Apple has officially introduced the MacBook Neo, a brand-new addition to the Mac family designed to offer a modern experience for under $800 in Canada.
Starting at $799 CAD, the MacBook Neo is now the most affordable way to get into a new Apple laptop, sitting well below the updated M5 MacBook Air (which now starts at $1499 CAD) and it runs macOS. The starting price for Education customers is $679 CAD, which is an aggressive price for a MacBook.
“We’re incredibly excited to introduce MacBook Neo, which delivers the magic of the Mac at a breakthrough price,” said John Ternus, Apple’s senior vice president of Hardware Engineering, in a statement on Wednesday. “Built from the ground up to be more affordable for even more people, MacBook Neo is a laptop only Apple could create. It features a durable aluminum design in four beautiful colors; a brilliant Liquid Retina display; Apple silicon-powered performance; all-day battery life; a high-quality camera, mics, and speakers; a Magic Keyboard and Multi-Touch trackpad; and the intuitive and powerful features of macOS. There is simply no other laptop like it.”
The MacBook Neo features a 13-inch design and comes in four distinct colours: Silver, Blush, Citrus, and Indigo. Pre-orders are live now in Canada, with full availability starting March 11. “MacBook Neo is made with a durable recycled aluminum enclosure that helps it reach 60 percent recycled content by weight, the most ever in any Apple product,” says Apple’s website.
With the lower price, the MacBook Neo is powered by the A18 Pro chip (6‑core CPU, 5‑core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine). This is the same chip found in the iPhone 16 Pro. Battery life is at up to 16 hours on a single charge (MacBook Air gets up to 18 hours) with its 36.5-watt-hour lithium-ion battery, which will be great for students. Apple says the MacBook Neo was designed specifically to handle Apple Intelligence features and has 8GB of RAM and can support one external display.
To keep things secure, Apple uses on-device processing and Private Cloud Compute, ensuring your personal data stays private even when using complex AI models.
The 13-inch Liquid Retina display supports 1 billion colours and hits 500 nits of brightness, ensuring text is crisp and photos are vibrant. The front camera is a 1080p FaceTime HD camera, while speakers are dual side-firing speakers that support Spatial Audio and Dolby Atmos. There’s also a dual-mic array with beamforming technology to make you sound better by isolating your voice and reducing background noise.
As for ports, the Neo includes three ports: one USB 3 (USB-C), one USB 2 (USB-C), and a 3.5 mm headphone jack. The MacBook Neo weights 2.7 pounds, which is the same as the 13-inch M5 MacBook Air. There’s also Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 6 in the Neo.
The base MacBook Neo comes with a standard Lock Key in its 256GB configuration in the Magic Keyboard with Multi-Touch trackpad, but if you want Touch ID you need to upgrade to the 512GB version that costs $999 CAD. The Neo comes with a USB-C cable and 20W power adapter in the box.
Pre-orders for the MacBook Neo are now live in Canada and it will launch next week on March 11. What do you think of the MacBook Neo? Are you getting one?
Check out the promo video below:
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Wednesday 11 March is the expected due date to see product (and all else announced this week) in Apple Stores in Toronto. Assuming the same across Canada.