Technology

8 gb of RAM shared between the gpu and the rest of the system... My 2 year old phone has 50% more.

This is a POS to distract from the fact that their existing cheapest laptop just jumped form $899 to $1099

$600 MacBook in 2026 is absolutely insane to me. Around 2007/08 when I started using MacBooks as a student the entry level ones used to be 1200€.

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Completing the MacBook Neo experience is macOS Tahoe

Woah, this is new! A version of Mac OSX running on a iPhone/iPad CPU.

I'm not mad about this, especially with Google pushing Gemini so hard on all their devices. I pulled up the Chromebook site to see their current offerings, and the prominent advertisement for Gemini is pretty disgusting after fresh news of another death.

Apple has been violating people's wallets for how long and they finally decide now is the time to make affordable macs?

Complaining aside, this is a darn good move. The timing is great, so they are likely to be very popular too, which is good for the future of the market. I hope.

Honestly this seems absolutely incredible for the vast majority of people, a good MacBook at a decent price point. Benchmarks haven't come out yet but I heard its as good if not better than the M1. For the vast majority of people that's good enough, and even with the worse battery the real world battery life is gonna be amazing.

Also for those complaining about Linux support the main competition is Windows laptops running Snapdragon X Elite which should have somewhat similar performance and also doesn't support Linux. Hell the snapdragon x2 probably won't support Linux either. These laptops cost two times as much as this and usually with significantly worse build quality.

It's pretty. But I recently bought a Lenovo IdeaPad at Costco for less, with 16GB ram and 1TB SDD and am running Linux Mint on it, which I'm getting way more out of than any other Mac I've owned.

Without a doubt the Mac's screen is better than mine. But I feel like, all things considered, what I have can do more (and probably for longer). I'm happy to see something like this come along and take the wind out of Microslop's sails (and sales). At the same time, I feel like one is able to get far more value out of a less-costly machine. If one were going to switch OSes anyway, why not Linux? I guess they're banking on people already owning iPhones and therefore making this a more seamless transition or whatever...

Not usually an Apple guy, but it's hard to overstate how smart it is to focus on affordability right now. I feel like having a ~$500 device in the current market is so important. (Especially if it respects your privacy.)

This is the opposite of "own nothing and be happy" and I suspect these things are gonna sell like hotcakes.

Now we just need to get Linux going on them. 🫡

I would be kinda impressed that Apple is finally offering something that's good value, but 8GB of RAM? ehhhhhh. It's probably still a decent-ish deal, I don't really know how good a phone SoC would handle anything more than light tasks, though.

You known what, good job Apple. You've been winning me over lately. I'm not sure I'd exactly recommend this route to people, the 8 GB RAM is rough even with macOS being more efficient with it. But in the RAM-pocalypse we'll take what we can get, and the rest is fire for budget range.

How soon until Asahi will run on it

If it wouldn’t carry just 8 GB of RAM, it would be a great deal. Sadly, it’s not even upgradable, so its usefulness is rather limited.

Honestly I'm expecting this to take up most of the mid-range laptop market. 8gb RAM and only 256GB storage is lame, but the rest of it probably makes it really good value (especially with components getting more expensive recently).

Unless you're buying used or refurbished, most laptops I found at ~$600 or less kinda suck. Either it has terrible specs, or uses cheap plastic, or has a terrible screen, etc.

I don't like Apple, but hopefully this is a wake-up call for other vendors. Lower end laptops should stop being cheap garbage.

Considering Windows has become a complete dumpster fire recently, this $600 laptop could be a really appealing option for some if they're mostly browsing the web.