MacBook Neo

If you want a **budget laptop** that still feels like a proper Mac, the MacBook Neo is aimed squarely at students, office users, and anyone who mainly lives in Safari, Mail, Docs, and light creative apps. It solves the usual cheap-laptop problem: you get Apple build quality, a good display, and macOS without jumping to MacBook Air money. ## What makes it worth it The big win is the A18 Pro chip, which Apple says is built to run AI features efficiently and handle everyday work fast. The 13-inch Liquid Retina display is genuinely strong for the price, with 2408 × 1506 resolution, 500 nits of brightness, and support for a billion colours. You also get 1080p FaceTime HD camera quality, dual mics, and dual speakers with Spatial Audio, so video calls and streaming are better than on most cheap Windows laptops. ## Where it falls short The compromise is obvious: 8GB of unified memory is fixed, storage tops out at 256GB on this model, and the UK version does not include a power adapter. Reviews also note the port setup is bare bones, with only two USB-C ports and awkward USB 2/USB 3 split behaviour. Buy this if you want an affordable Mac for browsing, documents, calls, and student work. Skip it if you routinely multitask hard, edit video, or want more ports and more memory headroom.

£549.97