MacBook Neo review: Apple puts every $600 Windows PC to shame

Posted on 10/03/2026 by Devindra Hardawar

I really don't know how Apple did it. The MacBook Neo is a $600 laptop that doesn't feel like an afterthought, which is a curse that has befallen so many cheap Windows notebooks. Sure, it has a slower A-series processor and it's limited to 8GB of RAM. But the MacBook Neo still feels as deeply considered as Apple's most premium hardware. Its screen, trackpad and overall usability is so far ahead of the competition, every Windows PC maker, including Microsoft, should be ashamed.

I've argued that a cheap MacBook could be the best for Apple to peel away Windows users, and after spending almost a week with the Neo, I'm convinced it will do just that. It's just fast enough to handle basic productivity work. It's sturdy enough to be tortured by kids in classrooms. And you really can't beat its $599 starting price. Once Windows users learn it's not that hard to switch to macOS, Apple will likely have another hit on its hands.

What's so Neo about this MacBook?

I'll admit, I laughed at the MacBook Neo's name at first. It really does feel like a desperately hip name ASUS or Acer would slap onto their machines (in fact, Acer is doing so right now), rather than something Apple would even consider. But the Neo name is more than just a dated reference to the Matrix — it's also a clear signal that this is a new type of MacBook. It's the first one Apple has ever been able to sell so cheaply. It's the first one powered by a mobile A-series chip. And for many people, it will likely end up being their first Mac.

The MacBook Neo also marks the first time Apple has built a value-focused notebook under $1,000. The adorable handle-equipped iBook G3 looked like a system geared towards kids, but it launched at $1,599 in 1999. The original MacBook Air, which Steve Jobs revealed by pulling it out of a manilla envelope, sold for $1,799 in 2008. MacBooks only got semi-affordable when Apple dropped the Air's entry price to $999 in 2014. (The starting price has bounced between $999 and $1,099 ever since.) It dabbled in the concept further by keeping the M1 MacBook Air around at Walmart stores for $699 in 2024 before eventually dropping its price down to $650 last year. If you were lucky, you could also find it for $499 during some holiday sales.

A citrus MacBook Neo being held up with one hand.

While the M1 MacBook Air was a great value over the last few years, its last-gen Apple design aged quickly. The Neo looks far more modern, with an all-aluminum case that resembles the current Air (it's a bit smaller, but weighs the same 2.7 pounds). Color is the Neo's biggest draw, with bolder options like the greenish citrus and pink blush, along with Apple's typical dark and light case options. The citrus hue is the most unique, as we've seen rose gold MacBooks before. It would have been nice to see other strong colors too, like a brighter blue or something with a hint of purple. The people want personality, Apple!

Under the hood, the MacBook Neo is a story of compromise, more so than any MacBook before it. Apple had to find a way to deliver its premium user experience while also cutting costs significantly to reach its $599 price. Relying on the A18 Pro, which powered last year's iPhone 16 Pro, was likely far more cost effective instead of using an older M-series chip that isn't being built anymore. That A18 Pro chip also means the MacBook Neo has to be fairly limited when it comes to ports: there are only two USB-C connections on board (one is USB 3.0, and the other is USB 2.0). There's no MagSafe charging connection, which is a shame since the MacBook Neo will likely end up around trip-prone kids in schools and homes.

The biggest compromise lies in the MacBook Neo's RAM and disk space. It starts with just 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD. You can shell out another $100 to get 512GB of storage and a Touch ID button, but there's no way to add more RAM. Typically, my first piece of advice to any prospective computer buyer is to get at least 16GB of memory, as that's the easiest way to see faster performance when juggling tons of tabs, apps and large files. That's particularly true for Mac laptops, since Apple's unified memory is baked into its A-series and M-series chips.

The MacBook Neo's 8GB limitation shows the precise audiences Apple is targeting with the MacBook Neo: casual users. Those include people who need secondary machines for light workloads and schools relying on Chromebooks. I'm not reneging on my 16GB RAM recommendation — if the idea of less RAM in your main computer makes your skin crawl, the Neo isn't for you. The MacBook Air is still around, and it can easily be equipped with tons of RAM and storage.

Apple also deserves credit for squeezing in an impressive 1080p webcam in the Neo, something I haven’t seen in any other $600 Windows notebook. And while the resolution is impressive, Apple’s image processing also manages to deliver sharp and vibrant image quality. It’s usually easy to tell the overall quality of someone’s computer on group video calls based on their video quality. The MacBook Neo will have people thinking you’re calling in from a pricier MacBook Air or MacBook Pro.

When I first demoed the MacBook Neo at Apple's launch event, its keyboard felt a bit flimsier than those on the Air and Pro. But I may have just been distracted by the crowd and noise. My review unit's keyboard feels just as accurate as the Air's, allowing me to type at full speed (near 100 words per minute) without any issues. There's none of the weird input problems I noticed on Dell's far more expensive XPS 14.

The MacBook Neo's trackpad is similarly responsive and accurate for swiping and gestures. That's particularly surprising, since Apple isn’t using a haptic Force Touch trackpad like all of its laptops for the past decade. The Neo's pad clicks down mechanically — and yet, it doesn't feel as muddy as similar trackpads we see on budget PCs. It's also notable that Apple was able to make the Neo's trackpad completely clickable, whereas PC mechanical options often only click along their bottom half or third.

A citrus MacBook Neo on a table outside.

Enough Mac for most

I didn't expect much from the Neo's A18 Pro processor and limited specs, and yet it still managed to surprise me. It easily handled having dozens of tabs open across multiple browsers, a show playing on the TV app, photo editing in Pixelmator Pro and running the new Apple Arcade title Oceanhorn 3 without any significant slowdown. There's clearly some swift memory management going on, delivering just enough RAM for the task right in front of you.

The Neo's RAM usage typically hovered between 80 and 85 percent when I was trying to stress it, but it never went beyond that range. And if you're curious, the Neo typically used around 50 percent of its memory just to run macOS, even with no other apps running.

I'd bet most people wouldn't see a major performance difference between the MacBook Neo and the Air for basic tasks. Even their screens look similar: The Neo's LCD panel has only a slightly lower resolution than the Air's, but its smaller 13-inch screen size gives it a similarly rich pixel density. The screen looks bold and colorful indoors, and it's also bright enough to use in direct sunlight outside. That's not something you usually see on $600 laptops.

During a demo at the Neo's launch event, I saw its screen compared side-by-side to a $600 HP laptop. The difference was literally night and day — the HP's display struggled to show the vibrancy of daylight photos, while the Neo's made photos pop off the screen. Similarly, the Neo's side-firing speakers sound significantly better than the tinny garbage HP stuffs into its discount machines. The Neo's speakers are ideal for watching videos and streaming content, but they definitely lack the clarity and low-end bump from the Air and MacBook Pro's upward firing speakers.

