Three months with the MacBook Neo made me rethink macOS

Harriet L. Whitmore • August 28, 2026 09:03

Three months using the MacBook Neo has completely shifted my perspective on macOS. It turns out it’s not half bad…

At the start of the year, Apple made waves in computing with a new model: the MacBook Neo. By using an iPhone-class chip to keep costs down, it’s aimed at anyone who doesn’t care about having the trendiest spec sheet and simply wants a good-looking laptop for everyday office-type work. In the middle of a RAM crunch, with the price of just about all tech climbing, it feels like a genuine breath of fresh air.

Romain, our much-loved editor-in-chief, reviewed it at launch and felt the MacBook Neo was an important moment in Apple’s story. After three months with it, I can only agree-though I’ll add a few more caveats than he did. Above all, after 90 days living with the thing, the biggest surprise for me wasn’t the hardware… it was macOS.

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Lifelong Windows user, first and foremost

To set the scene, here’s my background. Around thirty years ago, I got my hands on my first computer: a Compaq Presario running Windows 95. I didn’t realise it at the time, but that childhood obsession would become a real passion-and eventually my job.

Since then, that relic has been replaced many times over, but I stayed loyal to Microsoft’s operating system. It wasn’t until 2015 that I properly used a MacBook for the first time, when I joined a company that swore by Apple hardware. For two years, I had to make it work professionally-and for me it meant frustration and disappointment. Not necessarily because the machine was poor, but because macOS felt like an ergonomic oddity. Nothing was where I expected it to be, and a chunk of my day was spent searching Google to work out how to do things as basic as uninstalling software or typing a “²”.

Fast-forward to 2025. Microsoft announced the end of Windows 10, its updating process has suffered from what I’d call “enshittification”, and I still had that bad macOS memory in my head. So I decided to step back from the American big-tech ecosystem and properly dive into open source by giving Linux a serious go. There I discovered desktop environments that completely changed how I use an OS, workflows that were nothing like what I’d grown up with, and the peculiar joy of spending four hours reading documentation to understand why something that takes two clicks in Windows doesn’t work natively here (don’t worry-an independent developer has been maintaining a lone open-source app for 20 years that restores the missing feature).

It was in that context that I was offered three months with the MacBook Neo, to take another run at macOS.

My view on the MacBook Neo after 3 months

On paper and in practice, the MacBook Neo is unexpectedly capable. I genuinely didn’t think I’d be able to do so much on a laptop powered by an iPhone-class chip-yet here we are. Aside from demanding gaming (the Neo still runs plenty of indie titles perfectly well), I never once had to switch my desktop tower back on during the whole period.

That said, I do have a few gripes-starting with the keyboard having no backlight. I’m a night owl and I often work in the dark; because I’m not especially fluent with Mac key placement, this irritated me far more often than I’d like. The lack of biometrics (available if you pay 100 € more) was also a pain. Having to type a password that frequently on a laptop in 2026 feels vintage-and not in a charming way.

Beyond those points, I never felt boxed in by the hardware. Yes, when my photo-editing software was open with 18 tabs, I noticed a few slow-downs, but that’s hardly shocking for a laptop at this price. macOS is lightweight and Apple clearly knows how to optimise it, which is a real day-to-day advantage.

As is so often the case with Cupertino, the build quality is what really stands out. The chassis feels faultless and, even with slightly chunky screen bezels, not having to put up with a notch is a meaningful bonus compared with the rest of the range. The display itself is very good too; the one genuine criticism I have is the glossy glass panel, which picks up reflections very easily. If you’re working with your back to a large window or outside, you’ll need to turn off dark mode unless you want to spend the day squinting.

Even with that generally positive experience, I do have one reservation about battery life. Roughly 8 hours from 100% to 0% and fairly slow charging isn’t what I’d call impressive. I expected more-especially given that long battery life is one of the big selling points of M-series chips in the MacBook Air.

