TBF - It still does "just work," The fact that it doesn't completely fit into your (and my) preferences doesn't really change that, and if that's the standard, then everything will fall short of it.
If the icons are just hidden and you can't find them in order to use the programs you have running, that's not "just working". That's broken functionality. Windows has solved this with the overflow menu for literally decades.
It will not only cut off icons but the menus for applications when they have a lot of them. There is no way to fix it except to change your scaling or connect a second monitor.
I should save this thread for every time someone tries to tell me that Windows is a horrible operating system that is a major reason to not buy a computer when I say things like "The MacBook Neo isn't that good of a deal and you can totally find a Windows laptop in the price range that's built well enough, has similar performance/battery life (or better)/trackpad, and leaves you with more RAM, storage, and I/O."
I've literally picked out laptops that are clearly better buys than the Neo/Air and people will tell me things like "well then you're stuck with Windows" or "but you'll have firmware problems" and then we have to remember that Apple has had plenty of that in their past.
How about those Nvidia GPUs that would fail inevitably in older MacBook Pros?
Or the butterfly keyboard?
Or how they can’t even make window corners that match with the Liquid Glass update?
Do you have a suggestion for a Windows laptop that’s a better buy than the MacBook Neo? I kinda want a Windows laptop (for being able to run simple games, mostly) but not sure which one
Walmart is selling a HP gaming laptop with 16GB RAM and 512 GB SSD for $699—same price as the Neo.
Keep in mind it's not Magic Mac Memory because someone will jump in and tell us that 8GB of Mac memory is clearly superior to 16GB of PC memory because Macs are able to swap and wear down your SSD in the process.
A lot of Mac enthusiasts seem to scoff at the idea that someone buying a laptop wants it to be able to play some kind of video games. Apple can make the greatest computer in the world but for many customers the fact that it can only run ~5% of games or whatever is a dealbreaker.
The Neo can play many games on some level but having 8GB of RAM plus needing to share it between the CPU and GPU is a major disadvantage.
The lack of a fan also hampers performance of the chip inside of it by something like 15-30%, rather than including one for a nominal cost to maximize performance.
It’s totally fine for the intended customer but it’s a computer for a very specific customer, more niche/specific than a customer who “just wants to play some CS:Go on the side.”
Apple could swallow their pride and partner with Steam but they’ll never willingly encourage their users to use a different App Store even if it makes the computer better.
What about the fan in the Nintendo Switch? Do Nintendo Switch owners hear the fan or consider it a problem that stops them from making a purchase?
I don’t know why people parrot this talking point about a lack of fan being a positive feature. It’s like a shared propaganda talking point that Mac enthusiasts all agree upon universally. If Apple added fans to the Air and Neo you’d all change your tune since Dear Leader changed their mind, just like when Apple enthusiasts stopped blindly hating Intel suddenly during the architecture transition. You’d all say stuff like “Apple gave us boosted performance and you can’t even hear the fans! All those PC laptops that I’ve never cross shopped since 2001 sound like jet engines!”
A simple passive heatsink has been shown to boost performance significantly in the MacBook Neo.
The throttling of the chips in Apple’s lower end systems are an intentional form of price segmentation. The MacBook Pro won’t be any faster than the Air if the Air was just cooled properly.
I would unironically take a fan in my phone if it stopped it from throttling, dimming the screen, and halting charging when it’s a hot day in direct sunlight. It would just have to make sense in the context of a phone design, of course, which is a challenge.
Nice of you to decide we’re just parroting instead of thinking.
If the MacBook Air had a fan, it would be thicker and would need a bigger battery. It would then be the same, aside from the screen, from the base MacBook Pro. You are 100% correct. The fact it has no fan allows Apple to reduce its weight and thickness. Thus reducing its price. You’re absolutely right.
Fans in laptops are more and more a gamer pilled flight of fancy. Phones and iPads have shown they’re not a necessity.
Removing a fan reduces the price? By how much do you think? Is the Nintendo Switch expensive because of the fan?
Is the Nintendo Switch/Switch 2 a thick device? They are thinner than the MacBook Pro, and they have more space constraints than a MacBook Neo.
If fans in laptops are just for “gamer pilled” why does the MacBook Pro have one?
Do you think Apple can continue to grow their marketshare indefinitely if they continually ignore the 900 million PC gamers who currently own Windows PCs? The PC gaming market is the only one that has been growing since 2021.
The iPad doesn’t prove anything, it’s routinely criticized for wasting its performance potential with inflexible and limited software. Its performance limits are never tested because you can’t actually do things on it in comparison to a full desktop OS.
My phone will regularly dim the screen, halt charging, and throttle performance when I’m out in a sunny day during the summer. You ever been to Miami? I would actually be interested in an actively cooled phone if it existed and would accept a device that was thicker.
Computing as gone on one road; less parts. Separate northbridges, daughter boards for everything, floating point coprocessors, spinning media. All those things have been simplified, reducing the parts count of a usable computer.
I don't bet against simplicity. Those who really require complexity pay for it. On the Apple side, that now includes those who need sustained throughput achieved by a fan.
