Following years of rumors, Apple has finally officially revealed the MacBook Neo, its new $600 colorful entry-level Mac laptop.

The MacBook Neo features a colorful body that sets it apart from the more low-key MacBook Air and MacBook Pro. However, the most notable difference from the rest of Apple's MacBook lineup is that the MacBook Neo is powered by Apple's A18 Pro iPhone chip (the same CPU featured in its iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max), rather than an M-series processor like its other Macs.

It's also important to note that the laptop only comes with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage as the base configuration. You can bump storage up to 512GB with Touch ID, but you're still stuck with 8GB of RAM. A18 Pro options include a 6 core CPU with 2 performance cores, 4 efficiency cores, and a 5 core GPU.

The new laptop's overall design seems to be a chunkier take on the MacBook Air, though it also reminds me of the mid-to-late-2000s white MacBook, too. In terms of color, the new MacBook comes in Silver, Blush, Cirtrus, and Indigo, but the hues are very muted, similar to the iPhone XR.

The keyboard seems like it's color-matched to the MacBook, though in a very subtle way. Additionally, the keyboard seems a lot like Apple's ill-fated Butterfly keyboard, which suffered from reliability issues and poor key travel. Hopefully, the MacBook Neo's keyboard lasts longer and has better key travel.

The MacBook Neo offers an interesting set of tradeoffs

In the context of Apple's world, the price is pretty good

On the specs side, the 13-inch MacBook Neo features a 2,408 x 1,506 pixel resolution Liquid Retina Display with 500 nits of brightness. Apple says that the laptop's A18 Pro chip allows users "to power through things they do every day, like browsing the web, creating documents, streaming content, editing photos, and taking advantage of AI."

The tech giant also claims that the MacBook Neo can complete everyday tasks "up to 50 percent faster" than the "bestselling PC with the latest shipping Intel Core Ultra 5." Apple obviously intentionally doesn't compare the A18 Pro to Intel's Panther Lake Core Ultra 3 Series. To be fair, the MacBook Neo isn't being positioned as a computing powerhouse — instead, it aims to be an affordable entry-level computer for basic users.

Other notable specs include its 2.5lb weight (the same as the MacBook Air), a 3.5mm headphone jack, two USB-C ports, a 1080p FaceTime HD camera, Wi-Fi 6E, and Bluetooth 6. Apple also claims that the MacBook Neo can last up to 16 hours on a single charge. The laptop doesn't feature a MagSafe charging port like Apple's MacBook Pro and MacBook Air. However, it has a physical trackpad that actually clicks, unlike Apple's other MacBooks that rely on haptics.

In a way, the MacBook Neo feels like a successor to Apple's 12-inch MacBook that was around from 2015-2017. The tiny laptop was designed to be very portable, but it offered middling performance and only featured a single USB-C port at a time when the port was still very uncommon. It didn't serve the same entry-level market the MacBook Neo aims to capture, though. At launch, the 12-inch MacBook cost $1,300, while the MacBook Air was $1,000.

The MacBook Neo starts at $600 and is available to pre-order now. It starts shipping in-store and online on March 11th. Earlier this week, Apple also revealed the M5 Pro and Max MacBook Pro, the M5 MacBook Air, the M4 iPad Air, and the iPhone 17e, and a refreshed Studio Display XDR and Studio Display.