Apple’s MacBook Neo – one of the best laptops around right now – appears to have become a much bigger hit than the company expected – so much so, in fact, that you might end up paying more than before to own one.
According to a new report from technology columnist Tim Culpan (via MacRumors), Apple has doubled its MacBook Neo production plans after demand “heavily outstripped supply”. The company is now reportedly asking suppliers to prepare capacity for up to 10 million units – roughly double its earlier estimate of 5 to 6 million.
That surge in demand might sound great, but it’s apparently creating a cost problem behind the scenes. The MacBook Neo currently starts at $599 in the US for the 256GB model, or $699 for the 512GB version, helping position it as an alternative to Chromebooks and cheaper Windows laptops. But according to the report, Apple’s original pricing relied partly on a clever chip-saving strategy that may no longer be sustainable.
The Neo reportedly uses a downbinned version of the same A18 Pro chip found inside the iPhone 16 Pro, with one GPU core disabled. The first production run is said to have relied heavily on chips with minor defects that couldn’t fully meet Apple’s original performance targets. Rather than scrapping them, Apple simply switched off the faulty GPU core and repurposed the chips for the Neo.
That helped keep costs low. The problem now, though, is that Apple has reportedly burned through most of that stockpile.
To meet the new demand, Apple is said to need a fresh batch of A18 Pro chips from TSMC. Those newer chips would mostly be fully functional top-tier versions, making them more expensive before Apple even factors in expedited manufacturing costs. At the same time, global DRAM prices have reportedly climbed sharply, with booming AI data centre demand squeezing memory supply.
According to the report, Apple is now considering several ways to soften the blow. One option would be introducing new colours to keep excitement around the Neo high, even if prices rise. The laptop currently comes in Citrus, Blush, Indigo, and Silver, but no new shades have been named yet.
The more dramatic possibility is that Apple could simply kill off the entry-level 256GB model altogether. That would effectively raise the starting price from $599 to $699 without technically increasing the price of any existing configuration.
Apple has already done something similar elsewhere in its Mac lineup recently. The company dropped the Mac mini’s 256GB configuration last week, effectively raising its starting price from $599 to $799 in the US, among growing memory shortages and supply constraints.
For now, nothing is confirmed. But with MacBook Neo delivery estimates already sitting at around two to three weeks in many regions – and Apple CEO Tim Cook saying the company “under-called the level of enthusiasm” for the laptop – it certainly sounds like Apple didn’t expect its budget MacBook experiment to take off quite this quickly.
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