“… the MacBook Neo is selling so well that Apple’s supply of the binned A18 Pro chips with a 5-core GPU will ‘run out’ before the company is able to fully satisfy demand for the laptop.”
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Nice problem to have… “It’s selling too well! What do we DO!?”
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It will likely be my next laptop (in 2031, when my 2022 M2 MBP needs replacing 
)
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Which only goes to show that if you have a product and sell it at a reasonable price…
Whatever is Apple coming to? Something for the proles?
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I’ve never used it, of course, but it seems like the perfect machine for a writer. Will run Scrivener, Pages and Safari. The perfect cafe machine. My only complaint would be the non illuminated keyboard (I do rely on this feature more than I realised - especially late at night).
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Tim can make money from his own waste. How can’t you admire this man?
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It’s essentially MBA M1, faster in short, phone style workloads (although Apple may have tweaked it for the laptop) and worse on heavy, sustained tasks, but using Scrivener and browser doesn’t exactly count as one. The non-backlit keyboard is a bit of a bummer, but I’m sure you soon get used to using it with overhead light.
I only just upgraded my M1 Air; 8Gb RAM & 512Gb SSD to M5 Air with 24Gb & 1Tb SSD although M1 still well powerful enough to run everything except heavy image & video editing tasks. I can’t see Neo being any less efficient for “normal” office applications.
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I’m actually thinking about getting a new laptop, and I’d like to get some feedback. Particularly from those who are in school or teaching at a university.
I’m going back to school part time in autumn, and I’m not sure my 2021 M1 MBP can get me through both work and school.
Ideally, I want a machine that will handle my studies and all the troubleshooting tasks required to work full-time on the L&L tech support team. I have a Win 11 machine for troubleshooting and as a backup system, but most of the software and tools I use are on the Mac, so I don’t see myself switching ecosystems right now.
I’m not sure the new M5 MBP are worth the money, but I also worry that going for the Air will be too constraining. I’m curious if anyone has a new MBP or Air and would share their pros and cons.
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Cool! 
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I dont know whether the nano would be sufficient for your L&L support (dont know what sort of tech you require for that). But the air and MBP - $600 price difference ; 14 inch screen as opposed 13 inch ( unless you are getting the larger); more powerful chip in Pro: better screen in Pro. Not really sure if there are any other major differences.
I’m running the M1 16inch Pro with 32GB memory and 2TB hard drive. At the time I wanted to future proof it slightly and am doing a lot of Photography with it - hence wanted the better screen. Nothing I do on it slows it so far. So I think the chip speeds are all more technical charts. Since the M series chips they are ALL pretty good.
I think your decision on Air or Pro will come down to price, weight (probably want the lower weight if you are carting it around a college), and whether you want the better screen ( which isnt going to be relative to your studies).
Many thanks for those insights.
For my work tasks, I tend to have six or more programs open at a time. That includes Scrivener and Vivaldi as my web browser with a lot of tabs and workspaces.
Since I’ll be lugging casebooks and the computer, I’ve been debating weight. The screen isn’t as important since I use an external monitor for most of my work tasks. And, I’ll likely use it for studying on the weekends as well.
Or crazy. It all depends on perspective…
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I upgraded to a 14” M4 MBP last year and I’ve found it has handled everything I’ve thrown at it. Performance wise, I was upgrading from a 2018 Intel MBP so…. Not sure I can help with that.
Everything I’ve read indicates that the M5s are not all that more impressive that the M4s who did have an impressive generational boost.
M3 Max’s may be the current sweet-spot for performance per dollar. If you don’t need to render video or do extensive graphical editing (or shudder run an LLM) the differences will be lost to you, and you will be better served with an M4.
One point that I wish I had someone to tell me before I bought mine was is this: A M4 with 24gb of unified memory performs like a Windows machine with 32gb of ram and 8gb of Vram. Similarly, a M4 with 16gb of unified ram works like a windows machine with 16-24 gb of ram and 6-8gb of Vram. The M-series chips lumps all the system ram together not dissimilar to how the second generation of Pentium 2 business laptops did in the mid aughties, where the difference is that the ram Apple uses for this unified pool is high speed, high grade where those old business class machines were used cheaper ram that equivalent desktop stuff.[1]
You might want to look at what Other World Computing’s MacSales dot com[2] has in stock. A quick peek when I wrote this show several previous generation machines available new at a considerable discount from Apple Retail, a 13” M4 MBA starting at $1250 and a 14” M4 MPB starting at $1.5k for example.