	Geekbench 6 CPU	Geekbench 6 GPU	Cinebench 2024
Apple MacBook Neo (A18 Pro)	3,372 /8,406	19,511	107/324
Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (M4, 2025)	3,784/14,745	36,273	172/660 GPU: 3,465
Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (M3, 2024)	3,190/12,102	30,561	N/A
Microsoft Surface Pro 12-inch (2025, Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus)	2,315/10,915	9,539	108/530

I was definitely trying to push the MacBook Neo harder than a typical user, but it simply kept delivering. In Geekbench 6's CPU benchmark, the MacBook Neo sits between the M2 and M3 MacBook Air for single-core tests, and below the M2 for multi-threaded work. Apple's hardware still manages to put Intel and AMD to shame, with single-threaded Geekbench 6 scores that are higher than the latest hardware from both companies. But of course, that's just one benchmark — beefy CPUs with active cooling will still be more performant overall.

What’s most impressive about the MacBook Neo is that it manages to be a functional and well-rounded notebook at just $599. Microsoft’s “low-budget” $800 Surface Pro 12-inch was cute, but we found its performance incredibly underwhelming (and you still had to pay more for the keyboard). The 2.2-pound ZenBook A14 was impressively light, but again it was just too slow to be useful. Apple probably could have worked harder to make the MacBook Neo a tad lighter, but it’s still easy to hold and travel with. I’d much rather Apple kept it at the MacBook Air’s 2.7-pound weight, instead of making the Neo less powerful or more expensive.

The only time the MacBook Neo completely failed was when I tried to run complex games meant for Apple's M-series chips. Lies of P installed just fine, but upon launch it just stopped as it tried to load shaders. Honestly, I'm surprised I was even able to install it in the first place. The most gaming you'll do on the Neo are things built specifically for Apple Arcade and the company's mobile chips, or cloud streaming options like GeForce Now or Xbox.

During our battery test, which involves looping a 4K video, the MacBook Neo lasted 12 hours and 15 minutes. That's far below the 18 hours and 15 minutes I saw on the M4 MacBook Air, but it's still enough to last you during a typical work or school day. Again, Apple also had to sacrifice plugging in a bigger battery to keep the Neo's costs down.

Should you buy the MacBook Neo?

It's rare for Apple to genuinely surprise me these days, but the MacBook Neo did just that. It's a $599 computer that can handle basic workloads just fine, all the while looking like one of the company's more expensive notebooks. Most importantly, it delivers more speed, a brighter screen and an overall better user experience than any competing $600 Windows PC. It's so good, I think it'll make many people wonder why they've stuck with sub-par PCs for so long.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/laptops/macbook-neo-review-apple-puts-every-600-windows-pc-to-shame-130000878.html?src=rss

Dell XPS 14 (2026) review: A beautiful laptop that excels at almost everything… except typing

Posted on 06/03/2026 by Devindra Hardawar

There is so much to love about Dell's new XPS 14, it's hard for me to discuss it without sounding like a total fanboy. Its new design makes it incredibly thin and light. And Intel's Panther Lake chips give it a ton of power, even when it comes to games. After reviving the XPS brand from last year's ignominious rebranding, it's as if Dell was laser-focused on fixing all the issues we've had with the XPS 14 so far.

Unfortunately, a shallow, unresponsive and hilariously error-prone keyboard kept me from truly loving the XPS 14. Simply put, it has trouble recognizing keys if you press them too quickly in succession. And for fast and demanding typists like myself, that leads to countless errors that disrupt your flow. In the last sentence alone, I counted ten times where I had to go back and make sure commas appeared before a space, or tweak simple spelling errors. What good is a fast, light and beautiful machine if I can't type a sentence in peace?

It's not unusual for laptop keyboards to require a bit of user training. But my issues with the XPS 14 aren't from a lack of practice — it simply doesn't recognize key presses as quickly as every other laptop I've tested. As you can see in the video below, quick key presses are almost always recognized in reverse, or sometimes aren't recognized at all. Those issues mostly go away if you type more slowly and deliberately, but that seems like a ridiculous compromise for a premium machine in 2026.

Dell engineers are currently testing one of the two review samples I received, both of which exhibited the exact same keyboard issue. Other reviewers have also noted that they need to type more slowly for the keyboard to work best. Gizmodo's Kyle Barr seems to be just as frustrated with the keyboard as I am, but he thinks it's due to Dell's seamless key design, which doesn't have any spaces between keys. My brother, who is an IT professional, also noticed the input issues when he typed on the XPS 14.

I'm not crazy, I swear!

According to Dell, its engineers say that “a small batch of early XPS units” have the quick typing issue I ran into. They also say the issue is currently resolved and doesn’t affect XPS units shipping now. The company plans to release a firmware fix later this month, and I’ll be sure to update this review once I get my hands on it. But given that these laptops have been out in the wild for weeks, I decided to review the XPS 14 as is. TL;DR, it's the prettiest machine I've ever used that I hate to type on.

Seriously, this thing is gorgeous. Dell's designers outdid themselves with the machine's smooth metal case, which is more MacBook-like than its boxy predecessors. It's astonishing this system weighs just three pounds, putting it right between the 3.4-pound 14-inch MacBook Pro and the 2.7-pound 13.6-inch MacBook Air. It's also just a third of a pound heavier than the MacBook Neo, Apple's attempt at an underpowered entry-level laptop.

I'm also glad to see that Dell has heard my complaints about how over-designed the last XPS line was. For example, the company has stuck with its "invisible" trackpad, which sits flush with the laptop's wrist rest. But now there are two faint lines that designate where, exactly, the trackpad begins and ends. It's a solution reminiscent of Apple's MacBooks, which all feature large glass trackpads separated by a light border from their metal cases. Thanks to these two small lines, which don't detract from XPS 14's minimalist aesthetic, I feel more confident swiping around.

Dell also reversed course on the wonky capacitive function row from the previous models — which again, looked cool, but had some serious usability issues. It was tough to touch type with them, since they didn't feel as tactile as normal keys. And most crucially, the capacitive function row completely disappeared in direct sunlight. God forbid you were outside and wanted to change the volume level! This XPS 14 brings back a normal keyed function row, which is easier to touch type on and actually works in direct sunlight. (I sometimes wonder if Dell's designers ever went outside with the last XPS 14.)

Our review model's 2.8K 14-inch OLED touchscreen looked spectacular, with bold colors and wonderfully deep black levels. But that's pretty much what I've come to expect from OLED by this point. I can't get enough of the extra eye candy OLED adds to photos and videos, and it makes a huge difference with games as well. But take note that OLED is only available for the priciest XPS 14, all other models get a standard non-touch 2K LCD.

When it comes to connectivity, three USB-C ports and a headphone jack are all you get with the new XPS 14. The microSD card slot from the previous model is gone, and there's also no HDMI or USB Type A connections like you'd find on similar systems from ASUS and Acer. Apple's 14-inch MacBook Pro, notably, features three USB-C ports, a full-sized HDMI slot, a large SD card reader and a headphone jack.

