Will older M-series MacBook chips not support personalized Siri?

Siri is looking to get more advanced in just one month, and I can see Apple setting hard cut offs for the new revamped Siri only working on newer Apple Silicon with better processing capabilities and with more than 8GB of RAM.

The main feature that I believe will set this cut off is the long-awaited personalized Siri. It definitely sounds resource intensive with its on-device processing, but as a current M1 Air owner, I hope I’m dead wrong about this. It’s a good thing I’ve kind of swapped devices with my wife who is (or was) running an M1 Pro with 16GB of RAM.

Currently only the MacBook Neo sits at 8GB of RAM, but for the price point it’s justified. Next year's iPhone 18 is also rumored to get a spec bump to 12GB of RAM, so that might be the new minimum to run more advanced Apple Intelligence features.

The MacBook Neo shortage is the complete opposite of the iPhone Air surplus.

Great piece from Tim Culpan on his Culpium substack talking about the MacBook Neo “problem” with a summarized version on MacRumors.

All I can say is it’s the exact opposite of the iPhone Air dilemma, also brought to you by Tim Culpan.

Tab Groups in macOS Safari should give you the option to retain audio playing in other Tab Groups.

When you leave a Tab Group in macOS Safari, any audio playing in that Tab Group will pause, which I find annoying and I’m sure others feel the same way. I can see how this makes sense for some workflows, but there should be an option to retain audio playing in other Tab Groups. Simply place an additional audio glyph in the Tab Group selector to guide people to the audio source in their web of Tab Groups.

My first Apple product that I used - Apple IIe.

At the time (5th-6th grade), these weren’t too exciting since game consoles were superior gaming devices. We never owned one, but we had them in our school’s computer class and in that environment, they were exciting because anything is more exciting than textbooks.

Our class was a particular challenging group of youth, and we did not treat the equipment with tender care and love. I distinctly remember floppy disks being thrown around like frisbees. It was still a step up from just a few years prior. In 2nd grade (same school), we had a computer class that had a single computer, and we would learn the anatomy of a computer - the keyboard itself was a challenge since we had to learn “complex” controls such as TAB, ENTER, CAPS LOCK, and SHIFT. Only in the last part of class did each student get a turn to play Pac-Man. You literally got one chance, so if you died in 5 seconds, then you only got 5 seconds to use the computer. Imagine giving a new piece of technology to someone for only 5 seconds. What a tease!

For a more visual experience, this picture was the closest thing I found that mimics my 5th grade classroom environment.

Apple discontinues the Mac Pro, and also the $700 optional wheels.

Chance Miller fro 9to5Mac:

It’s the end of an era: Apple has confirmed to 9to5Mac that the Mac Pro is being discontinued. It has been removed from Apple’s website as of Thursday afternoon. The “buy” page on Apple’s website for the Mac Pro now redirects to the Mac’s homepage, where all references have been removed. 

Apple has also confirmed to 9to5Mac that it has no plans to offer future Mac Pro hardware.

The Mac Studio has long been considered the unofficial replacement for the Mac Pro, and now it’s…still not official. It’s as official as saying there will be a new iPhone coming this September.

Juli Clover from MacRumors talking about the wheels:

The ‌Mac Pro‌ Wheels kit was introduced in 2020, and allowed ‌Mac Pro‌ owners to add wheels to their machine after purchase. The ‌Mac Pro‌ could be bought with a wheel option for an additional $400, but the lower price was because opting for wheels removed the $300 feet.

Apple's kit included a 1/4-inch to 4mm hex bit for installing the wheels, and an installation guide.

Apple also sold a $300 ‌Mac Pro‌ Feet Kit for users who ordered wheels but wanted to swap to standard feet. That kit has also been discontinued. The ‌Mac Pro‌ and its accessories have been removed from Apple's website entirely, and old links now redirect to the online Apple Store.

For ‌Mac Pro‌ owners who want to switch to wheels but are now unable to do so, OWC sells a less expensive Rover Pro wheels kit for $200.

You can still buy a refurbished Mac Pro if you are so inclined but if you want the OEM wheels, your only option is eBay. Prices are still decent at around $300.

M5 Max MacBook Pro vs…Dell Pro Max 18 Plus

Dell can have every muscular iPhone moniker attached to its name, but it still can’t compete when it comes to dollar for dollar value. Plus it’s way too big of a laptop.

