac.
