Name: I Can Only Recommend Macbooks Now…
Uploaded: 2026-03-05T21:49:50.000Z
Duration: 16 min 13 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Participle clauses

Apple just came flying in out of left field with the people's elbow dropping their giant buying power dong on the market, releasing a $600 MacBook.

Adverbs of degree

That, honestly speaking, makes it hard for me to recommend almost literally anything else to a laptop shopper.

And I want to get way out ahead of this one.

If you're out there bitching about the Neo having a mobile processor in it, y' all spent the last five, five years complaining that Apple doesn't let you run Mac OS on the iPad.

This thing is incredible and it's just one of the value oriented options.

We got the iPhone 17e, we got a replacement for the Pro display xdr that is $2,000 cheaper and better in a lot of ways.

And we got refreshed MacBook Pros, we got a refreshed MacBook Air, we even got this segue to our sponsor Squarespace.

It's the all in one website building platform.

It can help you create a custom site that stylistically matches your brand and functionally meets all of your needs.

Get started today with our link down below.

The haters take on the new $600 MacBook Neo is obviously going to be ew, an iPhone chip and a laptop.

Yeah, okay, it isn't gonna be an Adobe Premier powerhouse, but Apple isn't selling it as one.

Their marketing is focused instead on web browsing, messaging and using the powerful NPU to apply AI effects to your photos.

For all of that stuff, this thing is gonna be an absolute monstrously adequate machine.

Now there is the argument that 256 gigs of storage and 8 gigs of non upgradable even from the factory unified memory basically means this thing is e waste from the moment it rolls off the production line.

Was it not already e waste for those Starbucks novelists and Facebook Marketplace addicts that instead were buying much more powerful machines before?

Would it not be better if those folks used up less of our precious supply constrained NAND and memory right now?

Besides, I actually don't really think Apple had a choice here due to the way that die is packaged with the DRAM on top in order for them to reuse it, they were kind of stuck with 8 gigs of RAM.

Also to Apple's credit, their long term software support means that as long as I'm stuck with 8 gigs of RAM they are too.

And with very few notable exceptions like the first gen iPad, the Apple Watch Series 0.

Whatever that was, Apple takes pretty darn good care of their customers, even on products whose active user base number's in the dozens.

They do such a good job of this that when I recently got phones for a couple of my kids for Christmas, Apple devices were two out of, I think six options that both met my budget and software support requirements.

And I haven't even talked about how great this device is.

Apple is claiming 11 hours of mixed use and up to 16 hours of battery life, not to mention that it runs without a cooling fan.

And because it uses their lower powered A Series silicon, it probably straight up doesn't even need a fan in order to maintain full performance.

It also doesn't need a huge battery which carries multiple benefits.

The 36 watt hour battery inside the MacBook Neo keeps it easily portable at a trim 1.23 kilos, and

it only needs a 20 watt charger which thankfully is included in the box.

All of that means that you could pick up a reasonably priced battery bank like this really cool one that promises like a modular interface on the top and the ability to replace the cells once they wear out, or maybe even support future cool battery chemistries.

And you could more than double your Neo's time away from the wall just carrying a tiny thing like this.

Now you must be thinking at this point, what's the downside?

Surely it's made of unapologetic plastic or something, right?

It's got an aluminum chassis, a liquid retina display with anti glare that tops out at a very solid 500 nits.

That's perfectly acceptable for an office or school environment or even outdoors if you could stay out of direct sunlight.

Apple also went to great lengths to make it clear that the keyboard is their familiar beloved magic keyboard.

And even the trackpad is okay, it's smaller than other MacBooks, but

it's still multi touch and a very decent size.

This thing even packs a 1080p webcam, spatial audio support on its dual speakers, and

a second noise canceling mic for video calls.

then we turn it on its side and yeah, the connectivity is a bit of a downer.

Thankfully we get a 3.5 millimeter jack, but

if you want to plug in a USB, a device or even an external display, you're going to be resorting to a dongle.