I’d rather have a Dell Neo mini 13 Air.

MacBook Neo Review: is it an upgrade from the 2020 M1 MacBook Air?

I’ve been testing out the MacBook Neo for over a week now, and I am confused by its performance. It works well (great in fact!), but now I wonder if I need more than this. I have been using the base model M1 Air for over 3 years now, and I don’t see the need to upgrade. If I do upgrade, the Neo would be on my list. Even a discounted M4 Air is overkill for me.

I got the base model MacBook Neo for testing, so both my Air and the Neo have 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage.

Chassis and design

Compared to the M1 Air, the design is a huge shift. Instead of a wedge shaped laptop with sharp corners, you get a flat design with rounded curves and edges. It doesn’t have a range of depth unlike the M1 Air, with a thicker back tapering to a thinner front end. Somewhere along the line my M1 Air got a bend in the chassis, not sure how or if it was that way from day one, but if I place it down on a flat surface, it definitely wobbles even though it has all 4 rubber feet in place. It’s not huge, but definitely noticeable. The Neo is flat and has no flex or wobble and feels just as premium as Apple’s most expensive laptops. If you were to really press hard on the lid of both laptops (or any laptop for that matter), you would notice some flex and notice the lid pushing in, but it’s an unnatural amount of push. For the record, the flex is more on the M1 Air.

I would argue that the design is even more premium in some ways, such as the keyboard. It seems counterintuitive to call the keyboard more premium even though it has no backlight, but the change to lighter, colored keycaps matching the color aesthetics of the laptop gives it a fun and premium look. Apple could have slapped a white keyboard for all 4 colors and it still would look nice, but they went out of their way to colorize the keys. Very cool.

You also get color-matching USB-C pins, a feature usually reserved for premium devices. Once again, very cool.

Overall, the design is great and very surprising for a $599 laptop. It is a joy to hold and gives you confidence when holding it with its sturdy chassis and consistent dimensions front to back. The M1 Air is still light and great to hold, but you only feel comfortable and confident holding it from the thicker hinged side since that angle doesn’t fight your finger grip. Try holding a big wedge of cheese from the thin side, and you’ll know what I mean.

Keyboard

Having no backlight not only helps with lowering the price and repairability, but it also makes perfect sense for the lighter colored keys. If the keys were backlit, the letters on the keys would have to be translucent, and that translucency in normal daylight or office lighting would be disastrous for readability. The shimmering lights would bounce off the keys making the light keys and now light letters invisible and therefore unreadable. I noticed that a lot when fondling over other laptop brands in the past, with their silver keys with translucent letters being almost unreadable with proper room lighting.

Don’t get me wrong. I would prefer a backlight and I do miss it everyday, but the keyboard contrast is great enough that you can see the keys from the screen’s light. This is also a good time to motivate anyone who complains about the lack of backlighting to learn how to properly type, especially all these influencers who are still pecking away at their keyboards. If pecking is your only hope, don’t get the Indigo color because it has the darkest keys. The keyboard contrast is much better on Silver, Blush, and Citrus. I can confirm that after using my niece’s Blush model and comparing it side by side in the dark with my Indigo test model.

Trackpad

The trackpad is also newly engineered to provide good tactility, even though it is a mechanical trackpad and not the more premium Force Touch. It is the first mechanical trackpad in a MacBook since 2015. Fun fact - Apple did release a mechanical trackpad in 2020 in the form of the Magic Keyboard for iPad Pro. I have an iPad Pro from that era along with the Magic Keyboard case, and the mechanical trackpad works fine without any issues many years later. The one on the Neo feels like it has a deeper click, but it feels just as solid and would be delightful for anyone who isn’t a fan of the haptic trackpad Apple currently uses. If you’re used to Force Touch, you will notice the Neo’s trackpad does slow you down just a hair since your finger is physically traveling (albeit maybe 2mm), compared to no travel with Force Touch.

Another fun fact - the trackpad is 7% of the total weight of the MacBook Neo, which is crazy. I believe Apple had to make the trackpad a mechanical one with a lot of weight (twice the weight of the Force Touch trackpad on the M5 Air), in order to keep the weight balance right and allow for the one-finger lift.

The one-finger lift. Ah yes, the tell-tale sign of a premium product. It’s still there and better than ever.

