Why on earth would anyone think $600 is cheap for what is essentially a used iPhone running a monitor and keyboard?
I disagree with the author, this isn't Apple innovating anything, they're just using the marketing tactic of selling something a quarter as good at half the price, and because people are used to Apple products being so overpriced it feels like you're getting a great deal.
If you want a low-powered laptop, just buy one off of ebay for $100 and not create more e-waste.
I bought a Neo to "replace" an M3 MacBook Air "travel/out of the house/outside" laptop. Are there drawbacks? Most certainly, but it feels like something special, and I enjoy the slightly smaller form factor. The main drawback is perhaps the most surprising, the screen, which is really good at 500 nits, draws a disproportionate amount of energy compared to the rest of the system, so you get about 3.5 hours in bright sunlight / maximum brightness.
As the only IT person in an 80 person unit, I can say the Neo trounces Dell Latitudes in a lot of ways, those have awful 250 nit screens out of the box, and they are nearly $1,200!
It's a shame most companies don't do weird and interesting variants anymore. I suppose it's hard to do when you need mass market appeal.
Especially in regards to cars, often getting a bargain is about finding the cars with faults you personally don't care about but most people do, or versions not many are interested in.
Unfortunately the way speculators have inflated the used market means the rare (because no-one wanted it) versions are priced on their rarity not their utility.
in my car circles the 968 was seen as a total pos that was really just sort of trying to compete with the RX-7 and Fairlady, do a worse job at being a good sports car than them, and push the brand into further cheapened territory towards the every-person for the sake of financial incentive while inflating the cost of their premium offering, the 911.
1:1 example, but i'm not sure those were the points being made here.
The 968 is such a weird choice for this when the Boxster exists, did basically everything better, was a major commercial success, and has spawned a line of cars that many argue are better than the 911 except for the name and traditionalist-fandom over exact engine position that prevents Porsche from giving them all the biggest engines and fanciest tech.
But the Boxster didn't try to replace the 911 on day one. Or even go after the other 300ZX/Supra/whatever 2+2s on day one. It was instead nearly a whole-cloth "what if pure 2-seater convertible driver's car, but the best possible version" upscale-Miata initially, which wasn't an existing segment at all, and being roadster-first was a key separator from the also-2-seater Corvette.
(The iPhone or iPad were arguable Apple's Boxster "entry-level that ends up dominating sales and growing into full blown new product lines" anyway, except that the comparison eventually falls down because the form factor difference with the Mac is much more of a fundamental separation. So maybe Apple's Boxster is instead the laptop in the first place, which wiped out most of their desktop workstation business by the early-2010s at latest.)
Apple has been doing this for ages. The base tier one always gets the fun colors while the pro models get silver, grey, and maybe some muted blue.
Not sure why they make the cheaper models cooler than the top tier ones. Maybe it's just too expensive to stock multiple colors of every product. The Neo has minimal customization options for specs so making it colorful is cheaper.
I'm definitely getting sick of the dull colours in the higher end laptops. Give me a yellow, give me a red, forest green, whatever, anything but silver and darker silver
No it's correct. When the 968 came out it was the absolutely worst years ever for Porsche: they were nearly completely bankrupt and Porsche ceasing to exist was actually on the table. They were selling as little as 15 000 cars in a full year in 1992 or something like that (compared to nearly 60 K, nearly 4x as much, in 1986). Compared that to nearly 300 000 today and an insane lineup.
Sure, the EU pretty much killed its auto car industry, offering the markets to Tesla and Chinese EVs (and there are talks of chinese buying Porsche), but Porsche has a crazy lineup compared to what it used to have: 911, Cayman, Boxster, Panamera, Taycan (the 100% EV), Macan and Cayenne and soooo many different sub-models of those (GT4, GTS, Turbo (S), Targa, GT3 (RS), GT2 (RS), S/T, S/C ...).
They just even announced a 911 GT3 S/C // convertible (heresy for some but I love it). For any Porsche enthusiast, we're pretty much living the golden age of Porsche where you can still buy a normally aspirated, stick shift, driver's car. In 2026: thank you so much Porsche for being sufficiently crazy to still do that in 2026, in an era where people are paying subscription to receive OTA updates for their EVs.
And any Porsche enthusiast knows that the early 1990s were nearly the death of Porsche. It was a close call.
BTW to anyone saying the modern Porsche aren't "real" Porsche cars, I send them love from my 911 Carrera from 1988. You can both love old and new Porsche cars.
Apple will price bump this machine within 2 years and/or retire it later. At this point all the poor souls who have entered the Apple ecosystem will be due to an upgrade, forced to buy a more expensive entry model.
The first Mac Mini was $500, in 2018 the same Mac started at $800.
Ridiculous. First Mac mini was a 1.25GHz G4 with 256MB RAM in 2005 for $499. There have many models since there, ranging from $499 to $799 for the base model. 2018 was indeed the highest at $799, but that was mainly Intel's fault, and Apple's poor refresh timing. Current M4 mini starts at $599, which is over $1000 in 2005 dollars, so the value has largely increased through the model's entire history, especially once we hit the Apple Silicon era.
Why on earth would anyone think $600 is cheap for what is essentially a used iPhone running a monitor and keyboard? I disagree with the author, this isn't Apple innovating anything, they're just using the marketing tactic of selling something a quarter as good at half the price, and because people are used to Apple products being so overpriced it feels like you're getting a great deal.
If you want a low-powered laptop, just buy one off of ebay for $100 and not create more e-waste.
