I treated myself to a MacBook Neo for my birthday. I’ve had it just a little over two weeks now. I’ve loved every minute of using it, and it’s far exceeded my expectations. It’s solidly built, much heavier than I anticipated, not a cheap hunk of plastic, that’s not Apple’s way of doing things! The keyboard is a joy to use, an absolutely delightful typing experience. 10/10 so far.
Specs
The specs are laughable, really. The processor is an A18 Pro chip, the same one that is in my Apple iPhone 16 Pro. Yes, my new computer has the same processing power as my cell phone. It only has 8gb of RAM. Despite that, I’ve found it performs flawlessly in my day to day usage.
I’ve spent my entire working life craving more RAM. Every machine I buy – Windows laptops – I get as much RAM as possible. 16gb? Not good enough, I need 32gb. 32gb? Nah, go higher. My current work machine is a Lenovo X1 with 32gb of RAM. I sold a machine that had 48gb on it and “settled” with what was the max available on the X1 at the time because I’ve wanted an X1 for a long time. You know what? I have hated nearly every minute of owing this X1. It’s been the flakiest Lenovo machine I’ve ever had and I’ve been “Lenovo for life”. But I digress… my broader point is I’ve been laser focused on “MOAR RAM PLEASE” with every computer and yet I forked over medium bucks for a MacBook with 8gb RAM (and a processor that only rivals a cell phone)? Am I nuts?
Well… yes, I am nuts but that’s a topic for another day entirely. LOL.
The model I purchased is the “upgraded” one with the 512gb SSD hard drive, because I wanted the Touch ID button on the keyboard. More hard drive space is never bad either but with 90% of my things stored “in the cloud”, I don’t need large local hard drives on my computers any longer. I knew that the Touch ID feature would allow me to quickly authenticate without constantly typing in a password. That would be worth it over the long term.
Like an iPad with a keyboard?
I’ve read a number of posts and social media comments about how this Neo is nothing more than “a iPad with a keyboard”. I have an iPad Pro with a Magic Keyboard, and I can tell you, the Neo is nothing like that. I’m writing this post on my iPad at the moment to be fair, but the iPad does not run full MacOS and is – to me – nowhere near a replacement for a full computer. As I get further into editing this post, I’m getting annoyed with the iPad and will soon switch to the Neo to finish this post. There are certain things – especially in a browser – that default to mobile features when using the iPad even when telling the browser to request the desktop version. A full MacOS solves that for me.
I *love* my iPad, zero regrets. Having the Magic Keyboard has made the iPad an excellent companion for the last few years and I highly recommend it, but I could not do without a laptop and just use the iPad. File management for example, is completely frustrating on the iPad. I’d rather work with “desktop” applications when I have the option – like Microsoft Excel. Excel on an iPad is fucking awful. Excel on a Mac is not as good as Excel for Windows but it is at least fully functional for what I use it for when I’m not using it for client work. And I love Excel, it was one of the only “work-like” apps I installed on the Neo.
I may eventually sell my iPad Pro and get an iPad mini for the things I like having an iPad for, but for now the Neo is not an iPad replacement any more than an iPad is an equivalent to the Neo.
Why a Mac?
I’ve been a Microsoft Windows user my entire working life. I am a heavy user and advocate of Microsoft’s products, especially their Office line of applications and of course, Dynamics GP has been the focus of my career for the last 26+ years. (Ugh, that number, saying it out loud hurts!)
My cell phone is an iPhone; I have also owned iPads for as long as I can remember. I never considered buying a Mac for work though, because of compatibility with applications I’m using every day. Sure, there are Mac versions of Office and there are apps like Parallels that allow you to work with Windows applications, but there are always other considerations. One big consideration was I wanted to use the same O/S my clients use to better support them and issues that come up. Windows was the only choice as far as I was concerned.
Now that I am nearing the end of my working life and contemplating retirement, my needs are going to change. At some point, I no longer will need a machine hefty enough to install SQL Server on and run a version of Dynamics GP locally, or Power BI Desktop (no Mac version, sadly). At some point, I no longer need multiple different VPNs to support different clients. Once I remove the applications that I need for work today, what I use a computer for is far more basic.
- Email and social media.
- Banking and managing my finances.
- Browsing, reading, learning, online shopping.
- Streaming news, shows, movies.
- Journalling.
The MacBook Neo specs are more than capable of handling all of that. The complete integration of all the Apple devices is awesome, I didn’t realize what I was missing, getting notifications on my Neo from my phone, responding to text messages from my computer, etc. The equivalent functionality on Windows machines are just not the same.
I experimented with a Mac Mini, buying a used one earlier this year, a model from 2020 that was still capable of upgrading to the latest MacOS – Tahoe. I loved it but didn’t use it as much as I intended because hooking it up to my monitor meant disconnecting my Lenovo from its dock (since I was connecting both to the monitor via a Thunderbolt dock). It also meant I was stuck working at my desk to learn and use the Mac. I tried a few apps that allowed me to connect to it from my Windows laptop but the experience wasn’t the same as working on it directly. It had 8gb of RAM, a 256gb hard drive, and an M1 processor. Admittedly, the Mini was more powerful as a computer than the Neo. I used the Mac Mini long enough to confirm three valuable things:
- I could use a Mac as my daily machine (for non-business purposes).
- I needed a laptop not a desktop.
- 8gb of RAM was totally fine.
I wasn’t interested in paying a fortune for a MacBook, at least not while I am working, so I would have stuck with the Mini for a while longer; and then Apple announced the MacBook Neo, and here we are. I sold the Mac Mini, picked up the Indigo colour Neo. I absolutely love it.
So far, I’ve re-organized my entire book collection and recipe collection in Obsidian, my go-to journalling and personal knowledge management application of choice. Stuff like that was frustrating to do on the iPad and I usually didn’t want to use my work laptop in the evenings while watching TV because inevitably I’d be checking email or other things I try to disconnect from after hours. I’ve been so productive these last two weeks and it’s been fun.
So, I’m a happy camper using the Neo to catch up on fun side projects like those above. I’ve been wanting to do more with Obsidian, and am working through a file re-organization using the Johnny Decimal system and migrating my data away from Microsoft & Google clouds to another cloud service hosted in Canada (sync.com). I can do that on any of my devices but it’s been a lot more fun doing it on the Neo!
Closing thoughts
The biggest things I’ve struggled with in learning the way Macs work are little things that I have decades of muscle memory built up – keyboard shortcuts and the Delete key. I never noticed Macs don’t have a delete key, only backspace. I now realize how many times I day I delete instead of backspacing! The keyboard shortcuts are starting to feel more natural; copy and paste for instance use the Command key not the Control key on the keyboard which does not feel as natural for me but I use those two shortcuts ALL THE TIME, abd I’ve gotten used to it now. Right-click (context) menus also were challenging but now that I know the shortcuts to that, I feel back to near-full-speed in doing the things on the Mac that initially I got frustrated with.
Overall, this was a good purchase, and one perfectly suited to what I need. I am finishing this post and the edits on the Neo. Did I mention this machine is a joy to use? 🙂