Hello folks. I am just wondering if any of you have bought the MacBook neo, and how does it run with voiceover? I've always wanted to give Mac OS a shot, coming from Windows, and Apple has finally made an affordable laptop. I am just concerned that voiceover may lag or be less responsive on a low spec device. From what I know about it, it has a similar processor to the one in the iPhone 16 pro, so it should run fine, but I don't know what effect Mac OS has on it.
Comments
Don't have it
A friend bought one and I borrowed it to try VoiceOver. I have for myself a Macbook Air M4. Honestly I did not see any difference in VO responsiveness and opening apps. My friend plays games on it and he has not complained of any issues.
One thing I noticed is that battery seems to last much less than the Air which I don't see as an issue.
I have it
I bought a MacBook Neo earlier this month, and so far VO is pretty responsive, though I'm also coming from Windows so VO keys, navigation etc takes some getting used to.
I wouldn't consider MacBook Neo a low-spec laptop by any mean; it uses iPhone 16 Pro chip, so anything that runs good on iPhone 16 Pro or Pro Max should run fine on the MacBook Neo.
I do notice though; the usual page-up/page-down key (fn+up/fn+down) doesn't actually scroll VO focus up/down unlike with NVDA on Windows. For instance in my Apple Music library I have hundreds of songs (all of them MP3 songs so no Apple Music subscription or anything) and it can take time to manually use the arrow keys to scroll through.
Replying to Nut.
I am mainly concerned with how it runs with voiceover while having a few tabs open in Safari. At least from a Windows perspective, 8 GB of ram really isn't enough for windows, but I've also heard that Mac is better at handling resources. Glad to hear that you aren't having any issues with it. I'm still on the fence.
I have one and it works well
For email, Web browsing, things like that, this runs really well. Also, the sound quality on the speakers is incredible. And the build quality. It feels and sounds like a machine that cost twice its price.
If in doubt
If you are still confused that the Neo can work for you, for its price you may get a refurbished Apple-Certified Macbook Air M3.
@Nut
It's a bit off topic for this thread, but fyi the page up down keys behaviour you're describing is perfectly normal. Good? No. Ideal? No. But normal and expected. There are guides and plenty of threads on applevis discussing this. If you need more help you can always DM though I'm quite busy currently.
HTH.
Re: Replying to Nut
I actually haven't try intensive web browsing myself, since I don't use mine as my daily driver.
Also, I have since switched to Firefox, so to get synced tabs and the like. So I'm not entirely sure how Safari would perform.
But yeah 8GB sounds like very little nowadays but I think this is likely the best that you're going to get from Apple for that price, at least for something that is completely brand-new.