So, what’s happening here? The MacBook Neo is being held back by the 36.5 Wh battery. By comparison, the MacBook Air M4, like the latest MacBook Air 13 M5, packs a 53.8 Wh battery while the MacBook Pro 14 M4 Max features a 72.4 Wh cell.
Furthermore, the 36.5 Wh cell of the MacBook Neo is even smaller than many Windows laptops of similar size and weight. For example, the latest Dell XPS 14 packs a much bigger 70 Wh cell, while the 2025 Acer Aspire 14 AI runs a 65 Wh battery pack. As a consequence, the latest Dell XPS 14 lasted over 16.5 hours in our Wi-Fi websurfing test, despite a much more powerful Panther Lake chip and a 120 Hz display.
As a side note, we mention the Dell XPS 14 here from a purely battery capacity standpoint. The MacBook Neo is nowhere near the price of the Dell XPS 14 (2026). So, this isn’t an apples-to-apples comparison.
In the end, it is quite clear that the MacBook Neo’s small battery is a purely cost-cutting measure. We find it hard to believe that Apple couldn’t have done better by packing, let’s say, a 30% larger cell, especially when we know that Apple will produce a ton of MacBook Neo units. At such a high volume, the economies of scale kick in and decrease the per-unit cost of components like the battery, chassis, etc.