Apple unveils cheapest ever MacBook

The display is a 13-inch panel that Apple calls Liquid Retina. It’s the same technology as the MacBook Air, though it lacks Apple’s ‘True Tone’, which adapts the display colours to your environment to help with eye strain. It is also fractionally smaller than the 13.6-inch MacBook Air and the 14-inch base model of the MacBook Pro, but that gives it an advantage in portability, weighing the same as the MacBook Air at 1.2kg.

Battery life is said to be up to 11 hours for browsing the web or 16 hours for streaming video, while connectivity includes Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 6. The MacBook Neo runs macOS 26 Tahoe, which is the latest software version, matching the more expensive MacBooks.

Why does it matter?

I’ve reviewed Apple MacBooks for the last decade, and I used them for the decade before that. The announcement of the MacBook Neo is huge, not only because it makes Apple’s laptops accessible to a wider range of people, but also because it will reinvigorate the budget end of the laptop market in terms of competition.

I’ll be honest, I never thought Apple would hit the £600 price bracket for a laptop, which is actually £500 when you take into account the education discount available to students and teachers. The company has always positioned its MacBooks as premium products compared to Windows laptops, with fancy designs, better performance for creatives, and longer battery life.