Display

The display is slightly smaller than an M1 Air (0.3 inch diagonal shorter) and won’t be missed. On an M2 Air and above it is 0.6 inches shorter, which will be missed, but these aren’t the target markets. The target market is Chromebooks and budget windows laptops and in that market, you will find bigger screens, but you won’t find quality, high-res screens with 500 nits of brightness. It even gets brighter than the M1 Air which maxes out at 400 nits. Chromebooks usually max out at 1080p at this price point, and you could even end up with washed out displays that shift colors really easily causing more eye strain than watching C-SPAN.

Speakers

Speaker quality is equal to my M1 Air, and I really couldn’t tell the difference between the two, which is a good thing because they do a more than adequate job. They are side firing instead of top firing, but it doesn’t affect the quality. If you cup your hands on the sides right by the speakers, you get a bit deeper bass as you reroute the audio upwards. The headphone jack is closer to the front compared to the back, which gives you some extra slack.

Performance

Coming from the M1 Air, I don’t see a noticeable difference between the two devices even though my M1 Air has dual NAND chips with faster read and write speeds to the SSD. That means if I am running low on RAM and have to borrow internal storage as RAM, technically my M1 Air would be faster, but again I am not noticing any difference in performance between the two because Apple has done some things under the hood to mitigate the memory swap issue plaguing the base model M2 Air with a single NAND chip. Whether you get 256GB or 512GB on the Neo, you will only have single channel memory, with less “highways” for data transfer. I would still opt for the 512GB model since you get the benefit of Touch ID which has its perks and security benefits.

So what exactly do I do to “push” this laptop? I have many stock apps open at any given time, including Mail, Messages, Notes, Calendar, Safari with 12+ tabs, News, Photos, and it just flies through my workload without a hitch. Playing 4K videos in Photos, while playing a 4K video in YouTube and editing images in Canva on Safari didn’t lead to any slow downs and is beyond a realistic workload for me. Even with nearly 4GB of swap memory, things were moving along fine. This laptop will surprise you with its capabilities, and is ideal for someone who is starting off as a simple, basic user that wants to delve into more ambitious projects as they learn new tools and creative apps. Ambition and creativity are part of the Neo’s theme, amplified by its built in hardware-accelerated ray tracing that will really smoke the M1 Air out of Apple’s walled garden.

Battery life

Apple quotes 16 hours of battery life vs 18 hours on all previous Airs including the M1 Air, so a slight decrease. The main issue however is charging speed. The Neo maxes out at 30W of charging, but you need a separate charger brick since the one supplied in the box is a 20W brick. More intensive tasks like 3D rendering and gaming will deplete the battery quickly, and it will take longer to charge it to full since it doesn’t support fast charging. If you’re coming from an M1 Air, the battery charging experience will be about the same since both the M1 Air and the Neo don’t support MagSafe 3 fast charging.

The great news - you can use battery banks to charge this laptop with ease due to the relatively low wattage requirements.

Who is this laptop for?

This laptop is for many types of people, and most people will fit into one of these categories:

1. Someone new to macOS, and just wants a cheap way to get into the Apple walled garden after already being a dedicated iPad and iPhone user. They want to take the jump into familiar yet unfamiliar territory by having a proper computer to manage school, life, and/or work.

2. A nice “beater” laptop for professionals who work on Macs that costs thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars and want a secondary machine for those days where they are doing more admin type of work.

3. Any student looking to get a laptop for school or college will be fine with a Neo.

4. Anyone upgrading from a Chromebook will appreciate the extra power and higher fidelity screen.

5. M1 Air owners whose laptop is on its last legs from a physical perspective - this is the best lateral move. I’ll say it again - I’ve been using the M1 for over 3 years now as a daily driver, and this laptop can easily handle everything the M1 can. If you give me enough time, I might see a beach ball, but I have seen one beach ball in nearly 10 days. Think of the Neo as a lateral job promotion - you don’t get a pay raise, but you love your new job and don’t want to go back.

6. Finally, if you’re using an Intel MacBook Air, the benefits are insane when you jump to the Neo. You get the promotion at work with a serious pay raise, and you love the job.

Does the MacBook Neo collect a lot of fingerprints like the Midnight Blue MacBook Air?

I haven’t wiped the exterior surface of my MacBook Neo since I got it 9 days ago, and here is a comparison vs an M2 MacBook Air in Midnight Blue, known to be a fingerprint magnet. The Neo will get fingerprints, but it won’t turn into a grime fest that is Midnight Blue.