I'm getting flashbacks to the 12 inch MacBook from 2015.

However, it is worth noting that sorry to break this to you, 2015 was over 10 years ago and nowadays everything from external drives to gaming headsets to office monitors can be found with a USB C connection.

While Touch ID is featured very prominently in the marketing for the device, it's actually not supported on the base configuration.

It only comes on the 512 gig model that costs $100 extra.

Also, the keyboard lacks a backlight, which is some pretty strong 2010 vibes on what is otherwise such a modern looking machine.

With that said, this thing can be had for as little as $500 with an education discount.

And if this Redditor's comment is anything to go by, Apple's strong buyback program, not to mention their support services, are gonna have even public school districts looking very closely at these machines compared to Chromebooks.

Because you've got a lot more than the one laptop today.

Let's dive into the other new MacBooks and the M Silicon chips that are at their hearts now.

It's no secret that Mac OS and I have had our differences of opinion, but

I'm a huge fan of what Apple has done with Apple Silicon and the M5 Pro and the M5 Max mean that that ain't going to be changing anytime soon.

I talked a fair bit in our launch coverage of Intel's Panther Lake CPUs about the importance of multi die chip designs going forward.

This approach can help with everything from enabling advanced features with third party IP to reducing cost, to creating a richer, more modular product stack that better serves your customers.

And Apple's version of this, called their Fusion Architecture, looks set to deliver very nicely on all of those benefits.

The Pro and the Max configurations both come with a new neural processor and a nice little upgrade to peak unified memory, throughput and GPU performance, and

That is a 4 and 2 core improvement over last gen, respectively.

This, combined with Apple's claims that these are the fastest cores in the world, should mean that Apple's only obstacle to selling these things by the truckload is how good their previous generation M series silicon already was.

Seriously, Apple even tacitly acknowledges how few Apple Silicon owners are gonna be upgrading by emphasizing just how much better the battery life will be compared to your Intel CPU MacBook.

Though honestly, I think they're being a little unfair to themselves.

If you're a heavy network user, for instance, like if you edit video over an S, the Wi Fi 7 capability of Apple's new N1 networking chip could be a game changer for you and it comes with Bluetooth 6 as a nice little cherry on top.

And there have been numerous other nice little quality of life improvements as their M Silicon has evolved.

Like the first gen was limited to HDMI 2.0, anything newer does HDMI 2.1 and the M4 series was the first to get Thunderbolt 5 with its whomping up to 120 gigabit per second bandwidth boost mode.

Though it is worth noting that on both M4 and M5 the base non Pro Max Ultra chips are still limited to Thunderbolt 4.

Now a major question in all of this is of course pricing, but

I am pleased to say that even amidst a rampocalypse that is wreaking havoc on affordability for PC users, Apple has managed to mostly hold the line.

They did eliminate some entry level models in their MacBook Pro lineup like the 512 gig version of the M5 Pro model.

But if I'm being honest guys, all told, it could have been a lot worse.

And if nothing changes in the AI data center boom next year, it might be worse.

It's very possible that Apple was only able to do this thanks to their long roadmap and the large scale purchasing commitments that they make.

The last new MacBook is probably the least exciting to me.

The M5 MacBook Air is $100 more now, eh, but

it comes with double the starting storage, a faster SSD, Wi Fi 7, Bluetooth 6 and of course better performance which again most Apple Silicon users don't need that much.

So it seems like Apple's most compelling sales pitch for it seems to center around being allowed to upgrade it with more RAM and more storage compared to the neo.

But hey, when you're up against an absolute show stealer like that, I guess it's okay not to look that good.

So far I haven't even talked about the new displays yet.

Apple's non pro displays have always been kinda unexciting, but not this time.

The new Studio display XDR frankly kicks the absolute crap out of its Pro older brother.

Sure they lowered the resolution and it is a little smaller, but