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Comment by bdbdbdb | Hacker News Reader

600 is a bargain for a MacBook, but I can't see the public windows users switching en masse. Most people who buy cheap windows laptops do so because 1) they need to replace a broken laptop and want to pay the lowest amount possible 2) they don't want to learn some new thing

600 might seem budget, but it's out of budget for most people. And my guess is PC manufacturers will retaliate against this by cutting prices just a little to drop under that 600 price point for mid range ryzens, with more ram and space.

Any family members I've helped shop for computers only care about how much space it has, how cheap it is, and will it struggle to run things like the last one. As it sits the MacBook is more money for less gigabytes

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The thing about "switching" is you just need to capture the next generation. Kids who have an iPhone 17e. Then go off to college.

Also, there are plenty of users such as myself that won't be "switching" but will instead be augmenting my AMD desktop with a laptop. I've not purchased a new Mac since year 2000-ish but I do play to purchase a Neo.

The last time certain family members asked me for a computer recommendation, I gave them a detailed breakdown of which MacBook they could get to meet their lightweight needs for the next decade. They thanked me, agreed, went to Best Buy, and came back with the laptop that the salesperson convinced them was better "because he knows computers". It was an utter piece of crap and they've had nothing but problems with it.[0]

Had this existed when they were shopping, I would've just asked what color they wanted it in, ordered it for them, and been done with it.

[0] OTOH, that got me out of all future tech support duties. "Hey, why can't I connect our new printer to it?" "I'm not sure. Does that Best Buy expert still work there? He might have some suggestions." (Phrased more politely IRL because I'm not a monster, but the intent was there.)

I told my (now 88) father that if he bought another desktop PC he was on his own.

Tough love works.

He loves his 24" iMac, it just works and I can fix things remotely if necessary (it hasn't been).

This is the way.

My dad the other month, in need of a computer with webcam and ideally portable, bought some $400-500 HP 17" laptop. He was so proud of it, proud of buying a piece of hardware without asking me, and rather than tell him the truth, I nodded and said "yeah this is neat".

The monitor is awful. Like, the horrible way it changes color and brightness depending on exact viewing angle is sickening; I am shocked California hasn't declared it illegal. It feels cheap, keyboard is cheap, who knows what the battery life is.

If the Apple Neo were available then, and he had asked what to buy, I would have instantly told him to get one.

I broke that circle by having a sibling ultimately follow my recommendation of getting a ThinkPad T at a discount (prev-gen during a sale) and then letting them advertise it to the rest of the family.

If you ask me, for a comparable price range, the ThinkPad still is a much better pick than the MacBook Neo: that thing has no IO and not even enough RAM for nowadays light web browsing.

You're comparing a $1254-minimum laptop[0] with a $599-minimum laptop[1] and asserting that the one that's twice as expensive is nicer.

I'd expect it to be. In fact, I'd demand it.

(I'm ignoring the "old model, found cheaply" bit because that's entirely irrelevant. You can find old Macs on sale around, too, but that doesn't mean you can reasonably compare them to the MSRP of a brand new device.)

[0]https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/c/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpadt/

[1]https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/03/say-hello-to-macbook-...

> You're comparing a $1254-minimum laptop[0]

No, I'm not: https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/p/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpadt/th...

And I still stand behind the fact that, for that price, you've got a very competent device that is better specced for light use and friendlier for mom and pop (look, it has a HDMI, you can straight up connect it to the telly! Look, it has USB A ports, so that old camera, hard drive with the family pictures, old weird ergo mouse just works out of the box !).

Again, we’re not comparing a brand new Mac price to an old PC price. Yes, old will be cheaper. Old MacBooks are cheaper than new ones, too.

But for giggles, let’s look at the old PC.

Despite being heavier, wider, taller, thicker, slower, dimmer, lower resolution, hotter, older, and having less battery life, it is, indeed, $20 cheaper.

Put another way, there’s no way on earth I’d pick that over a MacBook Neo to save $20 at the cost of having a worse laptop in almost every way.

That's a valid opinion to hold. I think both machines are Pareto-optimal though. The ThinkPad will likely have a longer useful life because of its heavy build, extra I/O (each port gets less use), and upgradeable parts. The Neo clearly wins on power efficiency, battery life, resolution...

TBH, if I imagined I was the median casual user, I would also take the $20 marginal cost for the Neo. "Worse in almost every way" just depends on how you weight each individual parameter, which for me, is quite atypical.

I don't see why comparing prices between used and new options is unreasonable in this case. If I want a machine to do XYZ (without the stipulation that it be new), then an older model might well be better value. "In $CURRENT_YEAR, how can I get X processing power?"

Of course, old Macs should factor into that too. Also, it's a different story if I do want something brand new.

Here it’s because the old PC they picked is worse in every way than the brand new PC, except for RAM, which the Mac largely mitigates by having ludicrously fast flash hanging off the CPU. Of course an older, worse PC is going to be cheaper than a new Mac. (Except in this case, buying the boat anchor saves you a whopping $20. It’s not even better specs for the same price: it’s worse than the Apple gear that costs the same.)

If we want to compare new vs used, then how much would you have to spend to buy a brand new PC laptop as powerful as last year’s MacBook Pro?

Except you've only tried the expensive apple computers, not the macbook neo.

> that thing has no IO and not even enough RAM for nowadays light web browsing.

You can literally open up every app (50+) on it and simultaneously edit 4k video without issues. It handles all of the pro apps really well. So it objectively can handle light web browsing just fine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-VOt9559Gk

LOL I had the exact same experience. Somehow it was a goddamned HP too (oh how I detest HP everything).

And to think I'd explicitly mentioned to him that Apple would probably be releasing the kind of cheap beautiful laptop he was looking for in a month :(

you might be underestimating how much lifting the apple logo on the lid will do for this laptop. If it advertises the whole apple ecosystem thing well, then those people who already have iPhones, AirPods etc they would be very very compelled to go with this versus an Acer or a Lenovo

> 600 might seem budget, but it's out of budget for most people.

Out of budget for my parents but I'll pay the difference myself. It's just painful to see them use their pile of shit $300 laptop that can barely open a text editor, sounds like a jet engine and has about 45 minutes of battery life.

The only haptic feedback they get if the entire fucking thing creaking as soon as you lightly touch it.

They've been through at least 5 of them since I bought my 2015 mbp, which is still working fine in every aspects

That's an important point - the been through 5 of them. The cost or running a $600 mac is probably similar to running $300 pc laptops that pack up.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory

The funny thing is that it would do the same for double the price.

You need to spend a ridiculous amount of time on research because the producer itself is selling very different product (very different quality) from a year to another.

I wish a "brand" would be consistant but it's not 99% of the time.

And it's even more painful for me to do the remote tech support for my (80+ years old) parents so paying the difference is a kind of preservation of my mental health...

You need to think about the tech support you do for your parents and decide if it would really be less by moving them to another platform, where "there's no start button" and "where did the top of the window go" and "how do I install this obscure app Ive used for twenty years"

Most of the support questions I field from my folks and in-laws are actually phone things these days. 90% of what I have to deal with is "this thing came up on my phone during the week and I clicked on it, am I hacked? No I don't remember what it said"

Good point!

At least the build-in remote desktop on Macs makes it very easy to provide help. I don't know if Windows has something similar build in.

Phones are more of a problem as I can't have a look at their screen remotely.

They will just be confused about everything if you give them a mac.

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