For years, MacBook Air has been the most popular laptop model on the planet... but that could be about to change.
Apple will launch MacBook Neo worldwide tomorrow – the first all-new laptop model introduced by the Californian brand since its 12-inch MacBook launched in April 2015 — and it has all of the hallmarks of a blockbuster hit. Ahead of the release, GBN Tech has spent some time with the 13-inch MacBook Neo. And we're seriously impressed.
At £599, MacBook Neo is the first budget-friendly laptop from Apple.
To put that price tag into context, that's the same cost tag as the most affordable model in the iPhone 17 lineup, £200 cheaper than the regular iPhone 17, and half the cost of the newest MacBook Air. It's the same price as the Mac mini — until now, the most affordable macOS device available in your nearest Apple Store – and that dinky PC needs to be paired with your own display, keyboard, speakers, and trackpad.
MacBook Neo is Apple's first all-new laptop model since the 12-inch MacBook launched in April 2015
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Despite occupying a similar footprint to the MacBook Air, the lack of a 'notch' at the top of the screen means the MacBook Neo has a slightly smaller screen (13-inch versus 13.6-inches)
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If you're in full-time education, you'll pay just £499 for the entry-level model
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What makes MacBook Neo even more impressive is that a good portion of its target audience won't even pay £599 at checkout. If you're in full-time education or you work as an educator, that price tag plummets to just £499.
That's what you'd expect to pay for a decent Windows 11 laptop or Chromebook.
In comparison, the most affordable laptop available from arch-nemesis Microsoft – the 13-inch Surface Laptop launched back in May 2025 – starts from £899. At the time of writing, the most popular Chromebook currently sold at Currys is an ASUS-built model with an RRP of £499, although it's on sale for £399 for a limited time.
All of that to say: MacBook Neo arrives with a supremely competitive price tag.
MacBook Neo's all-aluminium case arrives in a variety of colourful finishes, including Citrus, Blush, Indigo, and Silver
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Despite that, MacBook Neo feels just as premium as the other laptop models in the Apple Store. The all-aluminium chassis feels robust enough to withstand years of being haphazardly thrown into a rucksack. Unlike the rest of the lineup, MacBook Neo comes in a variety of colours – Blush, Indigo, Silver, and Citrus.
Aside from the stylish Sky Blue colourway for the MacBook Air, the rest of Apple's laptops remain pretty desaturated, so it's refreshing to see a splash of colour on the MacBook Neo.
For purists, the Silver colourway looks closest to a MacBook Air.
Apple has (very) subtly colour-matched the chiclet keyboard on each MacBook Neo to the aluminium case, which adds to the personality of this wallet-friendly laptop. In our time testing the MacBook Neo, we've found the keyboard is indistinguishable from any other Apple-designed laptop – that's to say, it offers a superb typing experience.
If you're new to a MacBook, it'll take a few days to get up to speed with the Magic Keyboard, but after that, you'll struggle to go back to anything else.
But while the typing experience is identical to its costlier cousins, the large multi-touch trackpad is different. Apple hasn't fitted this affordable MacBook with its Force Touch trackpad, which uses the same Taptic Engine found inside recent iPhone models, to simulate clicks. These trackpads don't depress, but using one, you wouldn't know it.
Not only that, the Taptic Engine will tap your fingertip in other scenarios — letting you know that you've scrubbed to the end of a video clip while editing a project, for example. None of that is built into the glass trackpad on MacBook Neo, which physically depresses each time you click.
It's a shame that Neo owners will miss out on the extra functionality, but if Apple had to make some concessions to achieve its £499 price tag, this seems like a good place to cut. Pinch, swipe, and tap gestures are all supported by the expansive multi-touch trackpad on the MacBook Neo.
If you owned an Apple laptop before 2015, the experience on the MacBook Neo is a blast from the past.
Apple has fitted its budget-conscious laptop with a 13-inch Liquid Retina display capable of 500-nits of brightness, capable of showcasing 1 billion colours. Apple has added an anti-reflective coating so you can take your lightweight laptop to watch movies, edit photos, or make video calls anywhere.