Beyond Dell's redesign, the main star of the XPS 14 is Intel's new Panther Lake Core Ultra X7 358H chip, which offers some serious graphics upgrades over the last generation. Our review unit, which featured 32GB of RAM and Intel's built-in Arc B390 GPU, was able to reach 130fps in Arc Raiders while playing in 1080p with medium graphics settings, as well as XeSS upscaling and frame generation. I was able to play through a few rounds with no lag — my only distraction was the lingering realization I was playing so smoothly on an ultraportable's integrated graphics.

I certainly wouldn't recommend the XPS 14 for heavy gamers. But if you're forced to choose a new non-gaming system for work or school, it's certainly nice that it can play some modern titles well. I also saw 63fps while playing Cyberpunk 2077 in 1080p with medium graphics settings and XeSS tech active. Not bad for one of the most demanding PC games in recent memory!

Computer	PCMark 10	Geekbench 6	Geekbench 6 GPU	Cinebench 2024
Dell XPS 14 (Intel Core Ultra X7 358H)	9,651	2,890/16,745	56,378	125/685
MSI Prestige 14 Flip AI+ (Intel Core Ultra X7 358H)	10,169	2,864/16,633	56,425	117/719
Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch (M5, 2025)	N/A	4,310/18,003	48,840	197/1,034
Dell 16 Premium (Core Ultra 7 255H, NVIDIA RTX 5070)	7,780	2,711/15,919	109,443	127/1,104

Benchmarks also point to plenty of power under the hood: The XPS 14 scored similarly to the MSI Prestige 14 AI+, which also has the Ultra X7 358H chip, in PCMark 10 and Geekbench 6. I was also surprised to see that its single-core Geekbench 6 score was higher than ASUS's ProArt PX13 GoPro Edition, a beastly machine with 128GB of RAM and a powerful AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 chip. The XPS 14 also scored 3,000 points higher than the Acer Predator Triton 14 AI gaming laptop (powered by a last-gen Core Ultra 9 288V chip) in Geekbench's multi-threaded CPU test.

Clearly, this was a growth year for Intel's hardware. Just keep in mind that all of our figures come from Dell's highest-end XPS 14 configuration, which currently starts at $2,250 with 64GB of RAM on the company's site. The lowest-end configuration, which starts at $1,450, comes with an Intel Core Ultra 7 355 chip, 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. When I briefly tested that system (it had to be sent back to Dell for that keyboard issue), it scored 2,000 points lower than the Ultra X7 model in PCMark 10. I didn't get to game on the entry-level XPS 14, but I wouldn't expect much, since Intel's beefy Arc graphics are reserved for its pricier X7 and X9 CPUs.

Dell XPS 14 (2026) case logo

Devindra Hardawar for Engadget

I was also surprised to see that the XPS 14 lasted just 10 hours and 21 minutes in PCMark 10’s Modern office battery test. The MSI Prestige 14 went for a whopping 22 hours and 15 minutes — that’s far more in line with Intel’s efficiency claims for Panther Lake systems. I tested both the XPS 14 and MSI Prestige 14 in Window’s “balanced” battery profile, so you may be able to eke out more life with more battery saving features turned on.

If I were to judge the XPS 14 based purely on its specs and design alone, it would be my favorite Windows laptop available today. But I swear, I can't live with its keyboard issues. I had to seriously slow down my typing just to get this review written, and even then I still had to back up and make more corrections than usual. Dell is so close to making a PC that’s a true MacBook Pro competitor, it's a shame a simple keyboard issue holds the XPS 14 back from true greatness.

Update 3/6/26 2:20PM ET: Added further information about the XPS 14’s keyboard issue and a potential firmware fix.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/laptops/dell-xps-14-2026-review-a-beautiful-laptop-that-excels-at-almost-everything-except-typing-130000656.html?src=rss

MacBook Neo vs. M5 MacBook Air: All the trade-offs you’ll make to save $500

Posted on 04/03/2026 by Kris Holt

Apple is looking to gain a foothold in the more budget-friendly end of the laptop market with the MacBook Neo. The system starts at $599, which is darn inexpensive for an Apple laptop — it even has the same starting price as the M4 iPad Air.

As such, the MacBook Neo should help Apple compete with cheap Windows laptops and Chromebooks. Pricing it at $499 for educational use won’t exactly hurt either.

Apple is really lowering the cost of entry for those looking to pick up a new MacBook here. The base MacBook Neo costs $500 less than the cheapest M5 MacBook Air, which is now officially Apple's midrange laptop.

Of course, there are a lot of tradeoffs you'll make by opting for a MacBook Neo instead of a MacBook Air. If you’re curious about all the differences between the Neo and the base 13.6-inch Air (and perhaps what you’ll be foregoing if go you with the cheaper option), we've got you covered.

MacBook Neo vs. MacBook Air exteriors

MacBook Neo in silver, blush, citrus and indigo

Let's start with the things you'll notice at first glance about the two laptop lines. The Neo has an arguably more eye-catching array of colorways with silver, blush (a light pink), citrus (light yellow) and indigo options. The Air comes in a more muted batch of sky blue, silver, starlight (a sort of champagne) and midnight (a very dark blue).

The weight of the two laptops is identical at 2.7 pounds and the differences in the dimensions are negligible. Blissfully, both laptops have a headphone jack. Please have the courage to keep those around in MacBooks, Apple.

Alas, the Neo does not have a MagSafe port, so you'll need to use one of its two USB-C ports (it has one USB-C 2 port and a USB-C 3 port) for charging. The MBA has two Thunderbolt 4 (USB-C) ports to go with its MagSafe connector.

While we're on the subject of charging, the MacBook Neo comes with a 20W power adapter. The MBA includes a 40W Dynamic Power Adapter with 60W Max, and it supports fast charging at up to 70W.

The Neo has a 36.5-watt-hour lithium-ion battery, which Apple claims has enough juice for up to 11 hours of web browsing or 16 hours of video streaming on a single charge. As for the MBA, that has a 53.8-watt-hour lithium-polymer battery. Apple says you'll be able to use that laptop for 15 hours of web browsing or 18 hours of streaming video before you need to recharge.

Back to the exterior of the laptops and in terms of audio, the Neo has a side-firing dual-speaker system with Spatial Audio and Dolby Atmos support. However, unlike with the MBA (which has four built-in speakers), there's no mention of Spatial Audio support for AirPods. The MBA has one more microphone than the Neo as well, and both laptops support Voice Isolation and Wide Spectrum microphone modes.

MacBook Neo vs. MacBook Air opened up

If you were to place a MacBook Neo and MacBook Air side by side and open them up, you might spot that the former's screen is a little smaller at 13 inches on the diagonal. While both have Liquid Retina displays with 500 nits of brightness, the Neo's screen has a lower resolution of 2408 x 1506 vs. the MBA's 2560 x 1664. The Air also has a P3 wide color gamut and support for Apple's True Tone feature, which tweaks the screen’s color temperature to better fit your surroundings. The Neo has an sRGB display instead.

While the webcams in both laptops can capture 1080p video, the one in the Neo is lower-specced and has fewer features. It's a 1080p FaceTime HD camera. The MBA has a 12MP camera that supports Center Stage, a feature that keeps you in the middle of the frame as you're moving around. It also supports Desk View, which allows you to show your face and what's on your desk simultaneously.

