BIG RESPECT for checking temporal dithering existence. THANK YOU. And please check the same thing (every kind of flickering) with every screen.
Just a heads up, in the title it's stated that it has one big flaw, but reading the article I'm struggling to understand what it is, is it the battery runtime at high brightness settings, the temporal dithering or the limited connectivity? Not quite sure, great testing though.
Quote from: Lily on March 14, 2026, 01:21:21Just a heads up, in the title it's stated that it has one big flaw, but reading the article I'm struggling to understand what it is, is it the battery runtime at high brightness settings, the temporal dithering or the limited connectivity? Not quite sure, great testing though.
It is the lack of backlit keyboard. That's a deal-breaker for me alone. P!ss poor usb options are also a deal breaker.
You've accidentally swapped the colour response measurements for sRGB and P3 in the data - P3 coverage should be the lower of the two values.
Beautiful machine on the inside & very nicely done photos so full credit to the reviewer there.
Interesting to see that the speakers measure slightly better than the Air's, many reviewers are blindly reporting that they're "worse" just because there are less of them. Shows the importance of gathering actual data.
I find it interesting that quite a few mention the missing backlit keyboard as a dealbreaker. I do not care about it at all, as long as I can deactivate it.
No notch has removed my first potential dealbreaker. For me the remaining dealbreakers would be 8 GB RAM (not future-proof, I would want 16 GB; also I might wish to load long videos with files larger than 8 GB, something reviewers never consider), the tiny arrow keys (and other insufficiencies of Apple's keyboard layout), the upselling beyond cost to the minimally acceptable 512 GB storage and the glare display.
Ok, presumably I would be an Air buyer, however, this would still have the dealbreakers of tiny arrow keys and the glare display. For the latter, I would not be upsold to the Pro because I would not need its speed. (For AI, I would need about 8 times the speed of M5 Max and adapted software. Therefore, MacBooks would only be interesting for office tasks for me.) With the missing matte display options for Neo and Air (and the notch of the Air), and with the tiny arrow keys, Apple does not offer any notebook hardware I would want to buy. Appreciating silence and reasonably long battery life (and not too bad repairability of the Neo) are insuffient hardware offerings for my needs. Not to mention OS, software and license terms.
If you are in the market for a Neo, see this: Dave2D shows (youtu.be/h26FlWu7aDc?t=587) that while a used/Apple Refurb MacBook Air costs more, the Air has:
- Better and bigger display
- Chunkier bezels on the Neo, but also no notch
- Better trackpad (haptic on the Air vs machanical on the Neo)
- 16 GB unified memory (vs 8 GB on the Neo)
- Better chip (M4)
- Backlit keyboard
- 2 vs 4 speakers on the Air
- 7.5 vs 11.5 hours battery on the Air
- 3 microphones vs 2 on the Neo
- All this despite the weight being the same
- No Touch ID on the Neo base 599 model
And (feel free to add more to the list)
- Better screen ratio on the Air (1:1.545 (2880px/1864px) vs 1:1.6 (16:10) on the Neo)
- Temporal dithering on the Neo (can cause eye strain)
- MagSafe (magnetically attached power connector) on the Air
- Both fast USB-C ports on the Air
Dave2D concludes: "Personally, I would go for the MacBook Air".
At the end of this video, Just Josh also says he'd buy a refurbished Air instead: youtube.com/watch?v=OaENnuQvv9o
The Neo is still a win. Since the Neo is smaller than the Air 13, but weights the same, it could have weighted a bit less. Things to improve for a Neo 2: A bit lighter by 0.22 to 0.33 lbs and 12 to 16 GB unified memory. If temporal dithering is such an issue, then it needs to be fixed as well.
How does the temporal dithering look like from a normal viewing distance and why is it so bad that:
QuoteIf you are sensitive to temporal dithering, you will not be happy with the MacBook Neo.
?
First search result when searching for "temporal dithering":
QuoteThis method can sometimes cause issues like eye strain or headaches for sensitive individuals due to the flickering effect it creates
If not already, APPLE should introduce a setting to disable temporal dithering.
