I held off on the MacBook Neo. I hope the next one fixes these 5 papercuts before I plonk cash

The MacBook Neo stopped me in my tracks, not because it’s a beautiful piece of tech that appeals to the enthusiast inside me. It’s the overall pitch that Apple puts on the table — aluminum build, efficient silicon, and great battery life — all at an implausible price tag of $599. I wanted to experience it, and I almost bought it a couple of weeks ago. 

But I didn’t. And it wasn’t because Neo is a bad machine. I got to experience the device for a couple of days (thanks to my friend who splurged his money on it), and the more I dug into what Apple had left out to hit the astonishingly low price, the more I felt like pushing my purchase until the Neo gets better. 

5 things I want the next MacBook Neo to fix

Because here’s the thing: I get most of the trade-offs. What I don’t understand, however, is why some of the cuts were made in the first place, as they’re more about snatching away the iconic MacBook experience than saving costs for the company. So, dear Apple, fix these five things on the next MacBook Neo, and I’ll have my wallet out before you guys start accepting pre-orders. 

A19 Pro could help push the performance ceiling

For a first-generation device, the MacBook Neo does really well with Apple’s A18 Pro chip (borrowed from the iPhone 16 Pro, with one less GPU core). I was surprised at how well it handles everyday tasks like browsing, emailing, and, most importantly, multitasking with a dozen different Chrome tabs. 

But here’s why I pumped the brakes. The A18 Pro holds its own at day-to-day tasks, but due to the lack of additional cores compared to the M-series, it runs behind in intense workflows like photo editing, graphic designing, or even coding.

This is where a better, more powerful chip could help the Neo up its game, not just for immediate gains, but to keep the Neo relevant for the next four or five years, especially as AI-driven tasks would require even more computational power. 

The good news? Apple is already working on putting the A19 Pro (from the iPhone 17 Pro) inside the next iteration, and I’ll take that all day. The chip brings meaningful upgrades across the CPU, GPU, and Neural Engine, and should enhance the overall Neo experience.

It’s Apple’s optimization that’s doing the heavy lifting here, not 8GB of RAM

I’ll give credit where it’s due. It isn’t just the 8GB of physical RAM on the MacBook Neo doing the heavy lifting. It’s Apple’s iron grip over hardware and software optimization (including temporary swap-in memory) that makes browsing, streaming, and general multitasking feel like a breeze on the Neo.

However, the moment I pushed it by running multiple apps simultaneously, like Chrome (with over two dozen active tabs) with Apple Music, and added FaceTime to this combination, the memory ceiling became apparent. Unlike a Windows laptop, where upgrading RAM is an option, with MacBooks, what you buy is what you live with.

In my opinion, the device is aimed squarely at first-time laptop buyers: students, new professionals, and people looking for a secondary on-the-go device, and it serves them quite well. But with the unavoidable memory slowdown, 8GB of RAM isn’t going to cut the mustard forever.

For me, more RAM doesn’t just solve the immediate multitasking bottleneck; it solves the longevity problem, too. Fortunately, the A19 Pro chip is rumored to bring 12GB of unified memory as a standard on the next Neo, and that should’ve been the baseline from day one.

I type in the dark every single day

While the other things are not immediately apparent, this one baffled me right when I unfolded the thing for the first time. The Neo skips the backlit keyboard, a feature so standard in 2026 that even budget Windows laptops don’t think twice about it.

Apple’s workaround is the color-matched keyboard with lighter keys across all four finishes, and sure, the display’s glow does a decent job of illuminating the keys. However, it’s no workaround for a good old backlit keyboard, which even my M1 MacBook Air has, not only because it looks cool at night, but because it makes finding the function keys a whole lot easier. 

I can’t stress enough how much a backlit keyboard would help the Neo’s target audience: students working on assignments late at night, frequent travelers working on the go, in dimly lit plane seats or train compartments, or people like me, who’d rather work outside at night than be cooped up indoors. 

The trackpad doesn’t feel like it’s on a MacBook

One of the most distinctive aspects of MacBooks, a hallmark of every MacBook for nearly a decade, is the haptic trackpad. It was one of the features that wowed me before my first-ever MacBook purchase, and calling it anything but iconic would be a mistake. And the Neo, somehow, doesn’t have it. 

Instead, it has a mechanical trackpad that clicks like a budget Windows laptop or Chromebook, and that’s exactly what I’ll never expect or accept, not from Apple. Don’t get me wrong, though. The Neo’s trackpad works just fine, but the moment you use it after using another MacBook, the difference is impossible to miss.

And while we’re at it, paywalling Touch ID on a higher storage tier is something that didn’t sit well with me either, but I’ll let it pass given that it isn’t something I use as often as the keyboard and the trackpad.

The USB 2 port doesn’t come in handy while transferring files

It could be while someone is trying to offload their iPhone’s data on the MacBook, or getting pictures or videos of a vacation via an external storage drive, that Neo users would notice how tremendously slow the USB 2 port on the device is (the one closer to the trackpad). 

And it adds up faster than anyone would think. Even a 20GB iPhone backup that takes minutes via a USB 3 connection will have you wait for about half an hour on USB 2. For people who are always working, trying to be productive around the clock, that feels like the deepest cut. 

I’m not asking for a Thunderbolt port, but both ports running at USB 3 speeds is, in my opinion, a reasonable ask in 2026. 

Bottom line

None of these things is a dealbreaker at $599, and not even a question at $499 with education pricing. To Apple’s credit, the Neo is one of the most impressive first-generation devices I’ve seen and used in a long time.

Clearly, it’s the years of experience in making MacBooks that help the company. What annoys me, however, is when the Neo starts feeling like it’s one-upping the competition rather than staying true to its Apple roots. 

The chipa nd RAM upgrades are already rumored, and I’m cautiously excited about them. But if anyone at Apple is reading this, please bring back the backlit keyboard, haptic trackpad, and bring both ports to the same USB 3 standard. Do that, and the next MacBook Neo will have something more than my attention — my money.