The MacBook Neo has a Magic Keyboard and multi-touch trackpad (which we didn't feel were super sturdy in our initial hands-on time). The MacBook Air, on the other hand, has a backlit Magic Keyboard and a Force Touch trackpad. It also supports Touch ID as standard.

If you want Touch ID on the MacBook Neo, though, you'll need to pay extra. A version of the laptop with Touch ID costs $699. That upgrade (which is the only one available for the Neo as things stand) also doubles the internal storage to 512GB. And that feels like a smooth segue into comparing the internal specs of each machine.

MacBook Neo vs. MacBook Air on the inside

The M5 MacBook Air comes with 512GB of storage as standard and you can equip it with up to a 4TB SSD. The Neo tops out at 512GB.

It's a little disappointing (though somewhat understandable given the surging costs of RAM) that the Neo only has 8GB of unified memory. That's half of what you get in a MacBook Air as standard, and you can expand that laptop’s RAM to 32GB. Memory bandwidth is nearly three times faster on the MBA as well at 153GB/s, compared with 60GB/s on the Neo.

The chip that runs the Neo is significantly less powerful than the M5 you'll find in the MacBook Air too. The Neo uses an A18 Pro, which is the chip that debuted in the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max. It has a 6-core CPU (two performance, four efficiency), 5-core GPU and 16-core Neural Engine. Measure that against the Air's M5, the base version of which has a 10-core CPU (four super cores, six efficiency cores) and 8-core GPU, though that too has a 16-core Neural Engine.

We don't yet have a direct comparison, such as Geekbench 6 scores, to directly measure the performance of each laptop. However, it's already clear that the MacBook Neo won't be nearly as powerful as the M5 MacBook Air. You probably won’t be doing heavy-duty video editing on a Neo. That said, Apple says that you will be able to use Apple Intelligence features on the laptop.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/laptops/macbook-neo-vs-m5-macbook-air-all-the-trade-offs-youll-make-to-save-500-less-190434959.html?src=rss

Well, there goes any reason to buy an iPad Air

Posted on 04/03/2026 by Daniel Cooper

Apple just announced the MacBook Neo, a 13-inch laptop offering the full macOS experience for just $599. It is the machine, I’m sure, plenty of the company’s fans have been clamoring for since the dawn of the netbook. I’m equally sure its specs have enough drawbacks to ensure there are still plenty of customers for the more expensive Macbooks; the same cannot be said of the iPad Air.

If you’re looking for a machine that you can actually use meaningfully, the Neo has the Air beat. It has two USB-C ports, 16-hour battery life, a real keyboard, trackpad and the ability to run macOS with proper multitasking. $599 won’t even get you an iPad Air with a keyboard and trackpad, which costs you an extra $270.

Of course, the MacBook Neo is sandbagged in all of the ways Apple will always sandbag a cheaper product. But I do think the company has been smart enough to ensure the base model, which I’m sure will sell a crazy amount, is enough of a computer to matter. The A18 Pro chip will run a lot slower than Apple’s M-Series silicon but raw performance isn’t the big issue. After all, if you're buying this machine as Apple's version of a Chromebook, you’re not going to be compressing 55GB Final Cut Pro files here. This is a machine for light work, the sort of stuff the iPad was always meant to enable, but has never quite been able to.

Apple knows how its A-series chip stack up against low-end laptop CPUs. Given the differences in OS, it’s impossible to make a real comparison yet, but in synthetic benchmarks the A18 Pro outperformed the Intel Core i3-1315U found in plenty of low-end laptops, including the Framework 12. And the A18 Pro only needs 8W to run, compared to the 15W Intel requires, which helps maintain that lovely long battery life. Even with just 8GB RAM, if it can run macOS and its applications at an acceptable level, then you know it’ll go down beautifully with its intended audience.

As an aside, it’s worth saying the Neo’s intended audience is decidedly not the sort of folks who will quibble about the limited USB bandwidth the machine offers. As Devindra Hardawar said last week, the target market for this machine is the same people who bought Walmart’s MacBook Air M1. He also made the point — rightly — that macOS remains unburdened with all of the awful AI features which are making Windows use an increasingly less enjoyable experience. Even so, if you are quibbling about such specs, it’s not as if the iPad Air, with its one USB-C port, offers a meaningful improvement.

I've always hoped and wished the iPad would mature enough to bridge the gap between the tablet and the laptop, but it never did. What Apple did to solve the issue in the end was to just make a laptop as affordable as a tablet.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/laptops/well-there-goes-any-reason-to-buy-an-ipad-air-165754581.html?src=rss

The $599 MacBook Neo is Apple’s cheapest Mac laptop yet

Posted on 04/03/2026 by Devindra Hardawar,Nathan Ingraham

Meet the MacBook Neo, Apple’s long-rumored low-cost Mac. Powered by the A18 Pro chip from the iPhone 16 Pro series, the $599 MacBook Neo is Apple’s first attempt at delivering a genuinely affordable Mac laptop. (Ironically, it comes after Apple raised the base prices of the new MacBook Air M5 and MacBook Pro M5 Pro/Max.) It’s well below the $1,099 MacBook Air, but Apple didn’t skimp on the design.

For $599 you get 256GB of storage and no Touch ID on the keyboard; another $100 doubles the storage and adds Touch ID. All models of the MacBook Neo ship with an extremely scant 8GB of RAM — but at this price, we can withhold judgement on whether that’s enough until we put this thing though some testing.

The A18 Pro chip includes a 6-core CPU, 5-core GPU and 16-core Neural Engine — based on pure numbers that’s far behind what you’ll get with a current M-series processor, but again it may be enough juice for the basic computing tasks this laptop seems geared towards.

There’s still a sturdy aluminum case, with no cheap plastic to be seen. It includes a 13-inch Retina display, a 1080p webcam, two USB-C ports, a headphone jack and optional Touch ID. You’ll need to use one of those ports for charging, as there’s no MagSafe connector on this MacBook. The side-firing speakers support Dolby Atmos playback. And the MacBook Neo comes in four colors than usual: silver, indigo, blush and citrus. The keyboard is color-matched to the case, too.

The display appears to be fairly basic. The 13-inch LCD has a 2,408-by-1,506 and 500 nits of brightness. There’s no True Tone features for adjusting the screen’s color temperature to your surroundings; this is the first display Apple has released in years without that feature. It also doesn’t support the P3 wide color gamut, another feature present on most other Apple screens.

Another place Apple cut costs is the trackpad. All Mac laptops besides the Neo have a “Force Touch” trackpad that doesn’t actually move. Instead, Apple’s Taptic Engine provides subtle haptic feedback to confirm various actions. It can also sense pressure. Those features are absent on the MacBook Neo — it’s a more standard throwback of a trackpad that physically moves when you click it.

And while its mobile chip isn’t nearly as powerful as the Air’s M4, it’s still fast enough to handle many productivity tasks without much trouble. As we argued last week, the Neo could just be the cheap MacBook to tempt over Windows users disgruntled with Microsoft’s AI obsession.