Second search result:
Quote from: github.com/waydabber/BetterDisplay/wiki/..Preventing temporal dithering on Apple Silicon Macs
Quote from: NuclearNotebook on March 14, 2026, 07:43:33Interesting to see that the speakers measure slightly better than the Air's
Except they don't?:
QuoteThey lack a bit of punch compared to the MacBook Air
There are much better laptops for less or equal money you can get:
-OLED screen
-more RAM (12gb or 16gb)
-touchscreen with pen support
-convertible
-glass trackpad
-Fanless with 17 hours battery
-same multicore performance
-runs ChromeOS, Linux, and Android apps
-if you like to play games. these chromebooks can play smoothly millions of Android games. I doubt MacBook Neo can play smoothly even the very few games that have been ported for the bigger Macs!
for $479 (IPS touch screen):
chromeunboxed.com/the-acer-chromebook-plus-spin-514-just-hit-a-new-all-time-low-price-of-479/
for $649 (OLED touch screen):
chromeunboxed.com/yes-the-lenovo-chromebook-14-is-the-best-chromebook-ive-ever-used/
Both laptops are better in every respect than the MacBook Neo.
You don't have today any Apple laptop without blinking screen (MBP PWM, people report temporal dithering for Pro, Air and Neo) and you can't have Air/Neo without screen reflections from the factory (MBP can have nanostructural thing)
Temporal dithering could be avoided - it's enough when MacOS is using the same amount of colors like hardware (MacBook Intel had switch in some moment?)
Neo could be battery warrior, but they didn't want it (could cannibalize Air and basic users maybe are Ok with it). And could be perfect for people with eyes problems, but low contrast and Apple amazing strategy is not allowing for it.
Of course this will be hit. But again this apple is not 100% healthy.
Who works at 150 nits? That's one TINY battery.
Quote from: Jonathanm1975 on March 14, 2026, 11:12:58Who works at 150 nits? That's one TINY battery.
Exactly. The test should be with 250 nits at least.
Quote from: Adam1 on March 14, 2026, 11:45:02Quote from: Jonathanm1975 on March 14, 2026, 11:12:58Who works at 150 nits? That's one TINY battery.
Exactly. The test should be with 250 nits at least.
Just Josh switched to testing at 300 nits.
Why does this laptop and the 2026 Air NOT show up when you search for fanless laptop review in your database?
Please fix it.
Also, does Macbook Air M5 have temporal dithering or not?
A Windows based Neo alternative supposedly may also be: notebookcheck.net/This-OLED-Lenovo-laptop-beats-MacBook-Neo-with-16-GB-RAM-and-better-display-for-less-than-699.1249901.0.html
Keep in mind that MacOS requires a few GB less RAM. The Neo's 8 GB unified memory are enough for office tasks, etc., even some video editing.
X, with OLED screen coming, these temporal dithering issues should be resolved. Hopefully no PWM on OLED either.
Quote from: dumb_oems on March 14, 2026, 13:50:31Also, does Macbook Air M5 have temporal dithering or not?
Good question.
"X, with OLED screen coming, these temporal dithering issues should be resolved. Hopefully no PWM on OLED either."
It looks, that Apple doesn't care about people with eyes problems (that's why they don't have for example nano glass everywhere)+the only one company with OLED without PWM seems to be currently Chinese Honor (don't expect too much from Apple - see how does look their PWM "switch" in iPhone 17 series).
Note: OLED will be sold probably with touch only and it will be extremely expensive (it makes no sense in buying it)
Temporal dithering seems to be implemented forever - it allows for selling cheaper screens for more.
github.com/aiaf/Stillcolor
Quote from: X on March 14, 2026, 14:19:51Temporal dithering allows for selling cheaper screens
Also helps to conserve power.
github.com/waydabber/BetterDisplay
I wonder if reducing a panel bit colour depth like from the display settings would end up removing the temporal dithering / FRC also.
