{"id":531386,"date":"2026-03-12T12:34:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T12:34:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/531386\/"},"modified":"2026-03-12T12:34:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T12:34:07","slug":"apples-599-macbook-neo-is-shock-to-the-affordable-laptop-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/531386\/","title":{"rendered":"Apple’s $599 MacBook Neo Is ‘Shock’ to the Affordable Laptop Market"},"content":{"rendered":"

Apple<\/a> is entering unfamiliar territory with a $599 MacBook, and competitors are noticing.<\/p>\n

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The tech giant is known for high price tags on pretty much all of its gadgets, but every once and while it offers an affordable option for those who want a lower price point. Such is the case with the new MacBook Neo<\/a> it revealed in March.<\/p>\n

Starting at $599, the MacBook Neo sells for $500 less than an entry-level MacBook Air. It costs less than an iPhone 17, and it runs on an A18 Pro chip.<\/p>\n

The drop is making waves in the laptop business as Apple enters a new price bracket. Taiwanese PC maker Asus<\/a> fielded questions about the impact of the affordable MacBook Neo during its earnings call on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

“Given Apple’s historically very premium pricing, launching such an affordable product is certainly a shock to the entire market,” Asus financial chief Nick Wu said, according to a transcript translated to English that was published by Seeking Alpha.<\/p>\n

However, he said Asus observed “limitations” in the MacBook Neo, such as its 8 GB of memory, which may limit certain applications. He said the device seems to be more focused on content consumption.<\/p>\n

“This differs somewhat from mainstream notebook usage scenarios,” Wu said. “The Neo feels more like a tablet, because tablets are mostly for content consumption.”<\/p>\n

By comparison, the lowest-memory laptop available on the Asus website on Wednesday was the ZenBook 14 with 16 GB of memory. <\/p>\n

Apple has positioned the new laptop as an accessible product that aims to put the MacBook in more people’s hands around the world. The introduction of a lower-cost laptop came alongside a round of price increases for higher-end MacBooks<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Still, Apple has officially entered a new, lower price lane \u2014 and its rivals are bound to take note.<\/p>\n

Wu said all PC vendors are taking this “very seriously,” and he expects rivals to launch their own products to compete with the MacBook Neo.<\/p>\n

“The final market competition outcome is hard to predict,” Wu said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Apple is entering unfamiliar territory with a $599 MacBook, and competitors are noticing. Loading audio narration… The tech…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":531387,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[49,48,61],"class_list":["post-531386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=531386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531386\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/531387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=531386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=531386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=531386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}