It’s easy to view the MacBook Neo cynically as a sign that Apple is running out of ideas. But given how many PC options there are between $500 and $1,000, it simply makes sense for Apple to offer something in that range. The company experimented with a low-cost offering by selling the the older M1 MacBook Air at Walmart for $700 in 2024, which later went down to $650 last year. The only question now is how long Apple can maintain its prices, as the AI-induced RAM shortage will likely lead to some increases this year. HP claims RAM now accounts for a third of its PC costs, double the amount from last year.

As with everything else Apple announced this week, the MacBook Neo is up for pre-order today, and it’ll ship on March 11.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/laptops/the-599-macbook-neo-is-apples-cheapest-mac-laptop-yet-141028666.html?src=rss

The MacBook Air M5 starts at $1,099, up $100 from the M4

Posted on 03/03/2026 by Kris Holt

Reports had suggested that Apple wasn’t going to reveal a refreshed MacBook Air with an M5 chip during its week of announcements, but whaddyaknow? Apple just went ahead and did that exact thing.

Let’s deal with the bad news first: Apple is reverting a price cut from last year. It dropped the M4-powered MBA’s starting price down to $999, but for the M5-equipped model, you’ll need to shell out at least $1,099.

The company claimed the M5 MacBook Air will be able to deliver four times faster performance in AI tasks than the M4 MBA. Compared with the M1 MacBook Air, you’ll get up to 9.5 times faster performance, the company said.

Along with swapping in a more powerful chip, Apple has upgraded the starting storage by doubling it from 256GB to 512GB. The company says the SSD has “2x faster read/write performance compared to the previous generation.” You can kit out the MacBook Air with 4TB of internal storage if you have the will and the means.

You’ll also get 16GB of RAM for starters. The memory has 153GB/s of bandwidth, which Apple said is a 28 percent improvement over the M4 MBA. The latest MacBook Air can be equipped with up to 32GB of memory.

Just like it did with the latest iPad Air, Apple has upgraded the connectivity hardware. Thanks to the inclusion of the company’s N1 wireless chip, the M5 MacBook Air supports Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6.

As you’d imagine, the M5 MacBook Air runs on macOS Tahoe and it supports Apple Intelligence features. It has a Liquid Retina display, 12MP Center Stage camera, a sound system with Spatial Audio support and a pair of Thunderbolt 4 ports, which allows the laptop to support up to two external displays. Apple claims the M5 MacBook Air will run for up 18 hours on a single charge.

The M5 MacBook Air is available in 13-inch and 15-inch models, with the latter starting at $1,299. It’s available in sky blue, midnight, starlight and silver. Pre-orders start on March 4 at 9:15AM ET. The laptops will be available in stores in 33 countries and regions on March 11.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/laptops/the-macbook-air-m5-starts-at-1099-up-100-from-the-m4-141612909.html?src=rss

Everything Apple announced this week: MacBook Neo, iPhone 17e and more

Posted on 02/03/2026 by Kris Holt

Apple had promised a “big week” for the company as rumors swirled that it had a number of product announcements lined up. True enough, it unveiled a half-dozen new and refreshed devices over the last few days, along with more powerful chips for MacBook Pros.

The news started on Monday with the announcements of the iPhone 17e and M4-powered iPad Air. The company followed up on Tuesday with the reveal of the M5 MacBook Air, the M5 Pro and M5 Max chips, MacBook Pro models that use said chips, a refreshed Studio Display and a brand-new 27-inch Studio Display XDR.

In addition, ahead of the official announcement, Apple leaked news of a cheaper MacBook called the MacBook Neo. Whoops! The company confirmed the existence of that system on Wednesday. It starts at $599, making it Apple’s most affordable laptop to date.

Here’s our recap of everything Apple announced this week:

iPhone 17e

Apple has spruced up this year’s entry-level iPhone with some pretty solid upgrades, though it's keeping the starting price at $599. The iPhone 17e has double the base storage of the iPhone 16e at 256GB. It also has MagSafe support with Qi2 wireless charging speeds of up to 15W, double that of the iPhone 16e.

Design-wise, Apple hasn't exactly rocked the boat. The iPhone 17e looks pretty much identical to its predecessor. It appears that Apple is sticking with the same 48MP Fusion camera system as it used in the iPhone 16e too.

That said, the 6.1-inch Super Retina display has Ceramic Shield 2. According to Apple, this provides “3x better scratch resistance than the previous generation and reduced glare.” The company slotted its C1X cellular modem into the iPhone 17e as well. It says this is up to two times faster than the C1 that was in the iPhone 16e. The device has the same A19 chip as the iPhone 17, so it supports Apple Intelligence AI tools, and it runs iOS 26.

In addition, the iPhone 17e has an IP68 rating for water and dust resistance, as well as the promise of "all-day battery life." It also supports satellite-powered features including Emergency SOS, Roadside Assistance, Messages and Find My.

Pre-orders for the iPhone 17e are now open. It’s available in black, white and soft pink. The device will hit shelves in more than 70 countries and regions on March 11.

iPad Air M4

The latest iPad Air boasts Apple’s M4 chip. That means the mid-range iPad is effectively remaining a year behind the iPad Pro. The M4 is almost two years old at this point, while the top-end model has the newer M5 chip. Still, if you only use an iPad for casual tasks like watching shows, web browsing, email and so on, the M4 will be more than powerful enough. It will be more adept at handling resource-intensive tasks like video editing than previous iPad Air models too.

Apple has also bumped up the RAM from 8GB from the last-gen model to 12GB. Given the sharp increase in RAM prices in recent months, it’s slightly surprising that Apple is sticking to the same prices for the iPad Air. The 11-inch M4 iPad Air starts at $599 while the 13-inch version starts at $799, each with 128GB of storage. There's a $50 discount for those buying it for educational use.

Apple claims the M4 delivers up to 2.3 times faster performance compared with the M1 iPad Air and "over 4x faster 3D pro rendering with ray tracing performance." Of course, the new iPad Air runs iPadOS 26.

Apple gave the iPad Air other internal upgrades by including its N1 and C1X connectivity chips. As such, this is the first iPad Air with Wi-Fi 7 support. As you might expect, 5G cellular connectivity is available as well.

The design of the M4 iPad Air doesn't seem to have changed, as it appears to have the same LCD display Apple used in the last two iterations of the tablet. The company has stuck with the same rear-facing camera and dual-speaker setup as well.

Pre-orders for the M4 iPad Air are now open. The tablet will hit retailers in 35 countries and regions on March 11. It will be available in blue, purple, starlight and space gray.

Apple MacBook Pro with M5 Pro and Max

Apple’s most powerful laptop line finally got the chip upgrades that we’d long been expecting. Along with announcing the M5 Pro and M5 Max, the company is offering versions of the MacBook Pro with those chipsets. However, there are price increases to go along with the upgrades.