Because it seems to be just that according to Google Gemini:
"Temporal dithering, or Frame Rate Control (FRC), is a display technique that enables 6-bit or 8-bit panels to simulate higher color depths (e.g., 8-bit or 10-bit/HDR) by rapidly alternating between color shades within successive frames. It simulates intermediate colors that the panel cannot natively display, creating smoother gradients at the cost of potential 30 Hz-60 Hz flicker"
Quote from: Citizen_not_Consumer on March 14, 2026, 09:56:06-Linux
How's the performance tho? Last time I used it, was the chroot container method days via crouton. It felt almost native and extremely fast.
From what I understand now, this has now been deprecated and the more modern version of this is using crostini by Google, which sets up an entire VM(?) That might have a bit more overhead compared to old method.
Also, I worry with Google locking down android and rumours of merging chromeOS into android, that the good days might soon be coming to an end. This may soon no longer be an option.
"I wonder if reducing a panel bit colour depth like from the display settings would end up removing the temporal dithering / FRC also."
Yes, it would, but Apple probably want to more advertise more colors than think about people seeing this problem.
Reviewer: "...surprisingly good laptop"
...For what??
-workstation? No
-gaming laptop? No
-ultraportable/road warrior? No (4.5 hour battery in bright environments)
-home content consumption? No Tablets are better (OLED) and cheaper
-Office laptop? No plenty of laptops with better keyboards/ergonomics
-eJUNK? Definitely yes!
my dream laptop! love the different colors, cannot wait to buy.
Some things to correct from this article.
The A18 Pro chip has a 5 core GPU and not a 6 core like iPhone 16 Pro.
And need to mention the Neo includes the 16-core Neural Engine for AI on device tasks.
For the PC side: To qualify as a Copilot+ PC, a device must have a Neural Processing Unit (NPU) capable of at least 40 TOPS (Trillion Operations Per Second.i doubt any of these PCs have that.
Also for comparing the battery life with full brightness the MacBook Neo's brightness is 500 nits compared to the Microsoft Surface Laptop 13 at max 400 nits and the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3 14 at 300 nits. And that is why it will use more power if set at max.
Keep in mind some PCs like the Surface are almost twice the price at the MacBook Air price territory.
Decent article otherwise.
Ok major disclaimer here as I type/use a 2013 era i5(2C/4T)8GB/256GB 13" Macbook-Pro EVERY DAY!
While MacOS has a larger footprint than OSX before it, MANY folks use Mac's with 8GB of RAM without ANY ISSUES. (I currently have multiple windows of Firefox open (~100 tabs), Brave (~10 tabs), OpenOffice (multiple Writer windows) complimented with a hand full of other utility apps open. ZERO ISSUES.
Please keep in mind that not EVERYONE is doing PRODUCTION or PROFESSIONAL work with THEIR personal computers so have ZERO NEEDS for "portable workstations".
I DO have OEM (Canon) and Adobe software for processing images taken with my DSLR. Drivers for my 3 different Photo printers and 3 different Lazer printers are installed.
I MAY use a SINGLE USB port to move files when no LAN exists. The Neo having only TWO USB ports is NOT a deal breaker and actually none of the other listed items are ether.
The "deal breaker" is that I ALREADY OWN TWO MacBooks so have ZERO NEED/REQUIREMENT for purchasing another one.
The Neo proves that a quality Metal Chassis build & High resolution screen can be had at the ~$600 price point. A cell phone APU with a mere 8GB of RAM can offer a decent laptop experience if coupled with a unbloated OS+Apps.
Among the first mobile displays with true 10-bit OLED & zero dithering:
youtube.com/watch?v=LarGpve2oSg&pp=0gcJCZoBo7VqN5tD#
Realize this isn't a laptop panel. But I always wondered if it's possible? :)
And apparently it is! Only a matter of time until this display tech moves from phone panels to laptops. It's no longer a case of if, but when.
Great job including a temporal dithering test in the review and making a point about the result!
For us users with sensitive vision, it would be excellent if you could start adding spectrographs of tested screens too; blue light is a big issue for me. Possibly KSF phosphor, on the red end, etc. Cheers for all the PWM plots, too.
