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Comment by alwillis | Hacker News Reader

> This is such a better deal than I had growing up, Apple has to be taking a bath on these.

Apple doesn't sell anything where they're taking a bath; their margins have been high 30's to low 40's for many years. All of the technology in the Neo already existed; they didn't have to create anything new.

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To me the price seems to be so uncharactaristically low for Apple during a time where hardware prices are rising across the board that this almost feels like an attempt to try and capture the desktop market. During a time where Microsoft is fumbling with Windows on every front, having a competitively priced Macbook even for budget-concious people seems like a smart move that will pay off even without direct high margins.

Capture the student market 100%. I’d buy one for my kids tomorrow. These machines are made with an iPhone chip so they’re going to be great at browsing the web and studying. I wouldn’t buy one for myself To do actual work on but for light users it’s the perfect device. Start them early and get them hooked in the ecosystem so they’re grow up and keep buying iPhones, Apple Watches, AirPods, and iPads.

You have to compare with the base iPad, which costs only about half of the Neo. The Neo adds a keyboard (but without Touch ID for the base model), a larger screen but without touch, a somewhat better but also binned SoC (which the next iPad refresh will very likely also get) and more storage. It seems roughly in line, relative to the price difference.

Interestingly it's cheaper than the iPad with the $250 magic keyboard.

It's more expensive if you want Touch ID, and on par ($350 + $250) if you don't. However, the $250 Magic Keyboard is heavily overpriced, the actual keyboard can't be more than $10-20.

USB 2 in a type C form factor is pretty novel.

How so? Buy a newish keyboard it has USB 1.1 in type C form factor.

Apple has been doing that on their base spec iPhones for the last 3 years.

Not at all. All cheap Android phones have USB 2.

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