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Last week, I spent a few days at an IT conference in Portsmouth, Virginia. An Apple rep had a couple of MacBook Neos on hand, and in between sessions, I had a few minutes to take a look.

That's not enough time for a full review, but it was enough to come away with one clear impression.

It Feels Premium

That was the first thing that stood out to me.

The MacBook Neo doesn't feel cheap, it feels like a MacBook.

There's no creaking, no flex, no flimsy budget-laptop energy. It feels solid and well-built, just like you'd expect from Apple. For a machine starting at $599, that matters.

The Neo’s 13” display is slightly smaller than my work-issued 13” MacBook Air (13.6-inches), but it didn’t feel like much of a tradeoff. The Neo doesn’t have a notch like other MacBooks, and I found that refreshing.

They had two models on the table, one in Indigo and one in Silver. Both were 256GB models so they had the lock button version of the keyboard instead of Touch ID. The Indigo color is especially interesting in person. Depending on the light, it shifts a little between blue and purple. It's easily my favorite of the available colors, even though it'll show fingerprints like any darker finish.

Let's Talk About the 8GB Question

You've probably already heard the biggest concern: it only has 8GB of memory.

Fair enough. People said the same thing when Apple launched the first M1 Macs, and I remember that conversation well.

Back then, I tested one of the early M1 MacBook Pros at work with my usual mess of apps open, multiple browsers, and far too many tabs. It handled all of it better than many people expected. And it certainly performed better than the Intel-based model I had.

The MacBook Neo feels like a similar story.

For the kind of work this machine is built for — email, web browsing, writing, schoolwork, office apps, media consumption, and everyday productivity — 8GB is likely just fine. Will power users wish it had more? Of course. But if you're regularly pushing beyond that limit, you're probably not the person Apple made this for.

The Price Is the Real Story

This is the part that changes the conversation.

For a long time, the answer to "Should I buy a Mac?" came with a catch: it was going to cost you. Even the "entry-level" MacBook Air fell into a price bracket that many families, students, and casual buyers didn't want to spend.

Yes, the old M1 MacBook Air hung around at Walmart for $599, but that always felt more like grabbing leftover inventory than buying a new Mac.

This feels different.

The MacBook Neo may not have Apple's newest chip, but it feels current enough where it counts and carries the build quality people expect from Apple hardware.

At $599, or $699 for Touch ID and 512GB storage, this is going to make a lot of sense for a lot of people. And if you're in education and can get an additional discount, the value gets even harder to ignore.

What Comes Next

I'm hoping we can get one in for longer testing at work. In the meantime, Nate Gorby, who joined us on Episode 81 of the podcast while Jeff was out, picked one up on launch day. He'll be back again on the next episode with a couple of weeks of real-world use, which should give us a much better sense of how it holds up beyond first impressions.

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