Since the charger is rated 20W (9V 2.2A), can you charge this laptop with a common 22.5W power banks? I'd appreciate if you do such test!
Also notebookcheck used to have charging time graph on laptop reviews, what happened?
A video by Max Tech youtube.com/watch?v=2yXyvQSUSYY ("MacBook Neo vs M5 Air - We were SHOCKED") shows how the Air is outperforming the Neo by 2-3 times, has a dramatically better battery life and 2-4 times faster charging speed. And the video shows how the Neo's display is much more reflective and has a much worse contrast ("The Air's display looks almost like OLED").
Quote from: Think again on March 16, 2026, 12:42:43A video by Max Tech youtube.com/watch?v=2yXyvQSUSYY ("MacBook Neo vs M5 Air - We were SHOCKED") shows how the Air is outperforming the Neo by 2-3 times, has a dramatically better battery life and 2-4 times faster charging speed. And the video shows how the Neo's display is much more reflective and has a much worse contrast ("The Air's display looks almost like OLED").
The MBA M5 is a much better notebook in every aspects that is totally worth the price difference, who knew?
Once the novelty wears off, you can be sure the same folks who praised it for the wrong reasons will trash-talk it instead (to the classic tune of "they should have told me to get the MBA instead").
Who is this marketed for? kids/teens, infantilized adults, old people, schools, liberal white women, poor people looking to own an Apple laptop??
I'm being honest, because it seems like a sh*t laptop that is intentionally gimped with massive planned obsolescence baked in. The colorways look childish. The specs (ram, storage, display,ports, etc.) are abysmal for 2026 and I cannot believe Apple is marketing this as something worth buying when there are so many better options at this price point.
I mean, an apple certified-refurbished macbook air would be infinitely better and probably in the same price range!
Quote from: Bizarro_NikoB on March 16, 2026, 16:16:42Who is this marketed for? kids/teens, infantilized adults, old people, schools, liberal white women, poor people looking to own an Apple laptop??
I'm being honest, because it seems like a sh*t laptop that is intentionally gimped with massive planned obsolescence baked in. The colorways look childish. The specs (ram, storage, display,ports, etc.) are abysmal for 2026 and I cannot believe Apple is marketing this as something worth buying when there are so many better options at this price point.
I mean, an apple certified-refurbished macbook air would be infinitely better and probably in the same price range!
Comical comments by rather clueless folks.
Forgetting for the moment that the Neo has more cores/threads than the MBP I'm currently using (i5(2C/4T)/8GB/256GB) the Neo costs 1/3 as much as I paid for the MBP.
Forgetting that in the West (or at least in the USA) Professional users get all their IT stuff purchased FOR THEM by the companies they work for (you folks would know this if you ever worked). Surely if a portable WORKSTATION is needed, the more powerful MBP's would be purchased.
So who is the Neo for? First off ANYONE who does NOT want WIN11 and would like a metal chassis & high resolution screen. While tablets & cell phones have mobile apps for just about everything there ARE cases where a desktop/laptop application is not only a better fit but a requirement.
The Neo is far more functional than a iPad and much better build quality than most WIN11 devices at the same price point. In non-professional environments time is NOT money. I regularly have a dozen application windows open including >100tabs in a number of Firefox windows. When the OS and applications in use are not BLOATWARE less resources are needed or required to provide a decent experience.
Of course many of you commenters would know that if you actually owned&used Mac computers.
@GeorgeS
I think a lot of people just hate Apple because... its Apple
8GB... what a horrible thing! It doesnt matter that for majority of users its fine as they only need to run web browser, text processor and spotify. Sure, its not future proof, will not run local LLMs but its ok even for light gaming. And SoC is far better than numbers says. Not because 'magic' of MacOS which is complete bullshit. Because of raw single-core performance 2-3 generations ahead of x86. It will feel simply a lot snappier for longer period of time even if it will be less useful for 'heavy' workload. It has only two real downsides:
-no backlit keyboard
-MacOS means need to learn a new how to use computer
"I think a lot of people just hate Apple because... its Apple"
Their current price structure is quite reasonable. You have cheap Neo, better Air and Pro for Pro.
