Macbook Neo Hot Take™, take 2. Earlier I was annoyed at tech reviewers who should *really* know better giving a *really* myopic assessment of its gaming potential. Now I'm seeing another bad take on Fedi, which is "all you Apple shills love this stupid thing, but a cheap Linux laptop would work better, don't buy it". I am much more sympathetic to this but it appears to be missing what is interesting about this device and why people are talking about it at all.
@glyph I appreciated this take. On the Neo and also tech reviewers.
https://samhenri.gold/blog/20260312-this-is-not-the-computer-for-you/
What is interesting about the device is not that you *should* buy it—the whole value proposition is that it is a very cheap, but also kinda bad, MacBook—it's that people *will* buy it. A lot. It fills a market gap. The only products that this is positioned against are Chromebooks and iPads; cheap refurb Linux machines are not in the same product category for most potential buyers, and I think the fact that Linux fans do not understand the different categories are endemic to why Linux struggles.
@glyph how does linux struggle relative to how any other non-default choice struggles though? For example, cycling has a ~2.5% mode share in my city, only rising to ~9% in the flat inner areas which are ideally suited to it. The latest numbers I've seen for Linux are outperforming that if you liken the inner city mode share to dev market share (ie. the 'ideally suited' market vs total market)
@glyph so i'm not asking to advocate for any particular Should in this situation (i simply don't care what people do anymore), i just don't know and people talk about this subject like the student shitbox laptop is not a product category anymore: does hp not make cheap shitbox laptops anymore?
@aeva @adrake all my beliefs in this area are extremely weakly held, and if you have recent experience of viable windows budget laptops then perhaps I am simply full of shit. but it is notable that they’re definitely doing some algorithmic pricing shenanigans because when I did a low-to-high price search on HP’s site, the cheapest thing I saw was $500, with a worse processor and similar specs to the neo, with a supposed MSRP of $950
@aeva @adrake all my beliefs in this area are extremely weakly held, and if you have recent experience of viable windows budget laptops then perhaps I am simply full of shit. but it is notable that they’re definitely doing some algorithmic pricing shenanigans because when I did a low-to-high price search on HP’s site, the cheapest thing I saw was $500, with a worse processor and similar specs to the neo, with a supposed MSRP of $950
@glyph @aeva I went back and checked and that under-$300 one disappeared when I clicked on it, and the lowest I see now is $430 (current price, MSRP is meaningless). But here's a $330 IdeaPad with 8GB of RAM from Best Buy with a ton of positive reviews: https://www.bestbuy.com/product/lenovo-ideapad-slim-3i-15-6-full-hd-laptop-intel-core-i3-n305-2023-8gb-memory-128gb-ufs-arctic-grey/JJGSHX7VWQ/sku/6610891
Is it viable? Well, here's what PassMark has to say about it's CPU performance: https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/5213vs2874vs6268/Intel-i3-N305-vs-Intel-i7-7700K-vs-Apple-A18-Pro
20% slower than the MacBook Neo for 45% less money. For personal experience, the i7-7700K in the middle is my current desktop CPU, which is admittedly quite overdue for an upgrade, but obviously "viable" given the demands I place on it.
@adrake @aeva given that I suspect the majority of Neos will be purchased with an educational discount (which Best Buy does not offer), it's more like 35% less money, and it's not just slower; it's got a worse display, speakers, battery, webcam, external graphics (DP 1.2), storage. and it's Windows 11 in S mode, so considerably more limited out of the box.
I'm not saying it's necessarily useless, but value per dollar seems clearly worse.
In fairness to lenovo this *is* a 3-year-old device.
@adrake @aeva But the reason I said "experience of" is that a lot of the problems that make these laptops unusable are problems with cooling, durability, or weird Windows bloatware that makes the machine literally non-functional after it has a while to rot in the background. I would be skeptical of a machine like this, even with good reviews on Best Buy's site, the presence of such a heavy discount from its original MSRP seems suspicious.
@adrake @aeva anyway I don't want to be just writing ad copy for Apple here, this is clearly hitting a different price point and anyone well-served by an existing $300 laptop and severely budget-constrained will obviously not want to get this as an upgrade. but I think the excitement in the trade press and discussion this has provoked is at least lightly indicative of a price/perf coordinate in the market that is not particularly well served right now.
@glyph @aeva I really don't understand why you are assigning more than zero weight to the MSRP. It has no relevance at all, it serves only as a manipulative psychological anchor point to make you feel like it's a temporary good deal. The last N Thinkpads I've specced out have always been below the "MSRP" by large margins directly on Lenovo's website. Apple may not do this but virtually everyone else does.
