I still wish they would give back the 11" Air dimensions with Apple Silicon.
IMO that form factor was perfect for a small, low end laptop, it just needed a more power efficient chip, and a screen with smaller bezels.
I still wish they would give back the 11" Air dimensions with Apple Silicon.
IMO that form factor was perfect for a small, low end laptop, it just needed a more power efficient chip, and a screen with smaller bezels.
They already have! It's essentially what you wished for.
Below respectively 11 inch MBA vs NEO in cm
11 inch was thicker and wider, neo is longer and heavier. But more or less the same form factor.But you get 1.4 inches extra in screen size due to slimmer bezels, double storage, double pixel density, double ram, almost double battery life and a LOT more CPU, for half the price (even before adjusting for inflation, leading to a further discount).
Only thing they didn't do was keep the taper model, but I think that's a smart move even if it made for a fantastic picture at the time.
I'm a bit too lazy to look it up, but this is surprising to me. I still have an 11-inch, and it has a huge bezel around it, but it still feels way, way smaller than a 13-inch MacBook Air.
If the Neo has the same size screen as the MacBook Air, it's just a little confusing to me where it could be smaller.
You answered your own question, its the bezel. They've gotten _much_ thinner since the 11 inch MBAs were a thing. Remember screen size is measured in diagonals, so even a 5mm reduction of bezel size both horizontally and vertically gains you a little over 7mm in screen size without a physical size increase. to gain 2 inches in screen size (50.8 mm) you'd only need to eliminate 0.74 inches (roughly) from all 4 sides. I don't know the exact measurements of the bezels on those older devices but I can tell you my M4 Air is less than half an inch on all sides.
EDIT: My math was bad. Its still not precise but its much more accurate now.
What are the weight measurements? kg?
Yes, that's in kg
The 13" MBA has the same approximate external dimensions as the 11" MBA. I know because it easily fits in the snug case that I've had ever since I got my 11" MBA.
They basically shrank the bezels down. If they made it smaller it would impact the keyboard size, which many people probably would not like.
Yup. The MBA11 is probably my favorite laptop of all time. It's my daily driver. I have 4 of those now, running MacOS and Linux Mint.
I was really hoping for the Neo to be more like the MBA11.
That or the 12" Retina MacBook, which weighed 0.67 lbs less than the neo and Air do. And it does make a difference!
It's disappointing they finally got the silicon for the "thin and light at all costs" form factor but gave up on the form factor. I just want my clipboard laptop back!
A revival of the 12” MacBook would be amazing, but give it to me as a premium device - not an educational market positioning.
I want a real M-series chip with RAM upgrades, an OLED display, etc.
Like the little buff 12” PowerBook https://www.macworld.com/article/225194/ode-to-the-12-inch-p...
Somewhere on my list of projects is "Gut a 12" Powerbook and put the guts of a modern M series Macbook in it". The chassis is so spacious and the Macbook Air logic boards are so small, physics is not going to be a problem. Just hooking up screens, the keyboard and trackpad (using the original, natch), and ports. There's already a high-res display swap you can do in that chassis to get to 1400x1050.
Hmm now I want to see this done in a PowerBook 100 chassis with a Sharp Memory LCD screen.
I still remember when the Air lineup was all about being small and light.
The MacBook Neo and the MacBook Air (at about the same weight) are 10% lighter than the original Air.
Exactly. This with an M5, OLED, today's keyboard/trackpad combo, 16GB/24GB RAM, 2-4TB of SSD and it would be an instant buy
They make something like that, but it costs a bit more.
I'm very sad this neo macbook thing isn't a replacement for my macbook retina in any way. I'm not really sure what I'll do to replace it; I'd been hoping this "phone chip based macbook" would be of the old retina form factor. But instead it's just a nerfed air. My kids have the macbook airs and my little 2017 retina is substantially dramatically smaller and more portable. At least until the battery dies.
How much did that 12” Retina MacBook cost? Small and light isn’t cheap.
That would cannibalize their ipad lineup
That's basically what this is, no?
13" is not 11" As someone who used their 11" for years, it was a workhorse. A slow workhorse, but I still yearn for that size.
Those measurements are screen area. The old 11” had bezels that were almost an inch wide on each side. The actual laptop dimensions are almost exactly the same.
I had the 11” dual core i7 and I wouldn’t even call it slow (for its time). Loved that little machine and I keep longing for that form factor but with modern specs.
The 11" MacBook Air was also not 11". It was 11.6".
The footprint of the Air was 11.8" x 7.56". The Neo is 11.71" x 8.12". If you liked the size of that one, you'll like this.
I think the bezels are so much smaller that this may be almost exactly the size of the old 11" MBA.
I was thinking yesterday while reading the Thinkpad repairability story that I would pay an unreasonable amount for basically this laptop in the chassis of an X220, with a 7 row keyboard and Mac touchpad.
This is a 13" 16:9 screen. A little smaller than the current 13.6" 16:10 MacBook Air in display size but not really any more portable. Weight is the same as the 13.6" MacBook Air.
Don't think it's 16:9, just lower PPI than the air -- Neo: 2408x1506, Air: 2560x1664.
Yep, you're right.
Yes. I think Air is a better buy if you are going to have a "laptop". I wish it was lot lighter if I am losing features against MacBook Air.
Yes, this is spiritually more of a successor to the old plastic MacBook or iBook lines. Not a successor to the premium ultra-portable 12" MacBook.
That seems like a product they could also potentially revive with Apple Silicon.
It's a 13" and is ~2.5x as heavy.
No it isn't. It's 1.08kg vs 1.23kg, or 13% heavier.
And indeed it's 13 inch but the dimensions are quite similar, there is a 0.8% difference in width (with the 11 inch being wider surprisingly, due to the bezels) and a 7% difference in height (11 inch being shorter). At its thickest point the 11 inch is. 33% thicker. In terms of volume the 13 inch isn't any bigger.
Just look up the specs.