All good... Excluding these tricks with screens and planned obsolescence. They could give matt screens and LCD with 10 or 12 bit (or give software option in Mac OS for 8 bit). Such important thing and it's totally ignored. And now imagine you have amazing job and only Mac, which is not good for your eyes.
Yes, people are frustrated - from one hand W11, from the other beautiful A/M chips and screen crap.
the big flaw is the price.
same price as a refurb m3 air.
total fail.
screen is like a mirror, half a battery, usb2!?? lol.
QuoteAll good... Excluding these tricks with screens
If I'm not mistaken Apple is using those tricks for long time. Deal with it. Personally I'm not a fan too, but whole package is far better than x86
Quoteand planned obsolescence.
? Macs are often cheaper option in long run.
Frankly "they" all do it to some extent...
MiniSquish first dropped 32bit support & then required TPM2 chips. While there are hacks and work arounds, it still haunts many.
Apple did it first with dropping 32bit support & then dropping x86 support. Nothing is forever it seems.
Even Linux has mostly dropped 32bit support. Finding a MODERN 32bit web browser in 2026 is getting harder and harder to find.
Funny though, "future proof" as it may or not be, this (using now) 8GB RAM Mac has served me well over the years. :)
"Their current price structure is quite reasonable."
"Macs are often cheaper option in long run."
Disinformation.
Examples:
+€1250 MacBookPro +64 GB RAM upgrade from 64GB to 128 GB RAM.
For comparison, even at currently inflated RAM prices, 64 GB DDR5 RAM is available for €506,30. So Apple charges €743,70 too much, ignoring Apple's possibility to buy RAM cheaper by the 100,000s while the individual endconsumer only buys 1 item without discount.
€999 Monitor stand is €990 too much.
+€2250 MacBookPro +4 TB SSD upgrade from 4TB to 8 TB. For comparison, even at currently inflated SSD prices, 4 TB M.2 SSD is available for €340. So Apple charges €1910 too much, ignoring Apple's possibility to buy SSDs cheaper by the 100,000s while the individual endconsumer only buys 1 item without discount.
Quote from: RobertJasiek on March 17, 2026, 01:55:00+€1250 MacBookPro +64 GB RAM upgrade from 64GB to 128 GB RAM.
For comparison, even at currently inflated RAM prices, 64 GB DDR5 RAM is available for €506,30. So Apple charges €743,70 too much, ignoring Apple's possibility to buy RAM cheaper by the 100,000s while the individual endconsumer only buys 1 item without discount.
+€2250 MacBookPro +4 TB SSD upgrade from 4TB to 8 TB. For comparison, even at currently inflated SSD prices, 4 TB M.2 SSD is available for €340. So Apple charges €1910 too much, ignoring Apple's possibility to buy SSDs cheaper by the 100,000s while the individual endconsumer only buys 1 item without discount.
Correction. I misunderstood the storage differences of the upgrades. They are
+€1250 for +80 GB RAM from 48GB to 128GB so €1250 - €506,30 / 64 * 80 = €1250 - €633 =
€617 too much.+€2250 for +6 TB SSD from 2 TB to 8 TB so €2250 - €340 / 4 * 6 = €2250 - €510 =
€1740 too much.
Yeah. Apple pricing is reasonable only for base models. When you try to upgrade their prices are over the roof.
Quote from: Mate on March 17, 2026, 03:17:53Yeah. Apple pricing is reasonable only for base models. When you try to upgrade their prices are over the roof.
Indeed, Apple over the years has introduced pricing levels...
Topic here is the MacBook.
Starting with the MacBook-Pro (high price)
then introduction of the MacBook-Air (medium price)
and now the MacBook-Neo (low price... or at least according to Apple)
iPad-Pro Best configuration (cpu/memory) & external foilio keyboard/pad (high price)
iPad-Air Feature reduced & external foilio keyboard/pad (medium price)
iPad cpu/memory/feature reduced (low price)
I suppose the same can be said of the iPhones but I don't really follow them.
