By 2015 MacBook Pro, hello Neo!

[MagicHAM]

After 11years of service, I have finally retired my MacBook Pro and upgraded today to the Mac Neo. This thing is absolutely a beat for what I intend to use it (creative writing, web browsing , some light photo work and my university studies).

Picked up this morning at Apple Chadstone (Melbourne, Victoria - Australia) and surrender my old MacBook for recycling.

I am loving how fast this is, and how easy it is to set up, so far everything I need is on here, (unfortunately will need Office 365) so I will have to add that to my setup.
I got the greenish looking colour. Thinking about getting a hard case or shell for it because it will be in my bag for uni and won't be used for home stuff at all (I have a windows pc for that).

The only thing I am really interested in is the performance and how limited ai will be here, as I do use ai for general use and looking forward to seeing how Apple Intelligence works on the Neo.

I should note, I have tried pairing my iPhone for iPhone mirroring, but because I am running in the iOS Beta 27, I figured may that is the issue . Anyway it's not my main phone at the moment, using my Motorola android phone, as the main phone while I test tout the features.

Not sure how I feel about the new versions of keynote, pages, and numbers with the additional creative cloud package , I have been offered a trial, may take it, just to play with it. AI seems to be integrated in all these.

Screen is nice and easy for my eyes, but I will have to adjust so I can see the text a bit bigger 🙂

So far it's only day one. But it was the purchase as I got the educational discount so, all up I paid $749.00 (roughy) down from $899 original Australian price.

 

[smoothbit]

I plan to buy a MacBook Neo later this year, will be upgrading from a 13" 2015 MacBook Pro too. I'll miss the 16GB RAM and 4TB SSD, but I look forward to using a much faster machine and one that's silent under load. However, I will hold onto my 2015 MBP rather than recycling it, it still works well for running iTunes after all. Did you not want to keep ahold of yours?

 

[ElPaso]

After 11years of service, I have finally retired my MacBook Pro and upgraded today to the Mac Neo. This thing is absolutely a beat for what I intend to use it (creative writing, web browsing , some light photo work and my university studies).

Picked up this morning at Apple Chadstone (Melbourne, Victoria - Australia) and surrender my old MacBook for recycling.

I am loving how fast this is, and how easy it is to set up, so far everything I need is on here, (unfortunately will need Office 365) so I will have to add that to my setup.
I got the greenish looking colour. Thinking about getting a hard case or shell for it because it will be in my bag for uni and won't be used for home stuff at all (I have a windows pc for that).

The only thing I am really interested in is the performance and how limited ai will be here, as I do use ai for general use and looking forward to seeing how Apple Intelligence works on the Neo.

I should note, I have tried pairing my iPhone for iPhone mirroring, but because I am running in the iOS Beta 27, I figured may that is the issue . Anyway it's not my main phone at the moment, using my Motorola android phone, as the main phone while I test tout the features.

Not sure how I feel about the new versions of keynote, pages, and numbers with the additional creative cloud package , I have been offered a trial, may take it, just to play with it. AI seems to be integrated in all these.

Screen is nice and easy for my eyes, but I will have to adjust so I can see the text a bit bigger 🙂

So far it's only day one. But it was the purchase as I got the educational discount so, all up I paid $749.00 (roughy) down from $899 original Australian price.

Congratulations on your purchase! I'm very happy with my Neo, which I have had for 3 weeks, and hope you have the same positive experience. These little MacBooks are monsters!

 

[MagicHAM]

They sure are monsters and thanks for the well wishes, and I loved the fac that it just seemingly worked and that the easy setup was just tops. 🙂 This thing is going to last me for years.

 

[MagicHAM]

Hi smoothit

I figured that it would just be in my room collecting dust, my old MacBook Pro, so I thought recycling it would be a better option and it has been physically abused over the years, lol so naturally I think it was best to get Apple to recycle it - to help the environment and the what not. 🙂

 

[johannnn]

The only thing I am really interested in is the performance and how limited ai will be here, as I do use ai for general use and looking forward to seeing how Apple Intelligence works on the Neo.

Neo won't get the fancy AI features. Because of 8GB RAM. Same reason iPhone 17 base model won't (https://www.macrumors.com/2026/06/10/iphone-17s-8gb-limit-loses-siri-ai-features/)

If you run cloud models it doesn't matter of course. But if you prefer having the latest AI features within macOS, then go for a 16GB system

 

[MagicHAM]

Definetlt use the cloud models , and of course the limitations I already knew about. So it's not really my main thing it's watching videos and lectures , writing and light vm machine work for uni at this stage .

