How Apple’s new low-cost MacBook Neo may shake up the market
With the MacBook Neo, Apple is targeting students and budget-conscious consumers.
With a price tag of $600 — $500 with a student discount — Apple’s new MacBook Neo releasing today is shaking up the entry-level PC market and education sector, competing squarely with similarly priced Windows laptops and Chromebooks.
“It’s certainly very exciting,” said Mark Miller, a lecturer in Khoury College of Computer Sciences and a former Apple employee who oversaw some of its major educational initiatives in the 1980s and ‘90s as part of its Advanced Technology Group.
“I wanted Apple to be doing more of this while I was there,” he added, highlighting that for years Apple’s range of computers have been much too expensive for many schools to purchase.
Miller, who is also the founder and president of Learningtech.org, a nonprofit that works with K-12 schools, colleges and other institutions to integrate technology into the classroom, said the MacBook Neo has the potential to be a major seller in the education market given its affordability, but it will be going up against competitors offering even cheaper options, mainly Chromebooks.
Those low-end laptops running Google’s barebone Chrome OS can be purchased for as little as $150 a pop, he said.
The MacBook Neo isn’t Apple’s first attempt at going after more budget-friendly consumers. It also has a lower-end iPhone 17e, which starts at $600 and the base iPad, which starts at $350.
“Clearly, they are trying to expand their business toward the low end, which tends to be overall larger,” said Miller.
The lower price point means that the Neo doesn’t come with the same beefy specifications found in Apple’s more premium computers, but reviews of the laptop suggest it’s no slouch, with the technology press calling it the “Mac for the masses” and a “near perfect starter Mac.”
The 13-inch Neo features the same A18 Pro chip processor found in last year’s iPhone 16 Pro and comes in four colors — Silver, Indigo, Blush and Citrus.
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The base model comes with 256 gigabytes of internal storage, and eight gigabytes of random access memory, or RAM. That amount of RAM storage may the one major downside with the machine, as RAM is important for allowing a user to have multiple applications running on their computer at once.
For comparison, the $1,099 base level Macbook Air, also releasing today, features Apple’s top-of-the-line M5 processor and twice the amount of storage as the Neo — 512 gigabytes of storage and 16 gigabytes of RAM.
Miller compared it to buying a car.
If the MacBook Air is an affordable vehicle with some extra add-ons, the MacBook Neo is the more “basic version,” he said.
But for the audience Apple is trying to go after here — students and people looking for a cheap and reliable computer —- the specifications most likely will be just fine, Miller said.
Miller said he wouldn’t be surprised if many schools — particularly high schools and higher education institutions — start integrating them into the classroom pretty quickly for software development and to experiment with artificial intelligence technologies.
Alex DePaoli, a professor of marketing at Northeastern University, added that Apple’s strategy of offering its “high-end” devices at a more affordable price may be smart for bringing in a whole class of new consumers.
“There’s something to be said that we keep talking about Apple being a higher-end or more iconic brand,” he said. “It’s a chance to cash in on some of these people who see Apple as aspirational but never been able to afford one of [its computers]. Now there is a chance to get one on the ground floor.”
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Cesareo Contreras is a Northeastern Global News reporter. Email him at c.contreras@northeastern.edu. Follow him on X/Twitter @cesareo_r and Threads @cesareor.