My experience switching from a MacBook Air M5 to a MacBook Neo
I wanted to share my experience after switching from a MacBook Air M5 to a MacBook Neo, in case it helps anyone who is deciding between a more expensive Air and the cheaper Neo. (Sorry, i deleted my latest post because i forgotten to add the text)
I bought a MacBook Air M5 at the beginning of March. It cost me around $1,150 and came with AirPods 4 with noise cancellation, which I later listed for sale to recover some of the money. I bought it mainly for light video editing, documents, some web design, image editing, and general work. Nothing extremely heavy.
The thing is, I never felt completely comfortable with it. What bothered me the most was the perceived build quality. Compared to an older MacBook Air M1, the M5 Air felt a bit more fragile to me. The aluminum felt thinner, and the screen had some flex when applying light twisting pressure. Maybe it was just my unit or just my perception, but for the price I expected more.
Eventually, I decided to return/sell it and buy a MacBook Neo instead. I paid $650 on Apple’s website for the silver 512 GB version. It took almost a month to arrive from Vietnam.
After about a month of use, these are my impressions:
The screen is almost as good as the one on the Air M5. Brightness is very good, and I can actually use it outdoors without much trouble. The panel does attract dust and fingerprints quite easily, though.
The speakers are acceptable, but I improved them a lot using eqMac and slightly increasing the bass. After that, they sound much better for everyday use.
The mechanical trackpad is excellent. Honestly, I don’t miss the haptic trackpad. It works great.
The white keyboard does get a little dirty from finger oils, but so far it is very subtle and easy to clean with a damp cloth. I actually think it may age better than black keyboards, which often become shiny and worn over time. I also haven’t missed the backlit keyboard, since I usually don’t work in dark environments.
Performance has been surprisingly good. The MacBook Neo feels fast in everyday tasks. I haven’t felt limited by the 8 GB of RAM, even with several apps open. I attached a screenshot of Activity Monitor with many apps running, and memory pressure was still manageable.
For video editing, I tested DaVinci Resolve with 4K files from a Sony A7III, and it worked well for light editing. I also use Photoshop, and it feels faster than my Windows desktop for normal image-editing tasks. For context, my PC has an i5-9400F, RTX 4060 Ti, 512 GB M.2 SSD, and 16 GB of RAM, but for daily use the MacBook Neo feels noticeably smoother.
Battery life is also great. I can get through an 8 to 10 hour workday without problems, and if I use Low Power Mode, it lasts even longer. It charges in about two hours with a regular 40W charger.
I did the thermal mod, and it was very easy. So far, while playing Disco Elysium and the Zelda Twilight Princess port, the laptop does not feel hot at all.
macOS is also a big reason why I think this machine is worth it. Compared to Windows 10/11, the overall experience feels much better to me. One thing that surprised me was how easy it is to cast the screen to a Xiaomi TV. It works much better than with my Android phone or Windows PC.
I don’t miss MagSafe either. With a cheap AliExpress hub, I use USB-A and HDMI at work without any issue. The only thing I still need to buy is a mouse that supports gestures, because managing multiple desktops with multitouch is actually very useful on macOS.
I chose silver, and I think it was the right color. Scratches and small marks are less noticeable, and since I work at a school, it does not attract much attention. The laptop feels very solid in the hand, much better than the Air M5 did to me. Mine was made in Vietnam, and opening it for the thermal mod was extremely simple.
I know many YouTube reviews praise the performance but question whether 8 GB of RAM will be enough in the future. Maybe it won’t be in a few years, I don’t know. But macOS handles memory much more efficiently than Windows in my experience.
For the $650 I paid, I honestly doubt I could find a better laptop than the MacBook Neo. My current thinking is that it may be better to buy a cheaper MacBook Neo, use it for two or three years, and then upgrade again if Apple releases a newer version, rather than spending much more on a MacBook Air M5 and trying to keep it for four to six years.
There is also the reality that laptops can break, fall, get lost, or be stolen. In my situation, I don’t really see a laptop as something that must last more than three years. For that, the MacBook Neo feels like a very good choice.