I have found the 14 inch M4 MBP carries well. While the MagSafe charging cable is nice, it is happy to draw power from any USB-C source including the large power bank I carry around. Being a road warrior myself, I pride myself into building a kit that can fit within my tacticool merse[3]
If you want the Air form factor you may have rough time competing with the Neo. Previous generation M4 Air with base 16gb unified ram is slightly more than double the cost of a Neo. It is my opinion than the M4 Air is decidedly more future proof than the Neo and will do more. (Also, the Neo is compared to the M1 Air not the M4 so your performance should be better too.
That said, there is not much difference between the MBP and MBA form factors in the current iterations, the MBP is a little thicker and a little heavier, but if you are counting grams the MBA edges out.
Bonus tidbit: After seeing this setup I’ve added a touchID magic keyboard (without numpad) and a folding laptop stand to my kit, and it has done wonders for my neck! Plus by elevating the screen higher I can more easily angle the screen to mitigate glare without sacrificing viewing angle.
Please forgive this aside if it comes across as condescending. I’ve placed this here because it’s one of the questions I wanted answered and didn’t get answered before I spent money last year. ↩︎
Intentionally not made a link. I like the company and do business with them, but I’m not shilling for them. ↩︎
It’s ballistic nylon with MOLLE webbing, so it’s gotta be too manly to call a daybag, but it functions like a mascline shoulder bag so its sorta is a purse…. Alas, when we will have better terms for real world uses…. ↩︎
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Well done going back to school. I’ve thought about that, but …
Last summer I purchased a new MacBook Air 15” with 32 gb memory and 2 TB of storage. Replacing a 10-year old MacBook Pro.
I usually “grow” to maybe 10 or more apps running (lazy about shutting down), but I don’t think number of apps matter that much. Safari with a dozen or more tabs typically, but I close down after reading. I don’t think any of the apps are CPU intensive all the time. Everything just works fine.
I do a bit of heavy-duty computation with some Python/Pandas code running in Jupyter inside of Google Chrome. Hundreds of millions of records in the dataframe. One of the programs take about an hour to fully run. I just let it run in the background while I do my Scrivener/DEVONthink/Safari stuff. Again, just works. I don’t do any video or photo editing. I also don’t have any VM’s running Linux anymore but I can’t help but think they’d run ok.
Might get better performance on that number-crunching if I had bought a MacBook Pro, but I didn’t want to spend the extra money to get something of little value since waiting an hour is no big deal and would still have to wait with a MacBook Pro. At this change last summer, I replaced not only the MacBook Pro but also an iMac. Going to one computer has been an improvement for me.
I really like the weight and keyboard feel of the MacBook Air. I’ve found that I prefer going “out and about” with the MacBook Air instead of switching to the iPad. My iPad is now redundant and just sits in the desk drawer pretty much now. “One Computer” that is easily with me “on the go” or at “Global HQ” is valuable to me.
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I’d love to have a Neo, but here in Brazil it’s too expensive. And after my 2015 MBA died, my mum won’t buy Apple…
The bad side of being an Apple fan stuck with Windows…
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RuthS - another thought regarding the air/Pro debate is whether you will use it for all your L&L work. If you wanted to - then running Windows via Parrells (for trouble shooting Scrivener on Windows) would be easier on the Pro. And probably the M5.
@Terry_Haddow I asked Grok about running Parallels on MacBook Pro vs. MacBook Air. Is what it says at https://x.com/i/grok/share/0cae998fe0374cf7abf04c40581b423c fair?
It would be great if it were possible to trial these expensive machines before purchasing! Probably a way, but I can’t think how. Cruising the internet and AI only option at moment, probably.
You can, Apple has 14 day no questions asked return policy:
If you change your mind, you can return your Standard hardware to us within 14 calendar days of delivery.
Of course, you must reset the machine before you return it.
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Perfect. @RuthS might be able to experiment. Therefore, to take the decision, I’d say first start with the Air, trying for a while, install Parallels & Windows if that of interest and test how it behaves. If not happy, return the "clean” machine and buy a MacBook Pro.
Which ever machine, buy as much memory and disk as affordable as these machines not upgradable.