I felt like taking a shower after touching this M2 Air.

In order to achieve a premium one-finger lift on MacBook Neo, Apple needed to go with a cheaper mechanical trackpad, killing two birds with one stone.

It’s simply physics at the end of the day. The MacBook Neo and MacBook Air weigh the same at 2.7 pounds, but according to iFixit (when describing the Neo’s chassis):

Together, its chassis, keyboard, and bottom cover are just 8g lighter than the Air’s. But the Neo’s screen is 48g heavier, and the solid chunk of metal that supports its trackpad makes up 7% of the laptop’s overall weight! The Neo’s full trackpad assembly is almost exactly twice as heavy as the M3 MacBook Air’s, too. 

In order to counter balance the heavy screen when opening the laptop, you need a solid front-end base that will keep the chassis in place. What better way than to make a heavy trackpad mechanism that complements the extra screen weight, right at the lip where you lift the lid? Apple achieves the premium lift, and also a cheaper bill of materials without compromising trackpad feel.

Cheaper and more premium - a paradox worth fighting for.

MacBook Neo isn’t the only recent Apple device with a mechanical trackpad.

Apple’s original Magic Keyboard for iPad Pro, announced at the peak of COVID and available for purchase in April 2020, was their first trackpad for the iPad, and it was an all mechanical setup similar to the MacBook Neo.

iFixit tears it down and describes its functionality, with a nice little animation showing how it works:

What looks like multiple buttons in the X-ray is actually just one button and a simple, elegant lever system. The single button is at the center of the trackpad, where the mechanism is rigid. When you apply pressure near the center, whether top, middle, or bottom-center, you are directly pressing the button. Press near the top, bottom, or one of the corners, however, and the lever system comes into play, forcing the contact plate in the center upward to make a click happen. You can see it happen in this animation below. Note how the lever mechanism covers not only the diagonal corner areas, but the perimeter of the trackpad, too.

I’ve been using mine for years, and it still holds up really well with no signs of internal wear.

The most bipolar Mac setup that you shouldn’t have.

A buddy of mine got the Studio Display XDR and I thought - why not pair it with one of Apple’s new computers released last week.

Which computer you may ask?

Well the MacBook Neo of course.

No one, I mean no one, should have this setup. For the love of God, your monitor should not have more RAM and a stronger processor than your computer.

MacBook Neo in Indigo - what does it look like in different lighting scenarios?

If my memory serves me correctly, the Midnight Blue MacBook Air was darker than this Indigo color, making the Neo a bit more pleasing to the eye. Anyway here are the photos:

In low, warm light.

Morning productivity.

It is a fingerprint magnet.

Near a window, with overcast skies.

Logo is matte finished instead of the usual glossy finish.

Outdoors in overcast skies. Wasn’t planning on snow today…

Dorm room, warm, low light simulation. Almost looks like the iPhone 14 Pro in Deep Purple.

I like the color matched keyboard, and I think the Indigo has the most colored keyboard out of the bunch. You really notice the lack of a backlight. Speaking of…

In complete darkness, you get some light on the keyboard from the screen, but not enough to compensate for no backlight.

Dave2D finally answers my most important question about MacBook Neo.

When the MacBook Neo was announced, I wanted to know if Apple cut a corner on the hinge, since the price point was so low:

The only unanswered question on my mind - can you open the lid with one finger?

That is a signature Apple feature, and it doesn’t surprise me that Apple kept it. The one-finger lift is a sign of premium build quality, and any laptop without it automatically is a deal breaker for me personally. Even when I was a Chromebook user, I only bought the best.

Professional laptop reviewer Dave2D not only confirmed it, but he gave it some screentime, emphasizing the importance of what many would consider an insignificant feature.

Why MacBook Neo can only have 8GB of RAM.

AleksandarK from TechPowerUp, explaining why the RAM in MacBook Neo is limited to 8GB:

Some online criticism emerged regarding Apple's decision to offer a laptop with only 8 GB of RAM in 2026, with no options for higher RAM capacity. However, this 8 GB of RAM is a design choice Apple made at TSMC's packaging facilities for the A18 Pro chip. Inside the MacBook Neo, Apple decided to reuse the iPhone 16 Pro's chip, which comes from TSMC with 8 GB of LPDDR5X memory. This memory is attached directly above the A18 Pro SoC using Integrated Fan-Out Package on Package (InFO-PoP), creating a 3D wafer-level fan-out package. This package is designed to hold memory directly above the SoC die, resulting in a smaller PCB design without the LPDDR5X module taking up over 100 mm² of PCB area.