It's fine, but it's a design decision with tradeoffs, and gamers are prepared to make different tradeoffs (bigger and noisier are ok if they deliver a big enough performance jump).
Is that the tradeoff they make with the Nintendo Switch? I’ve never heard the fan in my Nintendo Switch and it’s a very compact device. My Nintendo Switch 2 is also very compact, smaller and lighter than a MacBook Neo, and it can play AAA games at high frame rates (e.g., Resident Evil: Requiem) while the MacBook Neo struggles with 5 year old titles like Cyberpunk.
This is a very comparable device considering it’s also an ARM-based computer essentially.
We need to stop making excuses for Apple’s unwillingness to include a basic form of cooling for their low end devices. It’s just price segmentation. Make the cheap stuff artificially slow, push you up to the MacBook Pro.
If you cannot hear the fan in a Switch, I implore you to get your hearing checked. It’s not a noisy fan, it’s not a problem the fan is there, but it’s not silent!
I listen to the game audio, which is why I don’t hear it.
I still never said it’s silent. I merely implied that it’s quiet enough to satisfy the design parameters, where it is so quiet it’s forgettable. My ears might hear it but my brain doesn’t notice it. Maybe you need to dust out your Switch, it’s not a loud system.
I have no idea why you’re arguing this so hard, but I guess people just go crazy to defend trillion dollar corporation Apple. Enjoy your fanless computer that gives up 15-30% performance just to save a few millimeters and $3 on the BOM.
I bet Mac zealots would be surprised to find out that almost every PC with a fan comes with configurable modes so you can decide how loud or quiet you want your system and trade off performance. Crazy right? The user gets to choose for the situation rather than having to choose at time of purchase.
I would rather own a system that doesn’t slow down after 7 minutes of sustained activity. MacBook reviewers act like this is no big deal since they don’t play any games like the other 900 million PC gamers in the world. “Oh, your video exports will be done by the time throttling starts, so it’s not big deal.” These reviewers also only know about video editing since it’s their job to edit videos. But playing games is by definition dependent on sustained high performance. If I lose performance after 7 minutes I’m losing performance for most of my session.
It's also a con. You get worse sustained performance. You also get a hotter device. There's a reason the base model M series MBPs consistently bench higher than the exact same chip MBAs in things like Cinebench. The fan.
As I’ve pointed out in my other comments, the Nintendo Switch and Switch 2 are perfect devices to dispel this whole “no fan is better” narrative.
Clearly it’s not a challenge to make a compact, performant device with a nearly silent fan. Clearly customers don’t mind that devices have fans even for devices meant to be held in hand for hours that weigh less than a pound.
I can buy a handheld from Nintendo for $450 that can play new AAA games with great performance while the Neo struggles with 5 year old titles like Cyberpunk despite likely having better overall hardware. A MacBook Neo with a fan would get 15-30% better overall performance and +50% framerate in games as has been demonstrated by multiple tinkerers on YouTube.
This can depend on what’s on sale in your region. I also have some thoughts about buying at this price range down below.
I’ll shill a website for a YouTuber called bestlaptop.deals. It tracks sale prices and has reviews attached for the laptops, along with categories for use cases. Shopping for Macs less frequently involves big sales but with Windows laptops being patient can pay off.
I’ve seen on recent reviews indicating Windows on ARM has made really great strides, from including support for anti-cheat for many online games. Not every game works but many do without any effort.
I bring these up because the battery life is excellent and many of them are in the $500-600 range.
Yes, that’s a sponsored video, but I’m linking it to show you his commentary on the software situation.
For x86-based computers there are a couple of ways you can go:
Since you mentioned gaming, you can sacrifice some portability and go with something like a Lenovo LOQ. A previous generation unit will cost about $700 and have an RTX 4050, which is enough to beat anything Apple will sell you before you get up to Pro chips. I believe there are other OEMs that may hit that price point with an RTX 5050 which of course will be an improvement.
These systems do get good battery life when you’re in integrated graphics mode. When you’re gaming you’re going to be plugged in regardless of laptop.
Another one I’ve seen on sale lately has been the Yoga 7 14” with either the Ryzen AI 340/512GB storage or the Ryzen AI 350/1TB of storage. I think the sales aren’t as good as were a couple weeks ago. These have a 2K OLED screen, 2-in-1 and pen support, generally good overall systems. The 350 model has significantly better integrated graphics performance so I’d try to stretch for that one.
Finally, in-person I was really impressed with the Acer Aspire 14 AI for being only $530. I did wish the screen was a bit better but the rest of the system was really impressive to be hitting that price.
There was an HP OmniBook I played with in store that had a great aluminum build, though the value wasn’t quite as good. It seemed like it was designed to compete with the Air and felt to me like an Air clone in a way.
I haven’t touched on used, which is obviously an option. There are a lot of options there and I think it’s worth looking into.
I would still say, if you can, spend more than what the MacBook Neo costs. The MacBook Neo isn’t a revolutionary device that changes the game in my mind. Instead, it’s a machine that makes a lot of similar sacrifices that other cheap laptops make. It’s better if you save up and spend more if you can.
