Mastodawn

The Macbook Neo gaming benchmarks YouTube videos are pure comedy. Watching people celebrate 30 FPS at 720p in Cyberpunk is wild when we have handhelds and even Android phones pushing more efficient numbers. With a non-upgradeable 8 GB RAM ceiling, this isn't a good machine. It is a ticking clock for a landfill.

There are better ways of spending $600+. Like a used Thinkpad T14 Gen 3 or 4 that lets you change your storage, RAM, and even repair other parts of the computer.

The Neo's memory bandwidth caps at 60 GB/s. In case you don't understand just how small that is, even older entry level PC's have caps above 400 GB/s. It is slower than a 2020 Macbook M1.

Hardware sovereignty starts with specs that can actually survive the remainder of the decade.

#DigitalSovereignty #Apple #MacBook #Neo #Linux #FOSS #OpenSource

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Amselbock 1d ago

@terminaltilt the people eyeing the Neo are certainly not the ones who would potentially upgrade their laptops by themselves though, let alone install Linux.

And with used laptops you never know what the battery has been through.
You could replace it, sure but again, that’s not what the target demographic would usually do and it also adds to the cost.

I love old Thinkpads, I think they’re great but they’re certainly not for everyone.

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Terminal Tilt

@amselbock

I get that "regular users" don't want to swap parts, but that's exactly the problem. We have been conditioned to accept e-waste as a trade off for convenience.

The Neo is actually easy to open, but once you are inside, you are hit with a dead end.

Even for a casual user, 8GB of RAM is a bottleneck that shortens the machine's life. 8 GB in a device wasn't acceptable during/before the pandemic, why now? A used T14 with a fresh $70 battery is still cheaper than a Neo, runs circles around it in multitasking, and won't end up in a landfill just because the owner ran out of disk space.

Sovereignty shouldn't be a niche interest, it's just good math.

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Amselbock 1d ago

@terminaltilt I can only find gen 3 t14 that are cheaper than the Neo but those will definitely be slower in everyday tasks regardless of RAM.
The Gen 4 ones are roughly the same price or slightly above here in Germany.

It would be nice if people would think a bit harder about their choice of electronics. But that won’t happen anytime soon.

Also if they did, prices for used Thinkpads would shoot up faster than you can say “e-waste”. So maybe don’t give ‘em any ideas 🤫