@adrake @aeva sorry I was looking at earlier reviews when it was actually selling for close to the reported MSRP, not trusting the number on the best buy site (which I understand is fake). It did not appear to be discounted like this upon release, so I am just commenting that the price has dropped a bunch, during a time period where component prices have been climbing. But I did refer to it as a "$300 laptop", I realize that's just its going price now :)
@aeva I'm far from an expert over the entire domain, but from my casual interest in it… I don't really think so? The student shitbox laptop has largely been replaced by the "gaming laptop" category, which has a ton of problems right now. The two biggest being "Windows" and "Intel"
@aeva x86_64 windows laptops are still kinda heavy, kinda hot, unreliable, sluggish, but most of all the main thing I hear from actual Windows users is that sleep just doesn't work at all? Among mac users "my laptop got hot in my bag and it was dead when I got to work" does happen but it's the kind of problem that would make one suspect a hardware problem and bring it in for repair, on Windows it seems to be a weekly occurrence on most machines, particularly those priced in the shitbox category
@xgranade @aeva it’s hard to pin down exact spec problems because most people relaying these stories to me are not particularly technical and not interested in reliving them, but literally every story I have heard in the last 5 years involving a budget windows laptop had a punchline that was something like “and then it stopped working completely, to the point where even Notepad would crash after 3 minutes”. completely unfit for purpose to a previously unheard-of degree
@glyph @aeva I am a certified Apple hater, and so I'm perfectly fine saying that while I think some Apple hardware is catastrophically badly design (e.g.: plugging the mouse in from the bottom, or Antennagate), I don't think they tend to fall into "made so poorly that it's manifestly unfit for purpose." That's more than I can say for bottom-rung HP laptops, sadly.
@glyph again, i'm not advocating for any particular Should here, i'm just wondering if a product category that was a thing when i was a student is still a thing or if it got devoured by ipads or google or whatever, not whether it is or ever was Worthy
@aeva I mean, technically, yes, the devices do still exist, but I don't know anyone who uses one willingly, even *very* budget-conscious folks. 15 years ago a windows shitbox was largely the same experience as an iPad or a chromebook at a competitive price point with some bonus ability to run older casual games and entirely serviceable. Nowadays it's a hideous albatross that can barely boot Windows 11 and is nowhere close to what you can get in other categories for about the same price.
@aeva there are also ARM windows laptops which are… okay, I guess, and their battery life while still markedly worse than a macbook is "fine", but have terrible graphical performance and tons of weird compatibility issues where most stuff works but some software just randomly won't launch
@glyph honestly i'm very happy for the apple congregation rediscovering the joy of the shitbox
@glyph It’s always interesting that that Chromebook isn’t counted as a Linux laptop. It’s like Champagne- it only counts as a Linux laptop if you need at least three obscure terminal commands to get it working properly, otherwise it’s just a sparkling laptop.
Potential customers for this fall into a few categories, including:
1. Parents who don't know a lot about tech, but whose kids need "a laptop" for school.
2. Kids & young adults who want a macbook to run something like GarageBand but have a very limited budget *and* also don't otherwise know much about tech.
3. Schools.
4. School-like programs, like software dev clubs & summer camps.
These customer types need a low price, but they also need A LOT of *support*. The support is the product here.
@glyph there’s also a ton of people who are getting this as a cheap secondary laptop for travel and as backup just in case their primary machine fails; or for around the house if they have a desktop but would also like something for sitting down on the couch (and they don’t want or like iPads)
@thomasfuchs on some hypothetical level this appeals to me too, but I have just never managed to maintain a “backup laptop” that could actually work reasonably, even when I had multiple capable laptops simultaneously I just used one and the other one started gathering dust and falling behind on security updates.
actually wait a sec I think there might be a pile of paper in my office with an unused laptop underneath it right now, I should probably go take care of that
@thomasfuchs on some hypothetical level this appeals to me too, but I have just never managed to maintain a “backup laptop” that could actually work reasonably, even when I had multiple capable laptops simultaneously I just used one and the other one started gathering dust and falling behind on security updates.
actually wait a sec I think there might be a pile of paper in my office with an unused laptop underneath it right now, I should probably go take care of that
@glyph Notably: All situations where there is usually a very small list of "approved" devices by whatever school or organization is involved - None of which will be linux devices, because linux hasn't done the lobbying & buy-in to enter the 'exploiting children and students' market for anything that isn't a tech/computers (programming, admin, etc.) class already in the first place.
Out of all of these I have the most experience with category 4. I have set up labs full of Linux computers on many occasions. I've also done the same for macs. I won't say that macs are universally superior but there are TONS of things about imaging, configuring, provisioning, and authenticating macs that are vastly superior to Linux. If it's to teach a topic that isn't programming or sysadmin, like say graphic design, macOS has huge, huge advantages for legibility to the instructor.
Yes, you could personally get a more powerful computer by getting a refurb 16GB M1 MacBook Air somewhere by bargain hunting. But you will need to hunt; right now on the official refurb store the cheapest MacBook Air is $929. If you're shopping on eBay, now you've got a machine with a ton of wear cycles on the SSD, and dubious amounts of damage.
If you, personally, have the time & energy for that, it *IS* a better choice.
But if you're trying to source a 50-machine bulk order for a CS extracurricular program, with a uniform hardware profile so that students have a consistent experience, then no, you cannot reliably do that by going around to garage sales and rummaging through bargain bins. You cannot afford to repair all of these units (which WILL have a failure rate several times the average for a new machine) yourself. You can't even afford to troubleshoot them and manage the RMA process.
This problem is magnified for institutional buyers, but for folks without a ton of tech experience it's the same. The 1-year manufacturer warranty for new-in-store models is a big deal. The implicit promise of several years of software support is really important. Apple stores run free trainings you can go to. They have a business support program where you can talk to someone about fleet management problems for free. They have 24/7 chat support on the web if you have software issues.
@glyph
I saw somewhere a take that this is getting us used to weak hardware that cannot do much of anything, and thus forcing us to rent cloud services for anything and everything
@glyph I hope that work on porting Asahi Linux to this machine gets strong funding, so it can be a solid Linux laptop too, probably better all around than most generic PC laptops at that price point.