Therefore, Apple's MacBook Neo configurations are limited to what the A18 Pro SoC is originally packaged with. These are 8 GB LPDDR5X modules that are shipped directly to TSMC for integration into the InFO-PoP package, which is later shipped back to Apple for integration into these new MacBook Neo laptops.

Future upgrades to the MacBook Neo, say to the A19 Pro, would mean it would get 12GB of RAM.

My old advice aged worst than gorgonzola.

Before the MacBook Neo was announced, I said it would be a bad idea to make any upgrades to it:

Apple’s new rumored MacBook with multiple deep color options might be the best deal for students and first-time Mac users, but the minute you go past the base model’s specs, it’s value proposition and charm will fumble.

Rumored to start at 8GB of RAM and at 256GB of memory, it’s a solid computer for an alleged $599-$699 starting price. 8GB of RAM is a limitation though and historically Apple charges a $200 upgrade to 16GB. Now we’re at $799-$899 for this smaller laptop, right in MacBook Air territory, making the M4 MacBook Air the logical purchase since it’s always on sale for $799.

At the time there was no certainty about price and what chip and RAM configurations it would have. Now that it has been revealed, the only upgrade is the $100 option for Touch ID and 256GB of extra storage. Well worth it as I explained in greater detail.

Should you upgrade your MacBook Neo for $100 to get Touch ID and more storage?

The $100 upgrade price is the only upgrade option on MacBook Neo and it gives you two features:

1. 256GB of extra storage, for a total of 512GB.

2. Touch ID instead of a Lock button.

In my opinion it is well worth the upgrade for these two features. 256GB is already limiting for a MacBook, and if you take a lot of photos and videos on your iPhone, the 512GB of storage comes in handy for local storage. Even though this laptop isn’t really a “creator’s laptop” due to its lower specs, it does give people plenty of power to dabble in photo or video editing, where storage once again comes in handy. There’s also the possibility of faster read and write speeds with double the storage and better performance when your 8GB of RAM is full, forcing the computer into swap memory. We will have to wait for the teardown to see if Apple is using single or dual NAND chips but like I said previously:

If I were a betting man, I would assume the base model comes with a single NAND 256GB chip instead of dual NAND 128GB chips. You would get extra performance if you had dual 128GB chips since you have more “lanes” for data transfer and memory swap, but since this is the budget MacBook, it’s hard to tell until someone does a teardown.

Even if there was no difference in SSD speeds and performance, the price upgrade is worth it.

The second reason - Touch ID, a huge time saver when you add the cumulative amount of time you would spend either typing in your password, or hoping your “Apple Watch to Unlock” feature is going to work. Don’t get me wrong - using your Apple Watch to unlock your Mac works really well most of the time…but you need an Apple Watch. Even if you have one, the times where it doesn’t work makes it annoying to manually type your password, potentially making it a security risk if people are snooping around.

Let’s not forget about the other benefits of Touch ID:

1. Apple Pay.

2. You can easily fill usernames and passwords more securely. Without Touch ID, you simply click your username and password from iCloud Keychain to fill the field with no authentication other than when you unlocked your MacBook. In this case Touch ID is less convenient (barely), but more secure.

3. Passkeys - if you’re trying to login with a passkey, there’s a lot less friction with Touch ID. Simply touch and you’re in. Without Touch ID, you would have to use an iPhone or iPad and scan a QR code, adding more friction.

Apple kept the upgrade path simple with MacBook Neo, and the $100 upgrade is a no-brainer. At $699, this is still a great deal and the deal gets even better with education pricing at $599.

Apple debuts all-new MacBook Neo, starting at $599.

A very low entry price, and even lower at $499 with education pricing. The main specs:

• Powered by A18 Pro, the same chip in iPhone 16 Pro, except with one less GPU core.

• You can only get 8GB of RAM, which is a bummer, but makes sense for the target audience.

• Base storage of 256GB.

• For $100 extra, you get double the storage and Touch ID. Totally worth the $100, which could even be a wash when sales start happening. If I were a betting man, I would assume the base model comes with a single NAND 256GB chip instead of dual NAND 128GB chips. You would get extra performance if you had dual 128GB chips since you have more “lanes” for data transfer and memory swap, but since this is the budget MacBook, it’s hard to tell until someone does a teardown.

