The only differences between the Neo’s appearance and the Air’s, other than being a bit more compact and the color choices, are the softer, more rounded edges on the Neo’s lid and the color-matched keyboard. Instead of black keys, the Neo’s match the body’s color. And the two laptops feel the same when you pick them up, both in their smooth, brushed-aluminum surfaces and their overall system weight. Despite being slightly more compact than the MacBook Air, the MacBook Neo is a hair thicker at 0.5 inches (versus the Air at 0.4 inches) and weighs the same at 2.7 pounds.

The Neo’s display bezels are also a bit thicker than the Air’s, but Apple uses the bigger top bezel to hide the webcam; in other words, there’s no notch in the menu bar to house the camera, which makes the thicker bezels more palatable. If the Neo had a webcam notch, then I would have wanted Apple to find a way to thin out the bezels on the Neo and squeeze in the same 13.6-inch display that you get with the MacBook Air — or at least get closer to it in size.

The Neo’s color performance is merely mediocre, but people who engage in color-accurate graphics work aren’t the Neo’s audience. In fact, this type of user will probably pass on the Air in favor of the Liquid Retina XDR display that comes with a MacBook Pro. On my tests, the MacBook Neo covered 98% of sRGB, 73% of AdobeRGB and 74% of P3. Compare that with the M5 Air that hit 100% of sRGB, 86% of AdobeRGB and 98% of P3. But again, color performance isn’t likely high on a budget laptop shopper’s priority list. Most people interested in the Neo will skip right over this paragraph and want to get to the features that the Neo has and doesn’t have. So, let’s get to it.

Missing features I miss

Apple sent me the base $599 model that has a 256GB SSD and a lock button in the top right of the keyboard, where I desperately want a Touch ID sensor. You can add Touch ID for an extra $100, which also doubles the storage to a 512GB SSD. I’d spend $100 just to get Touch ID because I use it so frequently, not just to get past the MacOS lock screen but to access my various online accounts and make online purchases. I’d spend a nickel every time I could use Touch ID instead of having to remember and type in a password, and it would pay for itself in a few months. (I would conservatively estimate I use Touch ID 20 times a day, so I’d have 2,000 nickels in the till after only 100 days.)

I would also gladly accept the greater storage that comes with the Neo’s Touch ID upgrade. Most users will quickly fill the 256GB SSD to capacity. After logging in with my Apple ID, I had only 145GB of free storage on the Neo’s 256GB drive, with roughly 25GB allocated each to Messages, Photos, Applications and MacOS Tahoe itself. The added storage space and Touch ID are well worth the added $100.

The Neo offers USB-C charging, which doesn’t snap into place or disconnect as easily. And it doesn’t charge as fast. The Neo comes with a 20-watt power adapter that doesn’t charge the battery as fast as even the standard 40- to 60-watt dynamic charger that comes with the M5 Air. The Neo took about an hour to charge the battery to 50%, which the M5 Air did in approximately half that time. The Neo took 1 hour and 45 minutes to reach 80% and 2.5 hours to reach full charge. 

One last nitpick with the Neo’s charging setup: The power cord is 20 inches shorter than the Air’s, which might cramp your style if you need to charge in a coffee shop or lunchroom and aren’t sitting right next to an outlet. At least the Neo’s power cord is braided like the Air’s, so it doesn’t tangle as easily, but it’s not color-matched. My blush Neo has a white power cord. Also, both ports are on the left side, so you lose some charging flexibility there as well. 

Missing features I can live without

There are other features that go missing on the MacBook Neo that you get with the Air that I’m willing to concede to shave $500 off the cost. 

First, let’s talk about the 8GB of RAM. That’s half the MacBook Air’s memory, and you can’t upgrade it. For my needs of using Google Docs and Sheets with dozens of other open tabs in Chrome next to the ChatGPT Atlas browser, doing some light photo editing in Photos, keeping Messages open for responding to texts using the keyboard instead of grabbing my iPhone and streaming music in the Spotify app, the 8GB suffices. I even did some of my normal edits in iMovie, and that workflow went smoothly, too.

