This is now my goto laptop recommendation. For friends and relatives.
Just enough storage and RAM to not be terrible. More than enough power to do about everything a Chromebook user would want.
this post was submitted on 04 Mar 2026
22 points (95.8% liked)
Apple
20293 readers
71 users here now
Welcome
to the largest Apple community on Lemmy. This is the place where we talk about everything Apple, from iOS to the exciting upcoming Apple Vision Pro. Feel free to join the discussion!
Rules:
- No NSFW Content
- No Hate Speech or Personal Attacks
- No Ads / Spamming
Self promotion is only allowed in the pinned monthly thread
Communities of Interest:
Apple Hardware
Apple TV
Apple Watch
iPad
iPhone
Mac
Vintage Apple
Apple Software
iOS
iPadOS
macOS
tvOS
watchOS
Shortcuts
Xcode
Community banner courtesy of u/Antsomnia.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Man, these look great for the price point. Strangely though, lower priced Apple products don’t sell that well. I guess we’ll see.
People who want a low cost option are generally not in the Apple ecosystem because the rest of the products are out of their price range. Then, there’s my husband that hates anything that isn’t Windows because he finds macOS and Linux too much to relearn. These products are coming about now to capture the Gen Alpha kids getting ready for college, who are like 90:100 iPhone and iPad users (in the US).
Gen Alpha kids getting ready for college, who are like 90:100 iPhone and iPad users (in the US).
strange, because in STEM most software is Windows or Linux
No one is going to switch to windows/Linux to run classroom software, especially not instrumentation software. There’s always a terminal PC connected to the instrumentation machine that’s connected to the internet to just send your data to yourself. Gen Alpha kids in the US have been raised on iPads and some are as technologically handicapped as boomers when it comes to desktop OS software.
8 GB of RAM is a hard no go.
8GB on a Mac is fine, you just won’t run any advanced LLM’s on it locally, which the vast majority of people won’t bother with anyway
The people that need more than 8gb are not the target market. This is for people that want a word processor, web browser and email. Not much more.
If you’re editing video, photos, etc you are not the market.
I think this same computer at 699, or even 799, would have been a total home run for Apple.
599? and if this is anything like the mac mini deals in the high 400s will be possible.
Genuinely great deal for a majority of people.'
I think people who don't think this don't realize how fucking awful cheap pc laptop's still are.
Edu discount makes it $499 for the base model.
https://www.apple.com/us-edu/shop/buy-mac/macbook-neo
Chromebooks are going to get slaughtered. This also takes away from Framework 12 by price-conscious consumers.
Framework advantage is that it’s serviceable. I think that’s its target market more than its price.
Underspec laptop & locked into apple lol. Why would i want this