For example, you’re interested in gaming, you just missed an amazing sale on the RTX 5070Ti/32GB RAM version of the Zephyrus G14 at Best Buy. It was $500 off, so about $1800 for a really amazing machine that is basically the best thing and light gaming system on the market.
Also keep in mind as I talk about this, I’m biased against 15-16” models. I like 14”.
I’m with odo1242, where’s a $700 Windows laptop that has the Neo qualities? I like my Thinkpad - it’s currently my only Windows machine - but it was $1300 or so for the entry-level model (not going to count my add-ons).
I don’t love Windows, but I don’t hate it either. Amazing backward compatibility, and that is not to be ignored.
Yoga 7, check Best Buy, although I think the discount was bigger a few weeks ago.
It’s actually better in many ways: 2K OLED touch screen, convertible with pen support, double the RAM, backlit keyboard, ranks better on battery life for office tasks, a far wider array of ports.
If you stretch to the 1TB model you get the Ryzen 7 AI 350 which beats the Neo on integrated graphics and multi-core processor speeds. You’ll pay a little more but if you need the storage the Neo is out of contention already, and at that price your MacBook Air will come with 256GB.
> Windows has solved this with the overflow menu for literally decades.
I was a huge Windows fanboy, now completely Apple but this was single most annoying regression of functionality when switching and one of the only things I miss.
I have never seen anyone with enough menu bar icons to have them hide, nor have I known anyone who ran into that problem. It’s a bug that should be fixed, but I just don’t think it’s as big of a deal as it’s made out to be.
Just because you have never personally seen a bug occur doesn't mean it isn't a problem.
This very article is about how Tailscale frequently gets reports of them being hidden.
And I personally have had the icons hidden. My work laptop has a lot of stuff running on it (much of it is mandatory: VPN, custom company processes, Google Drive, etc) and combined with my personal preferred programs (f.lux, etc) it occasionally hits the limit and goes under the notch.
This is the fairly standard Apple defensework where "it just works, but if it doesn't work it's probably not a real problem" despite plenty of evidence to the contrary.
I’ve been solely mac user for the past 15+ years, and have no idea what this thread is talking about. I think, as the other person said, we make assumptions on what’s a problem for others, when in reality, it’s not a big deal.
Why does every Mac complaint thread since the beginning of time always feature the "I've never heard of this so it must not be a legitimate issue" guy?
My biggest frustration with Apple was the number of buttons on their mouse. They heard my complains, and changed the number of buttons by one. I just didn't think they'd go to zero instead of two!
Just because you have never hit the issue doesn't mean it doesn't exist. This particular issue will only really show up on notched devices with a small screen and a lot of status bar icons. It's highly dependent on what model mac you run on.
Early Facebook was kind of a great mix. It had enough people on it, it was making money, and the advertising was much more reasonable. At the time it really was a place to connect with IRL friends.
I really doubt that 30% productivity gain would result in 30% developers losing their jobs. Believing this would require an assumption that businesses and economies will never grow.
It also doesn't mathematically make any sense. If you now have 130% developer capacity, then the percentage of developers you need to keep is `x` defined by 130%*x = 100%, x ≈ 76.9% implying you'd lay off about 23.1% of developers.
Percentage increases are not the same as percentage losses.
Unless you are listening through the same studio monitors in the same room or headphones as the mixing engineer, it will never be the same.
IMHO, people place too much importance on "accuracy". While accuracy might be objectively measured, it means nothing when it comes to individual taste.
There’s a whole field of research on this (look up Floyd Toole) - while any one individual can have skewed taste, on aggregate people prefer speakers that are as close to neutral as possible.
At the scale these companies operate and the number of actual scammers they block because of their 0 - 100 policies, I can see how they got there. I bet all of us have had the luck (?) of out card being blocked because someone out there was able to get a hold of the credentials. Collateral damage like this, as devastating as it is to the individual, is probably a drop in the bucket for the company.
I'm not excusing this. What happened here shouldn't happen, and there should be quick resolutions and explanations available to the aggrieved parties.
It's not just corporate policy, it's regulatory requirements in the US.
You must block financial activity, and you must not communicate any details to the customer, upon reasonable suspicion of money laundering activity. There's a process and a prescribed timeline for getting things resolved. There is no penalty for a false positive, but there are large penalties for false negatives.
Having watched hundreds of these things happen, all of the details point squarely to an AML problem. For closed loop gift card programs, the merchant, program manager, issuing bank, and possibly the seller all get involved. It takes time.
This doesn't require shutting off a user's access to their data though -- just preventing financial activity. Apple might not have adequately fine-grained permissions around account suspension to support this, and obviously they should fix that!
AML and fraud are different, and the regulatory requirements you're talking about are only one requirement for banks to follow.. they have additional, internal policies of their own that may affect account and money access. If Apple isn't following a Suspicious Activity Report (SAR), then the actions are their own, and the policies are their own.
This is true, but potential money laundering is a UAR, and the issuing bank decides whether to turn that into a SAR (merchants do not file SARs, although at Apple's scale, the conversation between merchant and bank is continuous and both sides will have fraud and AML experts at every step).
The decision to create the SAR will depend on the outputs of the multi-party investigation, which is the thing that takes time and causes visible issues for consumers.
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