I bought a Neo to "replace" an M3 MacBook Air "travel/out of the house/outside" laptop. Are there drawbacks? Most certainly, but it feels like something special, and I enjoy the slightly smaller form factor. The main drawback is perhaps the most surprising, the screen, which is really good at 500 nits, draws a disproportionate amount of energy compared to the rest of the system, so you get about 3.5 hours in bright sunlight / maximum brightness.
As the only IT person in an 80 person unit, I can say the Neo trounces Dell Latitudes in a lot of ways, those have awful 250 nit screens out of the box, and they are nearly $1,200!
It's a shame most companies don't do weird and interesting variants anymore. I suppose it's hard to do when you need mass market appeal.
Especially in regards to cars, often getting a bargain is about finding the cars with faults you personally don't care about but most people do, or versions not many are interested in.
Unfortunately the way speculators have inflated the used market means the rare (because no-one wanted it) versions are priced on their rarity not their utility.
in my car circles the 968 was seen as a total pos that was really just sort of trying to compete with the RX-7 and Fairlady, do a worse job at being a good sports car than them, and push the brand into further cheapened territory towards the every-person for the sake of financial incentive while inflating the cost of their premium offering, the 911.
1:1 example, but i'm not sure those were the points being made here.
The 968 is such a weird choice for this when the Boxster exists, did basically everything better, was a major commercial success, and has spawned a line of cars that many argue are better than the 911 except for the name and traditionalist-fandom over exact engine position that prevents Porsche from giving them all the biggest engines and fanciest tech.
But the Boxster didn't try to replace the 911 on day one. Or even go after the other 300ZX/Supra/whatever 2+2s on day one. It was instead nearly a whole-cloth "what if pure 2-seater convertible driver's car, but the best possible version" upscale-Miata initially, which wasn't an existing segment at all, and being roadster-first was a key separator from the also-2-seater Corvette.
(The iPhone or iPad were arguable Apple's Boxster "entry-level that ends up dominating sales and growing into full blown new product lines" anyway, except that the comparison eventually falls down because the form factor difference with the Mac is much more of a fundamental separation. So maybe Apple's Boxster is instead the laptop in the first place, which wiped out most of their desktop workstation business by the early-2010s at latest.)
Apple has been doing this for ages. The base tier one always gets the fun colors while the pro models get silver, grey, and maybe some muted blue.
Not sure why they make the cheaper models cooler than the top tier ones. Maybe it's just too expensive to stock multiple colors of every product. The Neo has minimal customization options for specs so making it colorful is cheaper.
I'm definitely getting sick of the dull colours in the higher end laptops. Give me a yellow, give me a red, forest green, whatever, anything but silver and darker silver
$10 in enamel paints and a free half hour and you can have as cool looking of a laptop as you like!
Resonates. Reminds me of old Thinkpads. Cheap sometimes means accessible, simple, minimal, functional.
Thinkpads were definitely never cheap.
I am so tired of everything electronic only coming in black and maybe gray.
I like colors!
So it's nice to see apple finally bringing a bit of color back.
"Back then, Porsche was not in the fantastic position it is in today. Its model lineup was aging. "
Kinda hard to take this article seriously...
https://newsroom.porsche.com/en/2026/company/porsche-deliver...
No it's correct. When the 968 came out it was the absolutely worst years ever for Porsche: they were nearly completely bankrupt and Porsche ceasing to exist was actually on the table. They were selling as little as 15 000 cars in a full year in 1992 or something like that (compared to nearly 60 K, nearly 4x as much, in 1986). Compared that to nearly 300 000 today and an insane lineup.
Sure, the EU pretty much killed its auto car industry, offering the markets to Tesla and Chinese EVs (and there are talks of chinese buying Porsche), but Porsche has a crazy lineup compared to what it used to have: 911, Cayman, Boxster, Panamera, Taycan (the 100% EV), Macan and Cayenne and soooo many different sub-models of those (GT4, GTS, Turbo (S), Targa, GT3 (RS), GT2 (RS), S/T, S/C ...).
They just even announced a 911 GT3 S/C // convertible (heresy for some but I love it). For any Porsche enthusiast, we're pretty much living the golden age of Porsche where you can still buy a normally aspirated, stick shift, driver's car. In 2026: thank you so much Porsche for being sufficiently crazy to still do that in 2026, in an era where people are paying subscription to receive OTA updates for their EVs.
And any Porsche enthusiast knows that the early 1990s were nearly the death of Porsche. It was a close call.
BTW to anyone saying the modern Porsche aren't "real" Porsche cars, I send them love from my 911 Carrera from 1988. You can both love old and new Porsche cars.
Were they worse off in the 90s than they were in the late 70s? Because I’ve heard that the entry model 924 saved them from the brink in that decade.
Funny that each end of the transaxle lineage were saviors
Apple will price bump this machine within 2 years and/or retire it later. At this point all the poor souls who have entered the Apple ecosystem will be due to an upgrade, forced to buy a more expensive entry model.
The first Mac Mini was $500, in 2018 the same Mac started at $800.
Ridiculous. First Mac mini was a 1.25GHz G4 with 256MB RAM in 2005 for $499. There have many models since there, ranging from $499 to $799 for the base model. 2018 was indeed the highest at $799, but that was mainly Intel's fault, and Apple's poor refresh timing. Current M4 mini starts at $599, which is over $1000 in 2005 dollars, so the value has largely increased through the model's entire history, especially once we hit the Apple Silicon era.
it's 2026, apple's computers do justify their price.
And in 2026 it starts at $599.