It’s stuck in Catalina, but I still get updates.
Most apps run fine on it.
Apple kit lasts a long time.
Until it broke, I was still using my 2018 iPad just last year.
I sure wish it was as easy as a battery replacement on a Framework laptop (with an original part).
I know the Neo has easier battery replacement (not glued in), but still it has an iFixit rating of 6/10 whereas the Framework 12 has a 10/10.
.. as long as you avoided the emoji keyboard era, or never used an emoji keyboard laptop outdoors or even with your windo open :)
I have laptops much older than the ~2018 that work perfectly. But not only the 2018's keyboard broke, but to add insult to the injury they used a display cable that was too short in that generation and that broke too.
That is Cook's legacy :)
I prefer actually both to my corporate issue M4 one with MacOS.
I'm not a fan of the Mac UX, but the hardware seems pretty damn good and the lifespan extends with it.
If I'd have no limitations though I'd prefer the Framework, but not very clearly.
As such, if you buy a M5 MacBook Air today you are very likely to get software support that lasts until the laptop is physically falling apart.
I haven't held a Neo myself, but it seems like a solid device. Personally I would probably go for the Neo.
Should they learn to drive a car or repair a car.
Etc.
Not sure why they make the cheaper models cooler than the top tier ones. Maybe it's just too expensive to stock multiple colors of every product. The Neo has minimal customization options for specs so making it colorful is cheaper.
One of the last jobs I did for them before moving onto a very early streaming video company in 2000 was opening up this pristine "Oxford Blue Metallic" (stock Landrover colour from the time, mine is that colour) 32" TV and fitting a VGA adaptor board to it so the customer could play videos and games from his PC on his new telly directly. It had a scan line doubler in to reduce flicker, which I guess was the precursor of "Mexican Soap Opera Mode" in modern TVs, and that allowed it to display 1280x720x50p smoothly.
It looked fantastic but I don't know that it was £3700-in-early-2000s-money fantastic - or about seven grand today.
Imagine paying three and a half grand for a telly, even if it was sprayed the same colour as your 80 grand Range Rover.
I don't see anything wrong here except the price ;)
On the other hand, for students and schoolkids once you've solved "cheap", it's a plus to also tweak for "fun".
Speaking of market segmentation - this may vary by country but on https://www.apple.com/macbook-neo/ (US site accessed from EU VPN) if I scroll down a bit, what gender do you think the "blush" color is most associated with? Is it coincidence that the laptop is being held in a hand with painted nails? (And a wedding ring.)
I’d still pick the MacBook Pro because it has an SD card slot which any photographer is going to want. I don’t need something that blends in at a board room.
More color choices that there are Pokemon games.
not universally true for all of their products. the new iphone pro max to the apple watch ultra got the bright orange going for them compared the typical muted colours for the base one. the "red" edition, while for charity, used to be the exclusive (maybe more expensive?) version when there was fewer segmentation between the products.
Near 2000 everything came in wild colors. I fondly miss bright red motherboards even, or orange ones.
I subsequently swapped the logic board from the iGPU to the dGPU + max performance CPU model, swapped the top cover for a magnesium one, HDD->SSD, and installed a better WiFi module. Also had to replace the screen once because I suck and broke it.
Within a span of a year, out of my dozen coworkers who have the exact same laptop, half of them went down with similar issues.
I got my old G1 X1 Carbon for somewhere between 900 and 1100 from memory. Theres a fair discount in there mind, but its not a discount I could possibly hope to replicate these days.
(I think that was 1600 dollars partner pricing - charity discount - volume discount (hopped on an order for 12 already identical already going through) - tax incentives)
The cheapest Gen 13 Carbon currently available is ~ 2600 in the same currency, and that's already discounted by 9%, and has a shittier OS (Ships with Home edition instead of Pro), I doubt that would get below 2200 even with partner/channel pricing.
If you add "Winflation" that is, Windows 7/8 running perfectly smoothly on the Gen 1 with 8 Gig of memory, the replacement thinkpad being one that runs Windows 11 comfortably would be the $3150 in the same money, for its 32GB memory. Again doubtful it would go below 2700 or so even with channel.
Macbook NEO is funnily enough 900 bucks landed for me, with 8 gig of memory. I am betting the user experience of the thing is as good or if not better than my old carbon.
1:1 example, but i'm not sure those were the points being made here.
But the Boxster didn't try to replace the 911 on day one. Or even go after the other 300ZX/Supra/whatever 2+2s on day one. It was instead nearly a whole-cloth "what if pure 2-seater convertible driver's car, but the best possible version" upscale-Miata initially, which wasn't an existing segment at all, and being roadster-first was a key separator from the also-2-seater Corvette.
