alt Hacker NewsMacBook Neo
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8 GB is not enough...even the $699 model has only 8 GB.
I guess it’s to be expected, but i’m sad there’s no 16gb RAM upgrade option. $699 for a brand new Mac is nice and 8gb will work for the netbook/student audience but i’d personally want a teensy bit more.
They're finally laying the silly "Macs cost too much" complaint to bed.
Interesting.
It's been a while since we've had excitement at the "cheap and cheerful" end of the spectrum.
Anyone remember the initial Eee PC... and the problems it created for MSFT during the Vista transition?
I find it really fascinating that this is priced identically to an iPhone 17e. Speaks to it essentially being a big iPad with a keyboard attached running macOS.
We are back to colors! https://appleclamshell.wordpress.com/color-guide/
Many governments and large companies issue burner laptops when traveling to the US or China. This is a perfect candidate for that
8GB in 2026 sounds... tight. that with an A18, makes me wonder how its going to hold up in a year.
Oh neat!
8 gig cap though? That seems strange... But, for a $600 Mac for the kids' homeschooling though, maybe I can forgive them.
With only 8 GB of RAM would this be usable even for web browsing?
the market segmentation is nice, it'll do well with the colors and all -- but the unified memory thing is the literal only reason to want to dip a toe in apple whatsoever; with these numbers id rather just spend ~300 on a Chuwi or equivalent white label 'ultrabook' with double the specs.
although it IS hillarious to read a group of enthusiasts in 2026 screaming "8GB IS FINE!" -- meanwhile people want more ram on their RPis..
Yikes, if I had known Apple was going to release a new budget laptop I would have gotten my mom this instead of a $1000 Air.
This is an iphone 16pro chip. That's the phone I have and don't love it. I am not sure if this is a useful config.
Feeling glad I got a 2nd hand air M1 (16gb+512gb) for ~400 GBP last October, rather than waiting out for this.
No idea how the processors compare, but that RAM isn't a good sign
Bit of a strange choice of name if I may say so!
I can open iphone on my macbook? Wish I had it working on my macbook pro, because I was supposed to be able to do that a long time ago (I'm in EU).
For 800 euros, with 8 GB RAM, and a mobile GPU?!? No thanks.
I imagine this will be popular in other countries too. Such an incredible product for the price. Does anyone have benchmarks comparing the A18 to an M1 say?
This laptop is almost perfect for me, nix the 8GB to be a little cheapskate in 2026, but given the RAMageddon and SSDageddon artifically caused by the solid state cartels lately from Micron, Samsung, SK Hynix, WD, all of you pieces of shit who is part of this cartel...we have had to accept 8GB for the moment, but for future? At least 12G, because a lot of slop software are using electron to run.
I just want a small laptop or handheld device where I can use ssh and kubectl, maybe sometimes running VSCode to have remote access. The 13 inch form factor is a godsent. I missed my 11-inch MBA 10 years ago so much.
This seems like a competitor to the Chromebook more because of the 8GB hard limit.
Will it be true macOS or will they use this excuse of using an “iPhone chip” to lock down everything like they do on iPads/iPhones?
Has MacBook chassis been locked for a while? When was the last exciting design change?
This could be amazing for running Asahi Linux one day. Probably will be quite a while before Asahi works on it though.
Given how incredibly bloated OSX is now and that everything else is CEF, how can they possibly justify 8gb of ram? Even my ancient w7 box has 64gb
This is great, to me this is a far better deal than buying an iPad with an extra keyboard.
I would love to see the upselling this product triggers.
I'd like to bring to your attention the 2026 irony of how much things now cost: this thing has nearly the same chip, way bigger display,a keyboard, extra USB port, a touchpad, lots of copper inside and aluminum outside, way bigger battery and yet it is same price as entry level iPhone with same RAM and storage. Go figure!
PS. Wonder why they didn't use A19 in this? Imagine they thought "yeah, that A18 will do for an entry-level laptop", but the entry-level iPhone 17e with A19 needed more kick? What for, our social media apps and mobile websites? This is soooo absurd!
How will the A chip fare for LLM-based use cases, compared the M series?
And will we have software compatibility issues because of A versus M issues?
That's a pretty slick video where the block of aluminum transforms into the finished MacBook in the presenter's hands.
Tiny, silly, no good, minor, tedious complaint: can you visibly tell which port is USB 3 vs. USB 2 or do you have to just remember?
Why don’t they just allow MacOS on iPad Pro. It’s what people want.
I think this is a very niche product or a potential Chromebook competitor. This is good enough for students and kids.
Why do all the low-end Apple laptops not have USB-C ports on the right?
That's one of the main reasons I had to get a MacBook Pro.
Whoever added the pause button on the image carousel on that page, I applaud you.
So, and iPad with an attached keyboard.
Woah... a mobile processor and enormous bezels... definitely feels like Jobs would have never let this ship
Oh dang. No 16GB option at all, I thought 8GB was just the base.
If anyone makes Linux running on this thing, it's a major gaming changer!
Would definitely consider for my next laptop. What’s the best solution for “Mac Subsystem for Linux”?
Anyone else thinking of using this as a homelab server?
I was hoping they'll revamp the 12" MacBook. I liked a lot that design and form-factor.
How much extra is it to add DVI out and an ethernet port?
Wow $499 for students
It's like the crack dealer giving free samples to the young ones
I wouldn't want a MacBook that can't run a free operating system, but if Asahi gets there, I may buy one to replace an aging XPS.