I've used the MacBook Neo as my main computer for the past month, and I'm feeling the limitations of this machine. You see, it has locked up on me because it can't quite keep up with all the tabs that I keep open in my Safari browser. Now, I'm not someone doing 4K video editing. I just have too many tabs. Apple marketed the Neo as this ideal machine for students, but now I'm wondering if it's living up to that promise. You see, students do research and they use Google Docs and the times it chokes up on me is when I'm doing a lot of research and using Google Docs. So let's get into what happened and try to recreate the problem.

The Neo has been a hot seller for Apple right now. The Apple Store shows a two week wait time to get one. It's a low priced laptop that has the look and feel of a premium MacBook, and it comes in all these cute colors. The thing is that it runs on an iPhone 16 Pro chip with 8 gigs of RAM. Yes, that's the catch. It is not much RAM, but it is half the price of a MacBook Air. The Neo's list price is about $600, but it's actually more like $500 with a student discount. And all that said, I wanted to see if this cheaper machine could handle my normal workload.

Last week I was researching old NASA history for video and opening all sorts of various news articles and YouTube links. And then I got an alert that I needed to force quit my programs. I did it, guys. I think I broke the Neo. Safari, sucked up all of the application memory and the beach ball was spinning. It was something I have not seen in ages. And this wasn't the first time the Neo got a little wonky on me. I mean, I noticed the machine slows down if I have too much open in general. And for a few weeks now,

I really noticed it if I was hopping around Google Docs. Mind you, I am using Safari the whole time. But yeah, there were moments that I would see this lag that just never happened on my work issued MacBook Pro, which has an M1 Pro chip and 16 gigs of RAM, and that is starting to make me use my Neo differently. It's making me actually close things. Imagine that But let me take a pause here. Now is a good time to put things in perspective and remind you that the 18 Pro chip in the Neo is a good chip. It is very comparable to the Apple M1 in the MacBook air, and back in 2020, the air only had eight gigs of RAM.

Also, the 18 chip has scored better than the M1 on benchmark tests for single core performance. Now that means it's fast for simple tasks like web browsing or streaming video. And for most of the work I did on the Neo, which is writing and web browsing. Yes, it has been great this whole month. Really. I do love that it's lighter for commuting and it has fantastic battery life and it's just all cute and pink. It could replace my pro that is, until I have those heavy research moments or moments like I did a few days ago, where I'm just keeping everything open as the whole work week progresses and I'm just not closing anything.

You see, I'm not very organized on my computer. I keep things open as I chase down thoughts and ideas. I mean, why close a tab when I can keep it open? Just remind myself later, right? So take this as a warning if you are that kind of user, regardless if you're a student or busy professional, if you love keeping things open, even if it's just tabs, you will feel the slowdown. If you are coming from a more powerful machine, it is the trade off of the Neo. And maybe to help me remember things instead of keeping tabs open, I could do things like use the stickies app.

I didn't realize until this week that stickies were still a thing until someone reminded me. So you could just type in stickies in the spotlight search, and then you too can clutter your RAM with colorful boxes of notes instead of Safari tabs. All right, so now there's just one more question. Can I make it happen again? Can I push this Neo to the limit? Okay. We're starting with the fact that I had 32 tabs open just from coming in here to film. I'm going to have activity monitor on Let's add more tabs. So now I can't find the tab I need. Here's what happens. It's what happens to me. Is normal.

I'm taking this seriously. Play some Zelda music while I'm working. Some YouTube research. 63. Open tabs. Now. I haven't gotten an alert yet. Let's do this. It's hard to recreate my everyday chaos, I just got a text saying today is madness. Oh, if they only knew what I was doing. I think we're hitting the limit. Oh that lag. I have a couple Artemis things Vanessa has a great video. Rick Astley in 4K.

74 tabs and I open up another window. Now. The lag is annoying. This is not as easy as I thought. this Google doc is struggling. I have defeated it again. It has paused every program running, Safari is listed as taking up almost 35 gigs. We got beach balls here. Beach balls? I had 88 tabs open. 88! the good news is that this may be, less of an issue on the next model of MacBook Neo. You see, the Neo is using last year's iPhone chip to be cheaper. But that means that the next Neo that comes out is going to use the current

iPhone chip. That's the A19 Pro. And if that happens, the A19 Pro chip is paired with 12 gigs of RAM. That's right. More RAM means more tabs. I'm Bridget Carey. This is one more thing, and I'll catch you next week with one more thing in the world of Apple. Hopefully not something I'm going to break again.