The new 14-inch MacBook Pro with an M5 Pro chipset (with 15 CPU cores and 16 GPU cores), 24GB of RAM and 1TB of storage starts at $2,199. That's a $200 increase compared with the base M4 Pro-powered system from late 2024, though Apple has doubled the base storage, which is a welcome touch. If you prefer, you can have a 14-inch MBP with a more powerful M5 Pro (with up to 18 CPU cores and 20 GPU cores) or M5 Max (with 18 CPU cores and 32 or 40 GPU cores). You can double the RAM to 48GB as well.

The 16-inch MacBook Pro has an M5 Pro chipset with 18 CPU cores and 20 GPU cores as standard. Of course, you can swap that out for an M5 Max if you'd rather. The 16-inch model starts at $2,699, a $200 increase from the base M4-powered system. It also starts with 24GB of RAM and 1TB of storage. For what it’s worth, Apple says both the memory and SSD are faster than in previous models.

Apple hasn’t changed the Liquid Retina XDR display and 12MP Center Stage front-facing camera for these models. However, the company has installed its N1 chip to power Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6 connectivity.

Pre-orders are now open, with general availability to follow on March 11.

Apple said the M5 Pro and M5 Max are built using new “Fusion Architecture” that “combines two dies into a single system on a chip (SoC).” As ever, the goal is to deliver more power and efficiency. We’ll find out for ourselves whether Apple’s performance claims hold up when we’re able to test the chips.

Meanwhile, the base 14-inch MacBook Pro with an M5 chipset also got a $100 price increase to $1,699. To take the sting out of that a bit, Apple doubled the base storage of that model to 1TB as well. Given that Apple usually charges a premium for storage increases, that’s not a terrible tradeoff.

M5 MacBook Air

A year after Apple upgraded the MacBook Air with an M4 chipset, the company pulled the same trick by swapping in an M5 chip. The company also boosted the base storage from 256GB to 512GB, with an SSD that it claimed can provide “2x faster read/write performance compared to the previous generation.”

While the MBA still has 16GB or RAM as standard, Apple also upgraded the memory to have 153GB/s of bandwidth — the company said that’s a 28 percent improvement over what the M4 MBA offered. Meanwhile, Apple has slapped in the N1 chip to deliver Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6 connectivity.

Alas, with those upgrades comes a tradeoff. Apple has bumped the starting price of the latest MacBook Air back up to $1,099 after cutting it to $999 for the M4 model. That’s for the 13-inch variant. The 15-inch M5 MacBook Air starts at $1,299.

The latest MacBook Air is available in sky blue, midnight, starlight and silver. You can pre-order one now. It will hit stores in 33 countries and regions on March 11.

MacBook Neo

Apple expanded its laptop lineup even further on Wednesday with the announcement of the MacBook Neo. This is a new entry-level model that starts well below the latest $1,099 MacBook Air at a very reasonable $599 ($499 for educational use). It’s Apple’s least expensive laptop to date, and a clear attempt by the company to wade into a market that’s saturated with cheap Windows laptops and Chromebooks.

As expected, the laptop runs on an A18 Pro chip, which first appeared in the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max. The chipset has a 6-core CPU, 5-core GPU and 16-core Neural Engine, along with 8GB of unified memory. That’s enough for the MacBook Neo to power Apple Intelligence features (of course, it’s a macOS Tahoe machine). Apple also said that the MacBook Neo will run for up to 16 hours on a single charge.

The MacBook Neo has a 13-inch Liquid Retina Display (with 500 nits of brightness and support for 1 billion colors), one USB-C 3 port, a USB-C 2 port and a headphone jack, but no MagSafe connector. There’s a 1080p front-facing FaceTime HD camera, dual mics and side-firing speakers that support Spatial Audio and Dolby Atmos.

The system has a Magic Keyboard with a multi-touch trackpad. However, if you want a TouchID sensor, you’ll need to pay $100 more for it. Ponying up the extra cash will also double the storage from 256GB to 512GB.

Apple claimed that the MacBook Neo is up to 50 percent faster at everyday tasks than “the bestselling PC with the latest shipping Intel Core Ultra 5” with 8GB or RAM and a 256GB SSD. The company also contended that its new laptop is up to three times faster than that Windows system “when running on-device AI workloads like applying advanced effects to photos.”

The MacBook Neo is available in four colors: silver, blush (a light pink), citrus (light yellow) and indigo. It was previously reported that Apple would offer the budget-friendly laptop in some lively iMac-esque colorways. Moreover, Apple says the laptop is “made with a durable recycled aluminum enclosure that helps it reach 60 percent recycled content by weight,” which is said to be the most of any Apple device.

As with the rest of the new devices, pre-orders are open now and the MacBook Neo will be available in stores in 30 countries and regions on March 11.

We’ve already had a chance to go hands-on with the MacBook Neo. Engadget senior editor Devindra Hardawar had generally positive first impressions of the laptop, but felt that the keyboard and touchpad didn’t feel quite as sturdy as those on Apple’s higher-end systems.

Studio Display and Studio Display XDR

I don’t think many people had Studio Displays on their Apple announcements bingo card for this week, but here they are. The Studio Display XDR is completely new.

This is a 27-inch monitor with a 5K Retina XDR screen. It has a mini-LED display with more than 2,000 dimming zones and peak HDR brightness of 2,000 nuts, along with a wider color gamut. The Studio Display XDR boasts a 120Hz refresh rate (an improvement over the 60Hz that previous models were limited to) and a tilt- and height-adjustable stand as standard.

The monitor also has a 12MP Center Stage camera with support for Desk View, a feature that — weirdly enough — lets you show both your face and what's on your desk. Thunderbolt 5 connectivity allows you to hook up more displays by daisy chaining them. The Studio Display XDR is also a Thunderbolt hub with support for up to 140W of charging power. As such, you'll be able to fast charge a 16-inch MacBook Pro using the included Thunderbolt 5 Pro cable.

The Studio Display XDR starts at $3,299. A version with nano-texture glass, which is said to further reduce reflectivity, costs $3,599.

Meanwhile, the refreshed Studio Display has an upgraded 12MP Center Stage camera with Desk View. There's also a "studio-quality" three-microphone array and six-speaker sound system with Spatial Audio. The latest model has Thunderbolt 5 support with the option to daisy-chain displays. The Studio Display can deliver 96W charging as well.

The base monitor is $1,599. It still has a 27-inch 5K Retina display with up to 600 nits of brightness and P3 wide color. It comes with standard glass or, for an extra $300, nano-texture glass. The Studio Display has a tilt-adjustable stand as standard. If you'd prefer to have one that's height adjustable as well, you'll need to shell out another $400.

Again, pre-orders for the displays are now open ahead of broader availability on March 11.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/laptops/everything-apple-announced-this-week-macbook-neo-iphone-17e-and-more-155617129.html?src=rss

Lenovo unveils the 2026 refresh of its Yoga 9i 2-in-1 convertible laptop at MWC

Posted on 01/03/2026 by Mariella Moon

Lenovo has given the Yoga 9i 2-in-1 Aura Edition a refresh for 2026 and launched the new device at this year’s Mobile World Congress. The convertible laptop comes with a new Canvas Mode when the Yoga Pen Gen 2 case it’s bundled with is attached to the A-cover. When you lay the device down on a flat surface with the case attached, you’ll get a slight elevation on the display, which may make it easier to sketch or draw.

