I was tempted by the Neo images, size/weight specs (in comparison to my M2 MBA) but especially the apparent return of an SD card slot (I use cameras that use SD cards) on the side, in promo images.
Then I scrolled thru the specs and more photos and realised those are speaker ports not an SD card slot, doh! 
And the max 512GB storage wouldn’t work for my situation/wants.
I did the same thing.
And John Gruber’s review. The money quote:
I’ll just say it: I think I’m done with iPads. Why bother when Apple is now making a crackerjack Mac laptop that starts at just $600? May the MacBook Neo live so long that its name becomes inapt.
Also from John Gruber’s review:
The Neo has no notch. Instead, it has a larger black bezel surrounding the entire display than do the MacBook Airs and Pros. I consider this an advantage for the Neo, not a disadvantage. The MacBook notch has not grown on me, and the Neo’s display bezel doesn’t bother me at all.
I use my M1 MBA so often, I had forgotten that most other Macs have notches. I’m one of those people who has a lot of menu bar icons and would rather have a bigger bezel and smaller display than wrestle with third-party utilities to re-arrange icons around an annoying notch.
I agree completely. Those that have been using iPads as cheap laptops (equipping them with keyboards and mice) have almost certainly been doing so because there were not cheap/good laptops. And now there is one.
Tablets are great devices, but they are not small laptops. They have different use-cases, and have different preferred UI mechanisms.
If you are an artist who needs to be able to draw onto a computer screen, a tablet is absolutely perfect. Likewise if you’re producing video and like to do in-camera editing. If you’re into mobile gaming and want a larger screen, that’s another great use-case.
But if you what you need are desktop productivity apps, and were only using a tablet due to the hardware cost, I would argue that the tablet was always the wrong choice, and was a compromise driven by budget.
And now there’s no longer a need for such compromises. Yes, you can get iPads equipped with more RAM and storage (e.g., some configurations of iPad Pro), but if you are buying one of those, then the reason has nothing to do with the price tag.
And cellular data - the one thing MacBooks are still missing.
Another good review from The Verge, this time with a gift link:
It’s definitely a worthy consideration if you anticipate a lot of remote use, especially if the alternative is public wi-fi. On the other hand, the cost of tethering phones to laptops has come down quite a lot (essentially zero for some carriers), so that may be good enough for a lot of people.
Regarding Gruber and being “done with iPad” – it really depends on your use case. I’ve never been a laptop person and what I do on an iPad doesn’t require a keyboard; the standard iPad form factor is what I want when I’m using that.
(We have a Macbook Air that I use when I need to, but somehow the basic laptop form factor requires either the screen or the keyboard to be far away from where I want it to be.)
From On My Om blog, fye. Thoughtful, not specful look, at MBNeo. fye.
An interesting read on the meaning of neo. I learned something today.
He is, among other things, a photographer – and his photos, not surprisingly, emphasize minimalism.
My iPad is a completely different use case and the Neo isn’t a replacement.
Perhaps, but there are still drawbacks. Without a third-party utility, there is no way to get MacOS to limit the amount of data syncing that could be put off until there is a wifi or ethernet connection; it drains the battery of your phone; it’s sometimes fragile (meaning that it will disconnect randomly without discernible cause). That is not the case for a cellular iPad, and would not be if Apple built cellular modems into MacBooks (they’d put in the data usage controls that iPadOS and iOS have when using cellular data vs. WiFi, for instance.)
I use my iPad a lot for reading material - I find it better than my Mac and iPhone for that - I use it for watching YouTube videos - ditto vs. Mac and iPhone - and I use it as my computer when I travel on vacation, where I can use cellular data rather than public wifi, or where wifi doesn’t exist. A much-heavier MacBook Neo could replace that for me, but I like using the iPad for this. Of course, the iPad has the drawback of not having a built-in hardware keyboard, but I can get by with the onscreen keyboard.
I remain surprised that Apple hasn’t added their new cellular modem chips to at least MacBook Pro models, at least as an option.
I agree. I’m 100% a notebook person and I don’t even have an iPad anymore. But I still like the idea that Apple offers all this variety — they are a huge computer company. They can handle the reality that different users have vastly different use cases. So while I think Neo is great, I still want to see more and better iPad development.
What I would critique about the current iPad is its price/performance relative to the MB Neo. The inexpensive iPad hits the right price, but its specs are sub-par vs. Neo. The iPad Air has better specs, but just compare its $700 (11"/256) price tag to the Neo’s $600. And if you compare a 13" iPad Air at $900 it’s even crazier.
Doesn’t “Low Data Mode” limit a lot of the background stuff?
I guess! Somehow I forgot that Apple added that.
I did stop by the Apple Store today to pick up my pre-ordered M5 MacBook Air and stopped to try out the Neo. It’s just as the reviews described - the screen seems fine to me; the keyboard seems the same as an MBA; if I hadn’t known from the reviews that the trackpad was different, I don’t think I would have noticed. At least from a usability point of view, it felt to me just like using a MacBook Air.
They’ll have to prise my beloved iPad Mini from my cold dead hands…
I do think that the Neo is a great alternative to a Chromebook; I’m going to be pointing that out to a lot of my friends and neighbors.
I also think that Apple’s tagline: “Love at first Mac” is right on target.
Truth be told, if I hadn’t replace my 2018 MacBook Air and it’s second dying keybord at the end of 2024 with an M3, I’d be buying a maxed out Neo.
It’s really all I need. I write. I use TextEdit, BBEdit, Bear, Scriven and Pages. At a publisher’s editing stage I get a short term license for whatever version of Micrsoft Word they want me to use.
A Neo would suit me fine.
I just don’t know how I’d choose between Citrus and Indigo.
Citrus. No, Indigo. No, Citrus. Nope, I can’t do it either.
I was able to play with some Neos at an Apple Store. The Citrus is beautiful, but the polished deck around the keyboard is super shiny. I think it makes it harder to view the display. Blush is also shiny but not quite as much. Indigo is a bit darker. I didn’t play with the silver, but it should be the same as other MacBooks.
While we were at the store, we ran into a guy who was looking at iPads and wondering how they worked with keyboards. He was looking to replace a Chromebook but was unaware of the Neos, assuming the MacBooks were out of his price range. It didn’t take much convincing to have him target a Neo instead.