It's a decent display — text looks pleasantly sharp with vibrant colours. If you want a MacBook Neo for some coursework, research, web browsing, video calls, and watching videos, this 13-inch Liquid Retina display is fine.
There's no notch in the border around the Liquid Glass display – another differentiator between the MacBook Neo and the £1,099 MacBook Air. That means, despite occupying a similar amount of space on your desk, the MacBook Neo has a slightly smaller amount of screen real estate compared to the 13.6-inch display inside the MacBook Air.
Apple has paired the 1080p FaceTime HD camera with dual-microphones, so your video calls look and sound great
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Inside the chunkier bezel, Apple has fitted a 1080p FaceTime HD camera and dual-microphones for video calls. While this camera isn't the sharpest (if you own a recent iPhone, we'd stick with that for FaceTime calls), it's absolutely fine to dial-in for a remote lecture, quick catch-up with friends, or a virtual job interview. And with support for Wi‑Fi 6E, you should enjoy a reliable and fast internet connection on the MacBook Neo.
MacBook Neo boasts a 3.5mm headphone port for wired audio and Bluetooth 6 for reliable connections for peripherals, like wireless mice, and accessories, like AirPods Pro 3. For comparison, the 14-inch MacBook Pro released late last year only offers Bluetooth 5.3 and commands a £1,699 price tag.
Apple estimates 16-hours of battery life with MacBook Neo.
That should be more than enough to work all day or power through a long-haul flight on a single charge. When it's time to recharge, you'll need to use one of the two USB-C ports built into the side of the chassis to refuel.
Yes, there's no MagSafe charger on the MacBook Neo — setting it apart from the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro, which both ship with this handy cable in the box, which snaps into place using magnets and can detach safely if someone trips over the cable when your laptop is charging.
You'll need to spend an extra £100 for the upgraded MacBook Neo model with 512GB of storage to benefit from a Touch ID fingerprint scanner to quickly login, authenticate payments, and more
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It's a shame that MagSafe didn't make the cut. While the robust all-aluminium build should mean the MacBook Neo shrugs off plenty of unintentional bumps and grazes, Apple solved the headache of accidentally launching your laptop off the desk when (inevitably) tripping over the charging cable decades ago. It's something other manufacturers have raced to copy. As such, we'd love to see this design make it to a future MacBook Neo model.
For now, if you're particularly prone to accidents and want the security of MagSafe, you'll need to upgrade to the MacBook Air from £1,099 – or £999 if you're in full-time education.
What really sets the MacBook Neo apart from the rest of the lineup is the processor powering the experience. Under the bonnet, Apple is using the A18 Pro system-on-a-chip that launched with the iPhone 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max.
Don't be fooled by the fact that this custom-designed silicon made its debut inside a smartphone, Apple says its tests show MacBook Neo is 50% speedier faster for everyday tasks like web browsing, and up to 3x faster when crunching through on-device AI tasks – like applying edits to high-resolution effects – compared to PCs fuelled by the latest-generation Intel Core Ultra 5 chipset.
That's the same silicon that powers that bestselling Chromebook on Currys that we referenced earlier.
The 16-core Neural Engine built into the silicon handles on-device AI tasks, like summarising pages of notes into a few bullet points in the Bear app, or using the Clean Up tool in the Photos app to remove unwanted people from the background of your shots, while ensuring no data is sent from your lightweight laptop to the cloud.
GBN Tech will be putting this chipset through its paces over the coming days, so stay tuned to see if the A18 Pro can handle the schoolwork, emails, web browsing, spreadsheets, and photo edits that we'd expect to be able to do with this lightweight laptop. MacBook Neo is also fanless, so it runs completely silently.
It's worth noting that the entry-level £599 model forgoes a Touch ID fingerprint sensor, this useful feature makes an appearance on the £699 MacBook Neo with 512GB storage. With a quick tap, Touch ID lets you log in without typing a password, unlocks secure apps – like banking, and authenticates payments via Apple Pay when shopping online.