MacBook Neo: Does Apple's budget Mac move PC users to switch?
A post by Apple CEO Tim Cook suggests that the new MacBook Neo is particularly moving PC users to switch. It is the cheapest MacBook ever.
The MacBook Neo has apparently had a very good market launch.
(Image: Sebastian Trepesch / Mac & i)
Does the new MacBook Neo actually motivate people who have previously used a PC to buy a Mac for the first time? An X post from Apple CEO Tim Cook seems to confirm this assumption. The Mac has just had its best launch week for first-time buyers ever, Cook exulted, without specifying the model.
Since the Neo was launched alongside the MacBook Air with M5 and the MacBook Pro with M5 Pro and M5 Max, both of which are continuations of existing models, the Neo is likely to have been the decisive factor. With prices of 699 and 799 Euros for storage configurations with 256 or 512 GByte respectively, Apple is significantly undercutting its previous starting price for Macs with the Neo. The device is therefore the cheapest MacBook Apple has ever sold. The colorful MacBook Neo is set to shake up the laptop market and is specifically aimed at price-conscious buyers.
Attack on the PC mid-range
With the new model, Apple has entered the competition against affordable PC notebooks and is trying to raise the standards for devices in this price range with the use of an aluminum case, the A18 Pro chip, and the 13-inch Liquid Retina display. According to Asus CFO Nick Wu, the affordable MacBook Neo shocks the entire market and forces Windows competitors to adopt new strategies. Of course, there are all sorts of compromises compared to Apple's higher-priced MacBooks, which offer better ports, different screen sizes and qualities, and higher performance, among other things. Furthermore, initial benchmarks show that the MacBook Neo lags significantly behind the M5 models in SSD speed.
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Nevertheless, the new model seems to be performing quite well with its target audience, at least at the start. For online orders on Apple's website, delivery times have already slipped to mid-April. According to Apple, the name is intended to convey a "fresh" feeling; a marketing director of the group recently explained why the MacBook Neo is called that. Longer waiting times are usually an indication that Apple can hardly meet demand. Trade-ins of old devices also reportedly surged in the launch week, reports the website MacRumors. It was even the biggest increase in Mac trade-ins since the release of Apple Silicon Macs between 2020 and 2021. However, those interested in the device should carefully check the technical disadvantages of the MacBook Neo, as Apple has cut corners on the display color space and keyboard backlighting, among other things.
(mki)
