Apple unveiled the cheapest MacBook in history! It will offer it to students for 14 thousand

Apple finally answered the call for a more affordable laptop and introduced the brand new MacBook Neo. With a price starting at 16,990 CZK, it is historically the cheapest MacBook, which has the potential to significantly shake up the laptop market. For students and educators, the situation is even more interesting – they can purchase the new machine for as little as 14,290 CZK.

Aluminum construction in four colors

At first glance, the MacBook Neo does not appear to be a “cut-down” product. Apple equipped it with a durable aluminum casing with rounded corners and offers it in four color variants: silver, crimson, citrus yellow, and indigo (dark blue-gray). Its weight of 1.23 kg ranks it among easily portable laptops that you can effortlessly slip into a backpack or handbag.

The display has a 13-inch diagonal with Liquid Retina technology and a resolution of 2408 × 1506 pixels. Brightness reaches 500 nits, and the panel supports the display of one billion colors. An anti-reflective layer should ensure comfortable viewing even in various lighting conditions. For comparison – the MacBook Air offers higher brightness, but at a significantly higher price.

A18 Pro chip and all-day battery life

At the heart of the MacBook Neo is the mobile chipset A18 Pro, which we know from the iPhone 16 Pro. It features a 6-core CPU (2 performance and 4 efficiency cores), a 5-core GPU, and a 16-core Neural Engine for artificial intelligence tasks. The fanless design means the laptop runs completely silently.

It is clear that a MacBook with a phone processor, even if it belongs to the most powerful in its segment, will not be able to provide the same results as full-fledged M-series chips. However, it is important to realize who the target group is. Apple wanted to make the MacBook Neo as affordable as possible so that even students, who most often use office applications and a browser on their laptops, could easily afford it. Of course, this does not mean that the new device cannot handle graphics programs, but working with them simply won’t be as smooth as on more expensive machines.

Apple promises up to 16 hours of battery life when streaming video, or 11 hours for wireless web browsing. The 36.5 Wh battery charges via USB-C, with a minimum charging input of 20 W. Sound is handled by two speakers with Dolby Atmos spatial audio support and a system of two microphones with beamforming.

Where did Apple cut corners?

The low price necessitated several compromises that every potential buyer should consider. In the basic configuration for 16,990 CZK, you only get a Magic Keyboard without Touch ID – biometric unlocking is a privilege of the more expensive version for 19,990 CZK, which also offers 512GB storage instead of the basic 256 GB.

The operating memory is fixed at 8 GB of unified memory with no possibility of expansion. This will suffice for everyday work, web browsing, and office applications, but you may encounter limitations with more demanding multitasking or working on larger projects.

An interesting detail lies in the connectivity. The MacBook Neo indeed has two USB-C ports, but only the left one is a full-fledged USB 3 with speeds up to 10 Gb/s and external display support. The right port is only USB 2 with a maximum speed of 480 Mb/s – which is more than twenty times slower. Both ports can, however, be used for charging.

Another concession is the absence of a power adapter in the package – you will only find a USB-C cable in the box. You have to purchase the adapter separately, which will increase the real price of the laptop.

macOS Tahoe with Apple Intelligence

The MacBook Neo runs on the macOS Tahoe operating system with integrated support for Apple Intelligence. This includes features such as Writing Tools for text corrections and rewriting, generating custom emojis via Genmoji, or the Clean Up tool for removing distracting elements from photos. The system also supports integration with iPhone, including screen mirroring directly on the Mac.

Price and availability

The MacBook Neo can be pre-ordered today and will go on sale on March 11, 2026. The basic configuration with 256GB storage and a keyboard without Touch ID costs 16,990 CZK, while the variant with 512GB storage and Touch ID costs 19,990 CZK. Students and educators can take advantage of discounted prices starting from 14,290 CZK.

For this amount, you get a laptop connectable to the Apple ecosystem, with solid performance for everyday tasks and all-day battery life. However, you must come to terms with limitations such as lower RAM capacity, asymmetrical USB ports, and optional Touch ID. For users who considered switching from Windows to Mac but were deterred by the high price, the Neo could be an interesting entry point.

Are you interested in the MacBook Neo, or would you rather opt for the more expensive MacBook Air?

Sources: Apple (1, 2, 3)