Apple's MacBook Neo has arrived - Our initial impressions of the $599 MacBook

[Redaktion]

The new Apple MacBook Neo has arrived and we started our tests of the base model for $599. How is our initial impression and is the smartphone processor Apple A18 Pro powerful enough for a laptop?

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Apple-s-MacBook-Neo-has-arrived-Our-initial-impressions-of-the-599-MacBook.1247689.0.html

[X]

pls check PWM, temporal dithering existence, how many reflections are on the screen (comparing to Air), reader mode battery life (no wifi, small brightness, idle, etc.), real battery usage (for example how many % is going down after some time in off / sleep), usage of disk for memory swapping (comparing to Air), availability of smartctl

[Giannnnn]

Please guys check for temporal dithering and pwm 🙏

[I don't understand]

You guys do realize it's an IPS panel right? ..so I don't understand why asking about pwm and temporal dithering..?

Standby battery life and how much % battery drain lost during sleep is a windows x86 issue. It's fixed on arm windows devices and isn't an issue at all on arm macs. So probably barely loses anything.

[X]

IPS technology has nothing to do with backlight and dithering - these are total different things (and yes, you can find very bad IPS screens on the market, for example with blinking or with very bad contrast).

Some Snapdragon laptops had worse power usage than Lunar Lake even in Notebookcheck tests.

All questions are valid - Apple could cut off costs on some components.

Let's play the game - find all weak points.

[I don't understand]

I guess but it's more often than not a bigger and more severe issue on oleds in my experience.

I didn't say x elite didn't have power issues just that power % lost due to sleep / hibernation is a non issue on them and that to my knowledge apple silicon mac's were always good here.

We kind of already know the battery life too. Under load it's good @ almost ~4 hrs but light usage is subpar to slightly below average @ around ~7 hrs due to small battery. Might get slightly more since you asked for no WiFi low brightness reader mode use case - but I wouldn't expect more than 8-9 at most.

Of course, this is just my guesstimates on the early test reviews so far. I'm sure more thorough and in-depth tests will be done as more time goes by. So feel free to wait for those.

[joi]

You guys do realize it's an IPS panel right? ..so I don't understand why asking about pwm and temporal dithering..?

Standby battery life and how much % battery drain lost during sleep is a windows x86 issue. It's fixed on arm windows devices and isn't an issue at all on arm macs. So probably barely loses anything.

wake up bro, even IPS can use PWM and temporal dithering

[Think about this]

Don't exclude testing the display.

Tho, I'm not in the market for a Neo, but if you are, check this: Dave2D shows (youtu.be/h26FlWu7aDc?t=587) that a used/Apple Refurb MacBook Air costs just a little bit more and has a better display, better trackpad (haptic over machanical), 16 GB RAM/unified memory (vs 8 GB on the Neo), better chip (M4), backlit keyboard, 4 speakers vs 2 on the Neo, 7.5 vs 11.5 hours battery, 3-mic vs 2 on the Neo, all this despite the weight being the same. He concludes: "Personally, I would go for the MacBook Air".

[I don't understand]

wake up bro, even IPS can use PWM and temporal dithering

This using a very similar display to MBA's. Has there ever been a MBA in history that suffered from  pwm or problematic temporal dithering?

Yes, IPS with pwm exist. It's called miniled but none of the MBA's or neo are using this tech. That's used on MBP's.

Forget it, I give up. Think I'm losing my mind here. Just gonna drop it.

@Think about it, the only issue I've with what Dave2D said is, yea, an refurb air would be an improvement but once you get to that price range it also starts opening quite a few decent options on windows pc side too..

[u sure?]

" it also starts opening quite a few decent options on windows pc side too.."
In Dave2D's vid it's 760 for the Refurb Air. Which Windows options would those be? (same or better: battery, trackpad, screen, look, weight, iGPU performance, single core performance (matters most for day-to-day usage, as seen by the Mozilla Kraken benchmark), speakers, ..). Genuine question, cus I'm still undecided between the Air or a Windows laptop (but so far it' going to be an Air).