Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) launched its cheapest laptop in over a decade on Wednesday, making its first serious play for the budget PC market it has long ceded to Chromebooks and entry-level Windows machines.
The MacBook Neo starts at $599 — $400 below the MacBook Air and a price point Apple has not touched in the laptop segment since before the M-series chip era.
The launch puts it in direct competition with a market segment that has historically been out of reach for Apple buyers, covering classrooms, first-time buyers, and cost-conscious consumers who wanted a Mac but couldn’t justify the premium.
The move is made possible by an unusual engineering choice: the Neo runs on the A18 Pro, an iPhone chip, rather than the M-series processors that power every other Mac.
That swap dramatically lowers Apple’s production costs without requiring it to build an entirely new architecture — and it gives the company a credible path into a price tier rivals are actually struggling to hold.
A global RAM shortage has squeezed component costs across the PC industry, with analysts warning that shrinking margins could push the cheap Windows laptop segment toward extinction by 2028.
“Built from the ground up to be more affordable for even more people,” said John Ternus, Apple’s senior vice president of Hardware Engineering, at the product’s launch event in New York.
The Neo ships in four colors — blush, indigo, citrus, and silver — with a 13-inch Liquid Retina display, 16-hour battery life, and 256GB base storage. The price point comes with trade-offs: 8GB of RAM with no upgrade path, a non-backlit keyboard, and no MagSafe charging.
Education buyers receive an additional $100 discount, bringing the floor to $499. A $699 configuration doubles storage to 512GB and adds Touch ID.
Apple says the Neo runs 50% faster on everyday tasks and three times faster on on-device AI workloads than the bestselling PC with Intel’s latest Core Ultra 5.
The device opens for pre-order Wednesday and ships March 11.
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