 

[smoothbit]

Hi smoothit

I figured that it would just be in my room collecting dust, my old MacBook Pro, so I thought recycling it would be a better option and it has been physically abused over the years, lol so naturally I think it was best to get Apple to recycle it - to help the environment and the what not. 🙂

Sure, that's definitely better than it collecting dust, and just it was such a nice machine that it seems sad for if to be recycled as scrap. I've passed all my older Macs onto family members over the years, who've then passed them back to me when they need faster machines, and I manage to keep finding uses for them all, even my 2001 iBook 😉

 

[Bazza1]

This thing is absolutely a beat for what I intend to use it (creative writing, web browsing , some light photo work and my university studies).

Sounds like you're very happy with your purchase! Like many I've read here and elsewhere, folks seem very happy with it once they honestly acknowledge what they actually do with their Macs.

...so far everything I need is on here, (unfortunately will need Office 365) so I will have to add that to my setup.

...Not sure how I feel about the new versions of keynote, pages, and numbers with the additional creative cloud package , I have been offered a trial, may take it, just to play with it. AI seems to be integrated in all these.

I'm weaning myself off of all Microsoft products, and I'm afraid Pages et al has never been an option as far as I am concerned. And even less attractive to me is the inclusion of AI.

I'm giving LibreOffice a whirl. Its making in-roads with those going 'off' Microsoft (and the US in general) - including businesses and governments - and its capable of opening / creating in Office's .docx / .xlsx / etc formats as well as non-proprietary Open Documents format - the latter growing in popularity, too. It has add-ons, templates and themes that make it look and feel familiar to Office users.

 

[MagicHAM]

I am only using Office 365 is because its free with my University, so i basically store everything course related in that, and still use onedrive for storing my creative writing and previous university subjects from different courses. And backs up of my photos. I find that Microsoft 365 personal subscription with the 1TB option, a much better option. It allows me to keep some compatibility with my work and studies. However i do use the pages, keynotes and numbers app a lot for other purposes.

Honestly i tried LibreOffice, and i have had many issues with it when converting word documents and vice verra to different format. So I just stick with Office. Word and Pages somewhat play nice.

Don't mind the AI integration, as i make it work for me, and understand it a bit more then I did so a year ago. Apple will have to play catch up for a couple years before they can be considered to be a competitive with AI, but I am sure they will.

Definetly happy with my purchases, I made sure that i knew what my expectations would be. i still have a windows 11 machine with 16 gig of ram that does my gaming setuff 🙂 I just didn't think that laptop was practical to take to uni every day. It's heavy and i already have bone issues.

 

[MagicHAM]

Yeah, i considered that, but you know at the end of the day Recycling was the better option because i don't think it was worth to donate, although i did install opencore, so it could run Mac os Montery, so that was one thing it had going for .

Wait, it wasn't the 2015 model, it was the 2012 model. Sorry i just realized i got the two confused, sorry for the mis information.

It was teddy's fault 😛

 

[jido]

I use Apfel-chat for on-device AI assistance on my Neo.

Nice to hear about your positive experience!

 

[snipr125]

I plan to buy a MacBook Neo later this year, will be upgrading from a 13" 2015 MacBook Pro too. I'll miss the 16GB RAM and 4TB SSD, but I look forward to using a much faster machine and one that's silent under load. However, I will hold onto my 2015 MBP rather than recycling it, it still works well for running iTunes after all. Did you not want to keep ahold of yours?

I upgraded from the same 13" 2015 MBP as yourself to a MBA M5 base model, honestly I think this will be better for you. I did look at the Neo, but it is basically a side grade (same SRGB display, trackpad, SSD speed, charging speed and 8 GB RAM) and in some cases a downgrade (No backlit keys and slower ports). In your case its worse as you have a 16 GB RAM model. The Neo is much faster though of course. Maybe wait until the Neo 2 is released if you really want the Neo?

 

[smoothbit]

I upgraded from the same 13" 2015 MBP as yourself to a MBA M5 base model, honestly I think this will be better for you. I did look at the Neo, but it is basically a side grade (same SRGB display, trackpad, SSD speed and 8 GB RAM) and in some cases a downgrade (No backlit keys and slower ports). In your case its worse as you have a 16 GB RAM model. The Neo is much faster though of course. Maybe wait until the Neo 2 is released if you really want the Neo?

While I'd love to buy an M5 MacBook Air, I simply won't be able to afford one for the foreseeable future, it will actually be a stretch for me to afford even a base Neo with education discount 😅 I have looked at buying a used M2 or M3 Air but those are still more expensive than the Neo. However, I won't be buying it for a while yet, so I do hope that by the time I'm ready it has been upgraded with an A19 Pro and 12GB RAM, that would feel better after using machines with 16GB RAM since 2015 🙂