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MacBook Neo: 13-inches, $599, green [1]

['Rob Beschizza']

Date: 2026-03-05  

The long-rumored MacBook Neo is Apple's lowest-priced laptop and comes in a variety of lovely colors: "blush, indigo, silver and a fresh new citrus." It has 8GB of RAM, 256GB or 512GB of storage, a 6-core A18 processor (as found in iPhones) and a promise of all-day battery life. If you're a teacher or student, you can get one for less than $500.

MacBook Neo features a beautifully crafted aluminum design that's built to last. With its soft, rounded corners, MacBook Neo looks elegant while feeling solid and comfortable to hold. At just 2.7 pounds, it's also easy to carry in a backpack or handbag. Bringing a fun touch of personality and style to everyday computing, MacBook Neo comes in a spectrum of four gorgeous colors: blush, indigo, silver, and citrus. These colors extend to the Magic Keyboard in lighter shades and new wallpapers, creating a cohesive design aesthetic and making MacBook Neo the most colorful MacBook yet.

The display is 13 inches, with a 2408×1506 resolution and 500 nits brightness. There are two USB C ports (one of them USB 2 at 480 Mb/s, yikes), Wi-FI 6E and Bluetooth 6. The wide bezel (boo!) means no camera notch (yay!) It can be preordered and will start showing up on March 11, next week.

It's the same weight as a 13-inch MacBook, about a quarter inch shorter wide and deep, but a millimeter or two thicker. I'd hoped for something a little more portable, like the 12" MacBooks of the mid-late 2010s; the iPad seems to be Apple's final answer to that question.

If the points of differentiation with the MacBook are the friendly price and the specs of a cellphone, here's three things I like: the ultra-low power draw, sidearm use for pros who already have a more powerful model but must regularly go into dangerous locales such as coffee shops, and those lovely colors. It might be added that $500 Windows laptops are generally dogshit, and even nicer models (say, the Lenovo IdeaPad Flex) are conspicuously nicer to use in their Chromebook editions. Having a Mac competitively priced against that sort of thing seems auspicious and is certainly well-timed.

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[1] Url: https://boingboing.net/2026/03/05/macbook-neo-13-inches-599-green.html

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