The $599 MacBook Neo fine print: RAM limits, USB-C trade-offs, and Touch ID tiers

Source: 9to5Mac

Apple just announced the new MacBook Neo, its most affordable Mac laptop by a lot. To achieve the $599 starting price, the new MacBook Neo makes a few compromises along the way. These are some you should be aware of when considering the MacBook Neo.

You can upgrade storage and add Touch ID, but there’s only one RAM amount

At $599, MacBook Neo comes with 256 GB storage— the same amount that Apple put inside the $999 M4 MacBook Air before doubling the base SSD size and raising the price of the M5 MacBook Air.

For $100 more, MacBook Neo offers 512 GB storage and adds Touch ID.

However, there’s no option to add more RAM. Both configurations are stuck with 8 GB RAM.

Up until just over a year ago, Apple started most of its Macs with 8 GB RAM, but later doubled the base offering to 16 GB. The new MacBook Neo brings us back to 8 GB, but at a price that’s hard to debate. Customers who need more RAM will need to look to the MacBook Air instead.

MacBook Neo has two USB‑C ports with different speeds, and no MagSafe charging

MacBook Neo has two USB‑C ports for charging and data, but they are not identical:

• One USB‑C port offers USB 2 speeds (up to 480 Mb/s).
• The other offers USB 3 speeds (up to 10 Gb/s) and DisplayPort. The back port is the faster of the two, though the ports are not labeled on the machine.

Like the M1 MacBook Air that Apple kept around as a budget machine exclusively through Walmart, the MacBook Neo does not have MagSafe charging. It is also only capable of connecting to a single external display.

That limitation was a sore spot for the M1 MacBook Air because the Intel MacBook Air it replaced could support multiple external displays, but it shouldn’t be a major issue for the MacBook Neo.

What do you think of these compromises? Does the $599 starting price (or $499 for education) make these trade‑offs worth it?