I’ve had an entirely pleasant MacOS experience on the Neo the past few days and rarely saw the MacOS spinning beachball. I haven’t missed having 16GB of memory, but if you need a MacBook for more demanding graphics work, then you’ll want to step up to at least a MacBook Air for its added memory as well as the additional CPU and GPU cores you get with an M5 processor compared with the Neo’s A18 Pro chip. More on Neo’s performance in the next section.

When I saw that the MacBook Neo has a mechanical trackpad instead of the Force Touch trackpad you get with the Air, I was certain I’d pine for the Force Touch’s haptic feedback. But the Neo’s mechanical touchpad is surprisingly awesome. It offers a consistent click response across its entire surface. There’s not even a hint of the diving-board effect that plagues most mechanical keyboards; a click on the top edge feels no different than a click on the bottom edge of the Neo’s trackpad.

The Neo lacks Apple’s N1 chip, which you get with the M5 MacBook Air for Wi-Fi 7. Like most people I know, I haven’t upgraded to a Wi-Fi 7 router, so I’m OK with the Neo’s Wi-Fi 6E networking.

The laptop also has a 1080p webcam, but it doesn’t support Center Stage or Desk View. I have never felt the need to use Desk View on my MacBook Pro, and I remain fairly stationary during video calls, so I don’t miss the Center Stage feature that keeps you centered in the frame.

Lastly, you miss out on Apple’s True Tone technology with the Neo. It uses ambient light sensors to adjust the display’s white balance so text and images look more natural and accurate. I’ve been using the MacBook Neo for only four days, but so far I haven’t found myself missing True Tone.  

MacBook Neo performance

Inside, the biggest change between the Neo and other MacBooks is the processor. The Neo doesn’t use one of Apple’s M-series processors but an iPhone chip — the A18 Pro that was introduced with the iPhone 16 Pro in 2024. The A18 Pro has a six-core CPU (two performance cores and four efficiency cores) and a five-core GPU. Compare that with the M5 chip that powers the new MacBook Air: The M5 has a 10-core CPU (four performance cores, which Apple now calls “super cores,” and six efficiency cores) and either an eight- or 10-core GPU. The Neo’s core count is closer to the M1 MacBook Air’s from 2020, but the older M1 Air has more, with eight CPU cores and seven GPU cores.

Those extra cores show up in our multicore tests for Geekbench 6 and Cinebench 2024, where the Neo finished near or at the back of the pack. It was able to edge the M1 Air on the multicore test of Geekbench 6, but its multicore score on Cinebench 2024 was well off the pace of the other MacBooks, as well as two budget Windows laptops in the Acer Aspire 14 AI and HP OmniBook 5.

The Neo’s battery life was also better than many Chromebooks we’ve tested, but it’s still several hours shorter than that of other MacBooks. It lasted nearly 13.5 hours in our YouTube streaming battery-drain test, which was about 3.5 hours shorter than the M5 MacBook Air did on the same test. It was also more than 2 hours shorter than the M1 MacBook Air’s time. We have also seen much longer runtimes from Windows laptops based on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X series processors and Intel’s Lunar Lake and Panther Lake chips. 

While 13.5 hours should be enough to last through a long day at school or work, it doesn’t give you the carefree ability to leave your MacBook unplugged for a couple of days at a time. With the MacBook Neo, you’ll probably want to remember to charge it each night. 

Should I buy a MacBook Neo?

Without question, I would have purchased a MacBook Neo instead of a more expensive MacBook Air for each of my kids had it been an option a few years ago when they were in high school. (I’ve since had to buy my daughter a second Air in college after her first Air died, which makes the Neo an even better bargain when you factor in the chance of needing to buy a replacement.) My kids are generally gender-conforming, so I could see my daughter picking the blush model and my son going for indigo, while I sat back, hoping that one of them would choose citrus, my favorite color among the Neo’s four choices.