(The iPhone or iPad were arguable Apple's Boxster "entry-level that ends up dominating sales and growing into full blown new product lines" anyway, except that the comparison eventually falls down because the form factor difference with the Mac is much more of a fundamental separation. So maybe Apple's Boxster is instead the laptop in the first place, which wiped out most of their desktop workstation business by the early-2010s at latest.)
Bear in mind thats this 4-7% loss only counts dies that have just one broken CPU unit. There are many other failure modes as well. That just seems very very high.
I've also not really seen any official channels that support this assertion, even apple insider seems sceptical that this is true: https://appleinsider.com/articles/26/04/07/incredible-macboo...
With my logic hat on, Apple contracts chip manufacturing, so I would have assumed that rejects and failed parts would be recycled at source. I would imagine that apple only pay for parts that pass QC. So I suspect that actually these chips are either leftovers (at best) or specifically manufactured using the old tooling.
Is it? I thought the average for lastest-architecture chips was around 5%.
From what I can see, one can expect about 80-90% yield per wafer, the bit that that doesn't make sense is that the "binned" narrative implies that of those broken parts of the wafer, 25-50% are usable with just one GPU disabled.
To me that sounds wrong, and far too high.
How is this different from any other computer product?
Kinda hard to take this article seriously...
https://newsroom.porsche.com/en/2026/company/porsche-deliver...
Sure, the EU pretty much killed its auto car industry, offering the markets to Tesla and Chinese EVs (and there are talks of chinese buying Porsche), but Porsche has a crazy lineup compared to what it used to have: 911, Cayman, Boxster, Panamera, Taycan (the 100% EV), Macan and Cayenne and soooo many different sub-models of those (GT4, GTS, Turbo (S), Targa, GT3 (RS), GT2 (RS), S/T, S/C ...).
They just even announced a 911 GT3 S/C // convertible (heresy for some but I love it). For any Porsche enthusiast, we're pretty much living the golden age of Porsche where you can still buy a normally aspirated, stick shift, driver's car. In 2026: thank you so much Porsche for being sufficiently crazy to still do that in 2026, in an era where people are paying subscription to receive OTA updates for their EVs.
And any Porsche enthusiast knows that the early 1990s were nearly the death of Porsche. It was a close call.
BTW to anyone saying the modern Porsche aren't "real" Porsche cars, I send them love from my 911 Carrera from 1988. You can both love old and new Porsche cars.
Funny that each end of the transaxle lineage were saviors
The problem is that you can't buy them. All of these "interesting" 911s are limited production in practice even when not limited editions per se and are sold to most favorite clients only, a good chunk of whom then immediately flip them with delivery mileage---i.e. playing Ferrari games without the Ferrari name. I respect and like Porsche the car manufacturer, and I have put a lot of track miles on my 991.2 GT3 RS across the US, but I despise what their sales model has become.
/rant
I like colors!
So it's nice to see apple finally bringing a bit of color back.
I have actually picked the colored version almost every time I have bought electronics. I have got red and blue usb drives. I have got a purple phone. I have a blue mouse, the previous one was pink, and my keyboard is green.
https://www.amazon.com/Se7enline-Compatible-MacBook-Protecti...
Perhaps picking Porsche for this analogy wasn't necessarily the best choice: https://investorrelations.porsche.com/en/financial-informati...
So much for "fantastic position it is in today"...
Porsche AG is part of the Volkswagen Group that is owned by Porsche SE.
either way car manufacture is not a big profit game
Zara might be a better example (though not much better in practices).
As the only IT person in an 80 person unit, I can say the Neo trounces Dell Latitudes in a lot of ways, those have awful 250 nit screens out of the box, and they are nearly $1,200!
Especially in regards to cars, often getting a bargain is about finding the cars with faults you personally don't care about but most people do, or versions not many are interested in.
Unfortunately the way speculators have inflated the used market means the rare (because no-one wanted it) versions are priced on their rarity not their utility.
but while we are speaking about a decent device, sometimes it feels like we are giving its maker too much credit. tim's apple has been about the supply chain, with many past "parts bin" offerings, some arguably more appropriate than the neo.
for instance, the "se" edition devices. while for the neo, they had to create a new chasis and trackpad from scratch, the se phones were literally a mash up of the older parts.
to me, they had several other approaches to hit the price point unlike the carmaker, also with lower capex required. while they show some courage with the liquid glass and the change in ux, combined with the same core architecture powering all their devices, just empowering the ipad would have been good enough.
in car terms, they have showed a capable sports car internals inside a tricycle and pat themselves in the back. for me, neo resembles more like a mass-market brand overbuilding the car chassis while using an old powertrain from a capable platform. the same brand use the same capable vtec engine across hatchbacks, sedans and a crossover.
(Have a MBP with fun case covers that I take off when I do a work presentation.)
