What a Wonderful Time to Need a MacBook

The new MacBook Neo. Image from Apple.

I was not optimistic about this year in technology. For good reasons. Companies like OpenAI and Anthropic are buying up every sing RAM chip they can to face their ever-growing processing demands for an industry that is growing like a hockey stick on the chart. Cloud processing demands because of how much we've become dependent on AI have increased 1 million fold in the last decade. NVidia expects to sell over $1 trillion in GPUs by 2030.

All of this means and could mean that your personal computer could double in cost by the end of 2026. A couple of sticks of RAM to upgrade your gaming PC that cost $140 in August 2025 now cost around $400. If you were looking to get a computer in 2026, my advice to everyone was to do it sooner rather than later.

Then Apple announced the Macbook Neo last week. And because I had a few old Mac laptops to trade in, I'm now a proud owner of an Indigo Neo (sounds like a 90's cover band).

If you rewind just to 2018, the Macbook line didn't look that great. That's actually being generous - it was kind of a disaster. The touchbar Mac was the one everyone hated, Intel CPUs were lucky to be updated every 2-3 years and weren't really holding their own against PCs, and the keyboards on Macs were failing right and left, costing customers lots of time and Apple millions of dollars. I had to send my 2016 Macbook in for repair just for the keyboard and it ended up being a 22-day debacle that nearly pushed me to Windows. Nearly.

But as I sit here today typing on my iPhone-chip powered blue Macbook that cost me less than $600 (technically $0 with trade-ins), I can't help but laugh. Seven years after the uncertainty of the late-2010's for the Mac, it has never been a better time to need a Macbook.

I've only had the Macbook Neo for a few days, but it's such a joy. The screen and trackpad alone are better than you would find in $1,000+ PC laptops. The keyboard is bouncy and has the perfect amount of travel. The blue Indigo colorway is bold without being silly. And the performance from the iPhone A18 Pro chip inside this thing is amazing.

It has yet to stutter with one app so far. Now, I haven't edited video or audio on this, I haven't tried Photoshop - but this laptop isn't built for that. This laptop is for moms, college students, and senior citizens. This laptop is the perfect gateway for someone who's been on PC their whole life. Or it could be the perfect gateway to creativity for someone to buy a more powerful laptop down the line.

Speaking of more powerful laptops, Apple isn't resting on its laurels. They also introduced the Macbook Air M5, which could be absolutely perfect for creators on the go. The M5 chip can handle almost every sort of media and graphics editing you could throw at it and would only slow down on the heaviest of workloads. The Macbook Pro with the M5 Pro and M5 Max chips? Forget it. I daily use an M3 Pro that's over two years old now and it hardly has any slowdown issues - you won't have any issues with the M5 Pro and Max chips.

Back to the Macbook Neo - if you've seen it advertised and seen the price tag and been intrigued, and you have a need to update your computer or tablet, just get this. Fun colors, amazing form factor, and solid performance make this the best Mac you can buy. And if you need more power, you know who you are, and you know what you need to go get.

This is the Apple product I wish I'd had in college. It's hopefully one that will be a nice workhorse for me for years to come. It doesn't matter how "disruptive" this laptop is, it matters how many customers buy it, and in turn use it with satisfaction. And I believe that Apple will sell these for a long while.