The Copilot+ laptop is powered by Intel Core Ultra Series 3 processors with integrated graphics, has up to 32GB in memory and runs Windows 11. Its 14-inch screen has a resolution of 2,880 x 1,800 pixels, has a variable refresh rate of 120 Hz and supports multi-touch. In addition to the new Canvas Mode, the device also supports Tablet, Tent, Stand and traditional Laptop Modes like its predecessors do. The Yoga 9i 2-in-1 Aura Edition Gen 11 will be available in May, with prices starting at $1,949.

Lenovo has also launched the new Yoga Pro 7a at MWC 2026. This Copilot+ laptop is powered by AMD Ryzen AI Max+ Series processors and comes with up to 128GB of RAM, so it can be used for heavy AI tasks. It has a 15.3-inch 2.5K PureSight Pro OLED display and is equipped with a big Force Pad trackpad that doubles as a drawing tablet. You can get the device starting in August this year for at least $2,099.

For a more affordable option, there’s the new IdeaPad Slim 5i Ultra laptop, which also has Copilot+ features. It’s powered by Intel Core Ultra processors and comes with either a WUXGA OLED or a WQXGA IPS LCD 14-inch display that has a VRR of 120 Hz. The device was designed for portability, with its thinnest part measuring just 11.9 mm in depth, and weighs 2.5 lbs. It will be available starting in October for at least $799.

Another affordable option is the new Idea Tab Pro Gen 2, which is specifically targeted towards students. It’s powered by theSnapdragon 8s Gen 4 Mobile Platform and has a 13-inch 3.5K display. The Tab Pro Gen 2 is Lenovo’s first tablet to ship with its Qira AI assistant and the company’s AI tools. It will be sold with a Lenovo Tab Pen Plus included for $419 starting in July.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/laptops/lenovo-unveils-the-2026-refresh-of-its-yoga-9i-2-in-1-convertible-laptop-at-mwc-230100644.html?src=rss

A cheap MacBook is the perfect way for Apple to win over Windows users

Posted on 27/02/2026 by Devindra Hardawar

The MacBook is coming back — or at least, that's what the rumors claim. Next week, Apple is expected to announce a colorful, low-cost, non-Air, non-Pro MacBook powered by one of its mobile processors. By avoiding its pricier M-series chips, Apple may reportedly be able to reach a low $699 or $799 price for the MacBook. The $999 MacBook Air is the cheapest laptop on the company's website right now, but Apple also sold the older M1 MacBook Air at Walmart for $700 in 2024, which later went down to $650 last year.

That Walmart deal was a smart way for Apple to test out the viability of cheaper MacBooks without building an entirely new product. But now the M1 Air’s design looks seriously dated, and the company also needs to move beyond the six-year-old M1 chip. It's time to get serious about delivering a true low-cost Apple laptop.

There's another compelling reason to bring back a cheaper MacBook: It's the perfect way to court disgruntled Windows users, something Apple hasn't really done since its "Get A Mac" ads from the mid-2000s. I figure the unbridled success of the iPhone and iPad made Apple focus less on directly competing with Windows. The sleek designs of the 2011-2015 era MacBook Air and Pros were their main selling points, but Apple's push towards USB-C-only machines and unreliable butterfly keyboards later made it clear it wasn't totally focused on Macs.

But now Microsoft is distracted by AI — it's been pushing Copilot and AI features for years, instead of improving the Windows experience with more useful upgrades. Recent talk of agentic AI capabilities, which would let Copilot handle tasks for you automatically, also sparked plenty of criticism from Windows users. And with all of the focus on AI, Microsoft has also released some disastrous Windows updates over the last year, which have bricked OS installations. So, Apple, why not make a direct play for Windows users?

Last year, I covered why it's a great time to jump ship from Windows to Mac, and I haven't been able to let go of that idea since. Apple's M-series chips are shockingly fast and efficient, and its hardware tends to be more durable than typical PC fare. Rumors point to Apple developing a new aluminum case for the low-cost MacBook, so it will likely feel more polished than a typical sub-$1,000 Windows laptop. macOS has also avoided the bloat that's plagued Windows for years — you can turn off Apple Intelligence with two clicks if you want to, and there aren't any annoying ads to deal with.

A laptop on a table. — A MacBook Air M5 on a table.

And while it used to be a pain to transition from Windows to Mac, it’s far easier these days, especially if you mainly rely on web apps. It also wouldn't be tough for Apple to make short tutorials to help Windows users get their bearings with the macOS basics, like installing apps and juggling app windows. Apple could also make a play for iPhone owners using Windows, who may not be aware of the many ways iOS and macOS are integrated. iPhone mirroring may be a huge draw on its own.

Rumors also suggest the upcoming MacBook might use the A18 Pro from the iPhone 16 Pro, a chip that benchmarks faster than the M1. Even if it only has six cores, making it slower for heavy workloads than the M2, an A18 Pro-powered MacBook would still be more than enough power for basic productivity work. Not everyone needs the surprising amount of GPU power in the MacBook Air — especially if downgrading means they can save $200 to $300.

I'm not saying any of this through any sort of Apple-loving bias. I typically use a MacBook Pro for work, but I'm a Windows user at heart. Windows was my gateway to computing in the '90s, back when Macs were far more expensive than PCs. These days, I spend more time on my Windows desktop making podcasts, playing PC games and bumming around the internet than I do working on Macs.

And yet, it’s hard to deny everything Apple is doing right today — the only thing it’s missing is an inexpensive laptop entry. A $699 or $799 MacBook simply makes sense. And for many Windows users, it’ll be just the escape from Microsoft they need.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/laptops/a-cheap-macbook-is-the-perfect-way-for-apple-to-win-over-windows-users-130000045.html?src=rss

ASUS ProArt GoPro Edition PX13 review: An incredible if pricy Windows creator laptop

Posted on 25/02/2026 by Steve Dent

With its ProArt lineup, ASUS has commendably addressed a glaring hole in the PC market by targeting video editors and other creative pros. Its latest model even uses a popular camera marque in its name: the ProArt GoPro Edition PX13. It’s a true co-branding exercise, with GoPro-like styling, a dedicated GoPro hotkey, mil-spec durability for extreme outdoor users and 12 months of GoPro’s Cloud Plus Premium.

It has a lot going for it on the inside, too. The AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 processor offers 16 Zen 5 cores with integrated Radeon 8060S Graphics (40 cores) and AMD Ryzen AI with up to 50 NPU TOPS. It packs a relatively small but pixel-dense 13-inch 2,880 x 1,800 OLED convertible 360 touch display, 1TB of storage and an impressive 128GB of unified memory.