• Side firing stereo speakers - they sound promising (haha), and Apple does a good job of giving decent audio even in budget products.

• No MagSafe 3 - totally expected and I barely use it on my wife’s 14-inch M1 Pro.

• Two USB-C ports - a plus since I was expecting a single port. Supports one 4K display alongside the Neo’s display.

• Four colors:

  • Silver

  • Blush (light pink),

  • Citrus (excess vitamin intake piss yellow),

  • Indigo

  No backlit keyboard, but you do get color matching keycaps, which could be problematic in dark environments.

Full specs comparing the two models. I’ll be testing the base model which matches my M1 Air in terms of memory and RAM, so we’ll see if the performance at least matches my M1.

In all fairness, I’ve been happy with 8GB of RAM on my M1 Air, and for people who only use stock apps and maybe Chrome or Firefox, this will be a beast.

The only unanswered question on my mind - can you open the lid with one finger?

Apple’s new M5 Pro and M5 Max debut in the MacBook Pro, now starting with 1TB of storage.

Apple Newsroom:

Apple today announced the latest 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro with the all-new M5 Pro and M5 Max, bringing game-changing performance and AI capabilities to the world’s best pro laptop. With M5 Pro and M5 Max, MacBook Pro features a new CPU with the world’s fastest CPU core, a next-generation GPU with a Neural Accelerator in each core, and higher unified memory bandwidth, altogether delivering up to 4x AI performance compared to the previous generation, and up to 8x AI performance compared to M1 models. This allows developers, researchers, business professionals, and creatives to unlock new AI-enabled workflows right on MacBook Pro. It now comes with up to 2x faster SSD performance and starts at 1TB of storage for M5 Pro and 2TB for M5 Max. The new MacBook Pro includes N1, an Apple-designed wireless networking chip that enables Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6, bringing improved performance and reliability to wireless connections. It also offers up to 24 hours of battery life; a gorgeous Liquid Retina XDR display with a nano-texture option; a wide array of connectivity, including Thunderbolt 5; a 12MP Center Stage camera; studio-quality mics; an immersive six-speaker sound system; Apple Intelligence features; and the power of macOS Tahoe. The new MacBook Pro comes in space black and silver, and is available to pre-order starting tomorrow, March 4, with availability beginning Wednesday, March 11.

The new storage bumps lead to both price increases and decreases, and this piece from Macworld explains all the price changes to the new MacBooks (including the MacBook Air).

What will Apple cut from the new budget MacBook?

According to a Weibo leak (reported by Tom’s Guide) the following limitations might apply to the new MacBook in order to reach a cheaper price point:

• No backlit keyboard

• The display may have a lower max brightness

• No True Tone color adjustment for the display

• Slower SSD speeds

• No 1TB or 2TB storage capacity options

• No fast charging support

• No N1 chip (the chip used to improve performance and reliability of connectivity features like AirDrop)

• No high-impedance headphones support

What I think should also be on this list:

• Single central speaker instead of stereo speakers

• Starting at 8GB RAM

• No MagSafe (but keeping a fast charging USB-C port)

• Single USB-C port

Bonus feature that could be a surprise welcome (complete wild guess):

• Vapor chamber similar to iPhone 17 Pro

We’ll find out soon enough.

Apple’s new budget MacBook will be an absolute deal - just don’t upgrade it.

Apple’s new rumored MacBook with multiple deep color options might be the best deal for students and first-time Mac users, but the minute you go past the base model’s specs, it’s value proposition and charm will fumble.

Rumored to start at 8GB of RAM and at 256GB of memory, it’s a solid computer for an alleged $599-$699 starting price. 8GB of RAM is a limitation though and historically Apple charges a $200 upgrade to 16GB. Now we’re at $799-$899 for this smaller laptop, right in MacBook Air territory, making the M4 MacBook Air the logical purchase since it’s always on sale for $799.

The Air will have the same storage and RAM numbers for that $799 price, but performance and monitor support will be significantly better compared to the new MacBook. My gut tells me most people will go for the base model anyway to keep prices low. Those that go for the higher spec’ed new MacBook know they’re getting a worse computer for the same amount of money, but the power of real colors on a MacBook is going to suck a lot of people in, logic be damned.

It’s already working for the orange iPhone 17 Pro.