Apple’s $399 Mac Neo is INSANE! Windows Users Should Be WORRIED…

Apple could be making a brand new Mac Neo, the younger brother to the Mac Mini. That’s right, the cheapest Mac that Apple have ever made, ever. And I, for one, I’m super excited to see this coming along.

Leaks and rumors and the potential of a Mac Neo

So, today, I want to tell you all the leaks and rumors and the potential of a Mac Neo on its way. So, let’s quickly talk about where we are right now with the Neo territory, as it were. So, it was earlier this year, back in March, that we got the MacBook Neo. This is Apple’s budget MacBook. Now, at the time of the lease, this did come out at starting price of $599 US dollars, or $499 US dollars. And what’s got inside of it? It’s got an A18 Pro chip.

This is the same chip as the iPhone 16 Pro and the iPhone 16 Pro Max, just minus one GPU core. It also has 8 GB of RAM, 256 GB of storage as the starting configuration. But, you could pay $100 more to get the likes of, say, Touch ID and 512 GB. And it’s been a huge success. It has been Apple’s best MacBook they’ve ever sold since its launch time. So, this has been great, and in fact, it’s been out of stock everywhere up until quite recently. Now, I say up until quite recently because something has happened, and that is across mainly the Apple board, all of their prices have increased definitely on on all Macs.

So, that now the starting price for a MacBook Neo, sadly, actually begins at $699 US dollars, or the educator’s discount is $599. And that’s all because of all these things going on in data centers, you know, using up all of the RAM and all of the NAND sort of storage, and it’s just skyrocketed the prices up stupidly high. So, yeah, the MacBook Neo had to go up in price. And if you want to know a reason behind that, and why Apple didn’t dig into their profits and things like this, well, yeah, check out the other video I’ve got on my channel giving you more details the reasoning behind this. But we won’t talk about that today. But overall still, the MacBook Air has been a great success, and it is still selling quite well today. And if you do shop around, you can get some discounts for it.

But the other thing what’s also happened with that price increase is that we also had the Mac mini going up in price. Remember when this came out, you could get 256 GB of storage with this, 16 GB of RAM for $599. The same price as the MacBook Air when that got launched. However, that has also changed. It is now $799 for the Mac mini with 512 GB of storage cuz they’ve stopped the 256, and also comes with 16 GB of RAM. So it’s not as cheap as it used to be. And that lies the question open, is there room for another new smaller Mac out there what could be cheaper? And the answer is yes, there is. And that would be the Mac Neo. Now, the Mac Neo essentially would be a thinner version of the Mac mini that we have right now. It probably wouldn’t even have a cooling fan in it. And that’s why, as you can see from this design right here, it would be thinner.

And the other big thing too is the chip inside would also be a lower chip. So could be the A18 Pro just like what we get with the MacBook Air Neo right now, or it could even be the next generation chip. It could be the A19 Pro because of the time of the release of this, what I’ll get onto in the moment. But having that A18 Pro, you would have 8 GB of RAM again with it, probably 256 GB storage too with this. And then for ports-wise, you’d only have probably a couple on here. You’d probably have say two USB ports on the front, maybe even one. And then on the rear, you’d probably again only have say two USB-C ports, maybe the HDMI, maybe an ethernet, and the power, and that is it. The idea of the Mac Neo is just like the MacBook Neo. It’s a starting out device. What would come out here? It wouldn’t be specked up really high or anything like that. It’s just enough to get you started.

Let’s talk a bit more about this Mac Neo and what we could potentially see with it. Like I said, it could either have the A18 Pro or the A19 Pro. Well, probably with its release time of it and it looks like the release of this wouldn’t be until next year in 2027. So, with that it would probably get the last generation chips. It’d be the A19 Pro. So, with that the great news is you would get 12 GB of RAM. You would also get the likes of the A19 Pro. Well, obviously it’s faster than what we get with the A18 Pro. So, this would be really great to see. Like I said, don’t expect this new Mac Neo to be a powerhouse whatsoever. What it will be mainly designed for is just for home kind of use. You bring your own monitor, you bring your own keyboard and mouse to it, connect it up, and off you go getting a macOS experience. Just like what the MacBook Neo does right now.

It would be able to do video editing, but obviously don’t expect to do say 4K 120 frames per second in raw format or anything like that, but it would be able to say maybe take some pictures or videos from your phone, your iPhone, edit them a little bit if they just been recorded in the standard format, but don’t expect, you know, really super fast speeds. And if you do push it to its limit, because it wouldn’t have a fan inside, yeah, it would throttle, just like a MacBook Air, even the MacBook Air Neo does right now if you really push it to its limits. But, apart from that, this is essentially what we would get with the Mac Neo. But then, like I said, let’s talk about the release date and price for it.

What kind of things would we see there?

Well, for the actual kind of release time, like I said, the earliest it would be would be 2027, and most likely it’d be at the same time when they Apple decide to refresh the MacBook Neo to the MacBook Neo 2. Again, this is most likely going to get that A19 Pro chip with 12 GB of RAM, and nothing else really is going to probably change the design or anything like that, but that’s something for another video. But the main thing is it’s the chip. So, that chip would also be put inside this new Mac Neo as well. So, that is what you would get, but that kind of timing is probably going to be March or April next year. That is the absolute earliest we would see the new Mac Neo coming out. And again, there probably offerings of different colors or things like this would be really awesome to see.

But then, for the price, what would happen there?

Well, the price thing this is the thing. The Mac Mini has increased now to $799 US. It’s no longer really a budget machine. You know, even the MacBook Neo is cheaper now. So, this is why I say you that Apple need to bring out a Mac Neo now to actually come out with this. And with the Mac Neo, most likely the pricing would probably be more like around about $399 US or $499 US dollars it. Don’t forget we’re missing screen, keyboard, trackpad, things like that. So, this is what you’re going to get. You’re literally getting the device here. So, probably it would be, like I said, about $399 US dollars to $499 US dollars. That $499 US dollars probably would actually give you say an extra USB port or two, and probably would also give you the ability to have 512 GB of storage instead of 256 GB of storage with that extra $100 more.

But, the cool thing is, if you have an educator’s discount, you can imagine that would also bring those down the tier. So, this would actually start at $299 US dollars for the 256 GB version, which is really great value. And then, obviously, if you wanted that next kind of level up, that would be $399 US dollars to actually buy the Mac Neo. But, really guys, that is the latest and greatest we have on it. Are you excited for the new Mac Neo? Would you get one if it does come out next year? Let me know in the comments below.