For the most part, Apple stuff has always been overpriced however they generally offer support of their products longer than others. For example: my iPhone`10 is STILL getting fresh updates. (they are shipping iPhone 17's right now, so SEVEN generations behind they are still supporting!)
RobertJasiek, indeed overpriced. I wouldn't get a MacBook Pro anytime soon, if ever, at these prices, but a refurb or even new Air looks better by the day.
Because on a refurb air you're going to be running large LLM models 24/7 and hardcore gaming.
/s
It would be helpful to do testing with Stillcolor (the free app that disables GPU temporal dithering) to determine whether this display is using TCON FRC (6-bit + FRC or 8-bit + FRC). All Apple Silicon Macs use GPU dithering. The answer people need is whether the built-in displays themselves are also applying dithering in the form of Frame Rate Control (FRC). Can you folks please update the post with slow motion footage of the display with Stillcolor running?
极客湾Geekerwan compares the Neo vs Air M1 vs M2 vs M3 vs M4 vs M5: youtube.com/watch?v=jyLXcaVAs9E ("MacBook Neo Review: Is A18 Pro Powerful Enough For Mac?").
In terms of memory bandwidth, the Neo is a 64-bit system (just like basically any decent smartphone). Neo's memory bandwidth is half of the Air (128-bit) (same as a typical dual-channel (2*64-bit) desktop PC).
Neo: 51.2 GB/s = 64-bit * 6400 MT/s / 1000 / 8.
The A19 Pro SoC has 12 GB VRAM and this would be much better. Well, maybe next year.
I wonder to what group of users it is addressed... it costs about £$600-700- it's not very cheap. No keyboard backlit, just average battery life, screen average as well, 8GB of ram... It's another facebook pc, badly overpriced. In the UK, for £650-670 pounds you can have zenbook 14 with 3k oled screen, 16 GB mem and 500GB ssd, which you can replace.
If somebody wants to spend bit more- macbook air m5 below £1000, giving you very good battery life and performance. Not sure how to justify spending £600-700 for this gadget. With 16 GB and illuminated keyboard that would be acceptable for internet browser/office purpose (still wouldn't get close to the M5 performance but that could be acceptable at this price point).
Not sure why it's so high rated...
Quote from: ab on April 01, 2026, 15:47:20I wonder to what group of users it is addressed...
My guess on Apple's intention about buyers is:
- get part of the purchases by schools,
- first time computer buyers who do not know any better about hardware details, have some incentive to choose Apple (maybe because parents, friends or their nation's endconsumers favour it) and can afford the entry price (maybe because ancestors sponsor it),
- Apple users wishing to upgrade some old computer, wanting a new one (maybe lacking confidence in refurbished batteries) but being unable to spend more,
- consumers believing the marketing or tech hype PR,
- consumers having basic computing needs and not elaborating similarly priced alternatives (such as M1 to M4),
- consumers falling for the non-silver chassis colours,
- consumers underestimating mid- to long-term usefulness or buying new notebooks regularly,
- growing new suckers of the Apple upselling in the consumers' later purchases once hopefully trapped in the Apple ecosystem,
- showing experienced endconsumers the limitations of the basic model line so that motivation towards buying higher tier models is increased.
Despite the hype I bought a MBP 16 inch i9 2.4Ghz 64GB RAM 4TB SSD for less than the cheapest NEO. We compared it with a Neo, for music production content creation, the Neo feels faster but soon we found its weaknesses. If you spend money, spend it on a M2 M4 M5, in the end it saves you money. Or on a i9, it is a muh more capable Mac! as a gadget it is OK, but for real work it sucks in y opinion!
Quote from: Pi-Qui on April 03, 2026, 12:41:48the Neo feels faster but soon we found its weaknesses.
Namely which?
Good to see temporal dithering checks! Macs seem to be the most aggressive with it. I've had issues using macbook screens for over a decade, while I haven't had them with other laptops that use dithering.