That’s also, in my view, the Neo’s most direct competition. These days you can find refurbished MacBook Air M4 models for around 900 euros, and the gap in price is genuinely worth it. Better screen, better SoC, better ports, better battery life… simply better for 100 or 200 euros more (depending on the memory configuration). If buying second-hand doesn’t put you off, it’s an easy call.

My (re)discovery of macOS

The first time I tried macOS, I used my MacBook mostly docked, with an external screen, keyboard and mouse. This time I made a point of using the MacBook Neo primarily on the move, with no accessories. That single shift in approach made me realise I simply hadn’t understood macOS at all.

With one hand on the trackpad and your thumb on the CMD key, the whole operating system clicks into place. The way a full-screen app automatically creates a new virtual desktop makes those desktops feel far more natural than on Windows or stock Linux KDE. Very quickly you find yourself using three-finger gestures on the trackpad-swiping left and right to move between apps arranged however you like, or swiping up to open an overview of windows so you can scan everything you’ve got open at a glance. On a laptop, when you’re working on a single display, that simplicity and smoothness really changes the experience.

Since my first stint with it, macOS has also grown up a lot. Back then I felt boxed in by a software ecosystem that often seemed either incomplete or overpriced; this time, I didn’t run into that friction. Nobody asked me to install PeaZip just to unpack an archive, for instance-Finder is finally capable of opening every file type I needed during this period.

It’s not flawless, though. I still find some shortcuts unintuitive, uninstalling an app doesn’t give enough confirmation feedback, and the Liquid Glass design can be hard to read in places (on Tahoe 26.5). Overall, however, once you’ve settled in, the system’s philosophy is seriously effective.

Even after three months of heavy use, there’s one area where I still haven’t found my rhythm: the keyboard. In my articles I regularly use French-style quotation marks, square brackets, and sometimes a superscript number. Every single time, I end up trying every key combination under the sun before landing on the right one. I also still struggle to keep straight which shortcuts use CMD, Option or Control, with or without Shift. Now picture doing that in the dark on a keyboard with no backlight.

Another keyboard-related annoyance: I find the emoji pop-up painfully sluggish, and using it with the mouse could be far less twitchy. It’s far too easy to click between two emoji and simply close the window.

Finally, Apple’s closed ecosystem remains consistently maddening. Not being able to move a file easily over USB from an Android phone is absurd, for example. I know there are workarounds like OpenMTP, but is it really too much to ask for a native feature built into the OS? Thankfully, wireless options such as LocalSend are now plentiful.

It’s also obvious-even in three months-that I’m still missing loads of what third-party utilities can do. I didn’t install Alfred or Raycast, despite power users recommending them, and in the end my usage stayed very work-focused. I normally like tinkering under the bonnet, but I didn’t feel the need here-and that’s what I’ve come to see as macOS’s biggest strength: a ready-to-go setup that’s pleasant to use and doesn’t demand constant fuss.

macOS made me rethink my workflow

After three months on the MacBook Neo, going back to a Windows laptop feels ancient. I can create virtual desktops, sure, but the practical day-to-day experience is light-years away from what macOS delivers.

On Linux, on the other hand, with the right configuration you can get the best of both worlds. Some desktop environments go even further with tiling, making it straightforward to manage windows and virtual desktops from the keyboard, without touching the mouse at all. You have to relearn how to use a computer from scratch, but that’s exactly what makes it so satisfying-you genuinely feel in control again. Still, macOS has major advantages over Linux, starting with a complete official app library. There’s no need to install a third-party app just to use WhatsApp, one of the most widely used messaging services in the world… But we’ll have a chance to talk about Linux properly in a future article on our site.

So, would I recommend macOS-and more specifically, a MacBook? Absolutely. For most people who don’t want to mess around with open-source code just to message their partner, it’s easily the best choice. As for the MacBook Neo, it’s a brilliant idea that strikes the right balance and makes the sky-high price rises of certain computer components feel almost painless. On that point, I’m with Romain: the MacBook Neo will leave its mark on Apple’s history and, hopefully, will become a long-term part of the line-up as the entry-level option. I’m even looking forward to the next generation to see whether this model’s few missteps are quickly fixed-or not.