A $100 price hike and a pricing problem
Three months after launch, Apple raised the MacBook Neo price by $100. That’s a double-digit jump on a $599 machine. The culprit? A brutal memory crisis that’s squeezing the entire consumer tech industry.
It’s not just Apple. RAM and chip costs have soared as manufacturers race to build AI infrastructure. Enterprise demand is eating up supply. Everyday buyers are left with fewer options, and those options cost more than they did a year ago.
But here’s the thing: even after the hike, the Neo still works. It’s $400 to $500 cheaper than the entry-level M5 MacBook Air. It packs an aluminum unibody in a world of cheap plastic. And it brings Apple Intelligence features — previously reserved for premium models — to a much lower price point. That’s its magic.
Why the Neo sold like crazy
The MacBook Neo launched in March with an iPhone-class chip, 8GB of RAM, and 256GB of storage. It flew off shelves. Apple initially ordered a few million units, then upped that to over 10 million after just a month. The demand was that strong.
Why? Because it knew exactly who it was for. People who browse the web, manage documents, attend Zoom calls, edit a few photos, and stream Netflix. That’s the audience. They don’t care about local LLMs or on-device AI image generation. They just want a laptop that works, feels premium, and doesn’t break the bank.
The Neo checked every box that mattered. It became an aggressive gateway into the Apple ecosystem. And it did all that without chasing the AI hype.
The AI arms race is ruining budget laptops
Look at what’s happening with Windows OEMs. Most brands below $1,000 are scrambling to meet Microsoft’s Copilot+ PC requirements. That means at least 45 TOPS of on-device AI compute. That means more powerful CPUs, GPUs, or system-on-chips like Qualcomm’s. That means larger memory pools and faster memory. And that means higher prices.
The result? Budget laptops are getting expensive. They’re being stuffed with hardware most people don’t need. The MacBook Neo, with its modest 8GB of RAM and repurposed A18 Pro chip, made sense precisely because it ignored that race.
Apple already segments its AI features
Apple isn’t treating AI as a uniform experience. Older iPhones like the iPhone 15 don’t support Apple Intelligence at all. The new Siri AI is available on the Neo and the iPhone 17, but advanced features like on-device Siri voices are limited to the iPhone 17 Pro or iPhone Air.
Apple is comfortable drawing those lines. The Neo’s successor doesn’t need to chase parity. It just needs to hold its lane.
What the Neo 2 should (and shouldn’t) do
If Apple wants to improve performance, it could reuse binned A19 Pro chips, much like it did with the A18 Pro in the Neo. That keeps costs down. It could stick with older, cheaper DDR4 memory instead of jumping to DDR5. That’s perfectly fine for browsing and video calls.
The Neo doesn’t need a desktop-class NPU, a massive GPU, or 16GB of baseline memory. Those components would add $100 to $200 to the price, pushing the Neo closer to $1,000. That would cannibalize the MacBook Air and blur the Neo’s identity.
The 512GB storage variant already costs $800 in the US. Push it much higher, and the Neo loses its reason to exist.
Good enough hardware is a proven strategy
Apple wouldn’t be the first to take this approach. Intel is bringing back older processors for budget machines. Dell recently launched laptops powered by Nvidia’s aging RTX 3050 GPU. Neither company pretends everyone needs the latest CPU or GPU. They recognize the value of “good enough” hardware.
The Neo worked because it knew what it wanted to be: an affordable entry-level laptop that handles lightweight day-to-day tasks while being light on your wallet. Its biggest strength was knowing how few AI it actually needed to succeed.
The bottom line: don’t fix what isn’t broken
The best cheap MacBook is worth far more than the cheapest AI MacBook, which costs hundreds more. I hope the team in Cupertino keeps that in mind as they work on the Neo’s successor.
The Neo’s identity is its price and its simplicity. Adding AI hardware would ruin both. Apple should resist the trend, stay in its lane, and let the Neo be what it is: a genuinely affordable laptop that doesn’t pretend to be something else.