The rub, as you might expect with all that RAM, is the price. The ProArt GoPro Edition PX13 costs $3,000, while a version with the same processor but half the memory is $2,800. That’s high-end MacBook Pro money, and while the ProArt is a good PC creator machine, it falls short of its Apple counterpart in terms of performance and usability.

Design

In place of the ProArt P13’s smooth lines, the ProArt GoPro Edition comes with a ribbed metal back that’s designed to look like the front of a GoPro Hero 13. It also has GoPro-like ridges on the hinge and plastic above the keyboard, along with GoPro and ProArt branding. The rugged design may appeal to the extreme sports crowd, but I’d prefer something a bit sleeker.

The laptop is relatively light at 3.06 pounds, but the dedicated 200W power brick adds an extra pound of weight. Despite the small size, it offers MIL-STD 810H military-grade durability, so it can handle hot and humid conditions while surviving 500Hz vibrations and multiple four-inch drops while running. To help keep the laptop safe outside, ASUS includes a protective padded sleeve with a braided pouch to tuck a selfie stick or another accessory.

ASUS ProArt GoPro Edition PX13 review: The best Windows creator laptop, for a price

The 2,880 x 1,800 OLED touchscreen is nice but not super bright, with up to 400 nits of brightness or 500 nits in HDR mode. That’s the usual tradeoff for OLED compared to super bright MiniLED displays. However, it has deep blacks and very high color accuracy of Delta < 1 with 100 percent DCI-P3 coverage, along with Dolby Vision support, so it’s great for photo and video work or entertainment.

The ProArt is a 360-degree convertible model and ships with an ASUS Pen and Pen charger. That makes it a good option for graphic artists who want to tent the screen or fold it around to use in tablet mode for sketching or painting. The ASUS Pen works well, and though it’s not as accurate as Wacom or other dedicated pen devices, it has nice haptic feedback when you perform actions in the app.

The ProArt GoPro Edition’s keyboard is excellent, with a nice amount of travel for typing or gaming. The touchpad is also one of the better ones I’ve used on a PC thanks to the quality tactile feel. The top left of the touchpad contains ASUS’s control dial designed for jogging video footage or adjusting colors, but it’s a bit fussy and gimmicky.

For ports, you get HDMI, 3.5mm audio, USB-A 3.2 and two USB-C 4.0 with power delivery that allow up to 130 watts of charging. The laptop weirdly comes with a microSD slot to load GoPro footage straight from the camera, but it would be better to have a regular SD port and microSD adapter. As for wireless and audio, it offers Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4 and Dolby Atmos support.

Performance

ASUS ProArt GoPro Edition PX13 review: An incredible if pricy Windows creator laptop

Built on TSMC’s 4nm line, the Ryzen AI Max+ 395 is AMD’s most powerful APU designed to blend performance and low power consumption. It’s married to a Radeon 8060S GPU with 40 compute units (equivalent to an NVIDIA RTX 4060, AMD says) that makes it ideal for creative chores, AI processing and gaming. This unit also comes with 128GB of unified LPDDR5X RAM that’s soldered directly to the motherboard, shared between the CPU and GPU. Given today’s RAM prices, that amount of memory no doubt contributes to the ProArt GoPro Edition’s high price.

AMD finally got its act together for video encoding and decoding. The Ryzen AI Max+’s GPU supports most 8- and 10-bit MP4 codecs, including H.264, H.265, VP9 and AV1. That means you can play back nearly all MP4 or Quicktime camera video files in real time, including the 8K H.265 files recorded by a GoPro Hero 13. At the same time, the large number of cores and threads (16 and 32) helps the ProArt GoPro Edition render certain VFX and do color adjustments quickly. The 1TB of NVMe SSD storage is limited to PCIe 4.0, but it’s relatively speedy with 6.55 GB/s read and 5.86 GB/s write speeds — easily fast enough for 8K video playback.

All of that made video work a breeze in DaVinci Resolve 20, Adobe Premiere Pro or GoPro’s Player that can be activated by a special hotkey on the ASUS laptop. Actions like color correction work in real time as well, and 4K H.264 exports can also be performed quickly.

That said, some functions like OpenFX and stabilization would work better with a more powerful discrete GPU. Also, unlike my MacBook Pro, the ProArt GoPro Edition’s fans need to engage frequently under intense workloads, creating a lot of noise and killing the battery quickly if the unit isn’t plugged in.

For other apps, including Photoshop, Illustrator and Lightroom Classic, the ASUS ProArt is ideal. It’s very responsive and the touch display and pen support fine masking or drawing work, something you can’t do on a MacBook Pro.

The ProArt also handles synthetic benchmarks well for a PC with an integrated GPU. The single/multi Geekbench 6 CPU score of 2,219/19,088 shows the benefit of 16 processor cores. The 93,108 Geekbench 6 GPU mark isn’t that far behind Acer’s NVIDIA RTX 5070-equipped Predator Titan 14 AI. Geekbench AI scores were also up there with the best laptops. However, Handbrake video encoding was slower than several MacBook M4 laptops I’ve tested.

For gaming, it had some of the higher laptop scores I’ve seen on several 3DMark tests (Wildlife Extreme and Port Royal Ray Tracing). It also did pretty darn well on Cyberpunk 2077, hitting 82 fps at 1080p and 60 fps at 1440p in Ultra mode. Considering the machine’s small size, those framerates are really good. However, the laptop is held back gaming-wise by the OLED display that tops out at 500 nits and just 60Hz.

A big benefit of the 128GB of fast unified memory is that you can run AI models locally for improved privacy. While the ProArt GoPro Edition normally allocates 64GB of memory to the CPU and splits the rest between the CPU and iGPU, you can dedicate up to 96GB of memory to the GPU for extra large AI applications via the MyASUS app.

Another plus of this APU is the battery life. The ProArt GoPro Edition lasted a solid 11:31 hours on the PCMark 10 Modern Office battery rundown test, besting all rivals with similar performance. That tells me that AMD is narrowing the performance-per-watt gap with Apple’s silicon to improve gaming and content creation for PCs on battery power alone.

Wrap-up

ASUS is one of the few PC manufacturers trying to compete with Apple in the creator market, and with the ProArt GoPro Edition laptop, it has largely succeeded. This model offers excellent performance and battery life, a huge amount of memory, a very nice OLED HDR display, a nice range of ports and an excellent keyboard and trackpad.

It easily handled my typical video and photo editing chores, even on battery power alone, and the included GoPro features like the Storyblocks cloud storage are a nice option for action cam users. The convertible configuration and touchscreen with pen option are also useful to artists and photo editors.

However, this laptop is not cheap at $3,000, which is the same price as a high-end 16-inch MacBook Pro M4 Pro. The latter offers superior battery life, better overall performance on apps like DaVinci Resolve and a far better macOS user experience than the hot mess that is currently Windows 11. However, if you want a Windows PC with a touchscreen, I think the ASUS ProArt GoPro Edition laptop is the best creator model you can get right now.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/laptops/asus-proart-gopro-edition-px13-review-an-incredible-if-pricy-windows-creator-laptop-170016800.html?src=rss

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