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).

[u sure?]

To add a few more same-or-better things: no fan, no sleep issues, at least a 16:10 screen ratio (Air' 1.545 could be argued to be even better than 16:10), glossy screen (subjective, but prefer a glossy one), the amount of mics, full high-quality aluminum chassis, .. ? (I may add more things).

[I don't understand]

@u sure?

It depends on ur region, but the other day saw a deal that has now expired for a yoga slim 7 14" w/ core ultra 258v for around 760. Mind you this is brand new, so refurb'ed likely can get slightly cheaper.

It seems MLID was right, Intel+OEMs kind of massively overstocked lunar lake supply before ram crisis. So now they're attempting to drop prices to make room for new panther lake stock in retail stores. Where I'm at, I'm seeing LNL laptops in the range of 499-800 often (the ones comparable to MBA quality are closer to 700), when on deals. (again, brand new, not even looking at refurb yet)

(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, ..)

Depends on brand / model you get. I would personally try out and see laptop yourself in store if you can because everyone has different personal opinions. For example, I'm not fan of haptic trackpads and I think MacBook displays and speakers is wildly overrated but maybe I'm just insane or blind + deaf, and just too used to using broken crappy setups to adjust to anything else or tell the difference. That was just my personal experience briefly trying a MacBook for a few months from Costco and then returning it. (If you do wish to try out Macs - Costco has the best return policy - 90 days no questions asked)

Nothing touches apple single core performance but pros and cons to everything. I can't stand macOS personally or their shallow keyboards, so I'm willing to make some sacrifices or concessions here. You would likely have better game compatibility and not have to deal with emulation issues on windows x86 - so I'd say the igpu perf would be slightly better, yea.

[I don't understand]

To add a few more same-or-better things: no fan, no sleep issues, at least a 16:10 screen ratio (Air' 1.545 could be argued to be even better than 16:10), glossy screen (subjective, but prefer a glossy one), the amount of mics, full high-quality aluminum chassis, .. ? (I may add more things).

16:10 yes, most windows OEMs seem to have got the message. fans - there are fans on LNL laptops but you could likely tweak this in settings to make fanless at the cost of sacrificing some performance. Also, I don't think fans are necessarily terrible, the switch 1 had a fan and it sold over 100 million. As long as it a fairly quiet not a annoying fan which most LNL are under light loads anyway.

Sleep issues - I will defer this question to someone with more knowledge than me. :p I personally don't run into such issues but I also know some OEMs are a lot worse at it than others. Something about how they handle their firmware. *coughs* Asus.

The rest of questions - probably best to see laptop in real life and make the decision urself.

[X]

"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?"

PWM - M1 Air
Temporal dithering - all M Air so far

If you're not affected, you're lucky.