The MacBook Neo Is Actually (Somewhat) Repairable

MacBooks used to be largely repairable and upgradeable objects. If too many tabs were slowing down macOS, you can add more RAM; if you are short on storage, you can install a larger hard drive; if the battery was old, you can easily replace it. But as Apple – and the industry as a whole – sought thinner, sleeker designs, laptops in general became more difficult to use. Companies began soldering all the components together on the board, which made it possible to produce thin, lightweight machines, but made them impossible to upgrade and extremely inconvenient to repair.

This hasn’t changed much in the Apple silicon era. Although Apple’s modern MacBooks have some endurance and offer excellent value for money, they are not easy to repair. Far from it, in fact. Take the M5 MacBook Pro: When iFixit reviewed this laptop, they found that Apple requires you to remove all of the MacBook’s components just to replace the battery, at least following Apple’s official instructions.

The MacBook Neo is Apple’s most repairable laptop in years

But there is hope for those of us who want Apple to make their devices more repairable, from a product I didn’t expect Apple to make all that repairable in the first place: the MacBook Neo. Apple’s new budget MacBook has been all the rage over the past week and a half, largely, in part, because of its $599 starting price ($499 with an education discount). While this MSRP makes the Neo a great choice for students, parents, and, really, anyone who wants an affordable Mac, I imagined it would also make it more of a consumable product. Would Apple really put that much effort into making a $500 MacBook last that long?

Turns out that’s kind of what they did. In addition to using more premium parts than other products in this price range (i.e. aluminum or plastic), the MacBook Neo simplifies the repair process and makes it easier to replace key components. Ars Technica dug into the Neo’s documentation and found that repairs for most components have fewer steps and use fewer tools than the M5 MacBook Air. This will be good news for anyone who keeps their MacBook Neo for a few years and is dealing with an aging battery: when the time comes to replace that battery, all you have to do is remove the screws, clips, and flex cables. This may seem a little complicated, but it is far simpler than other MacBooks, which use batteries stuck with adhesive. On these models, you have to pull on some wayward tabs to break that adhesive, after removing even more screws.

YouTube channel TECH RE-NU came to similar conclusions during their “speedrun” teardown. They were able to take the Neo apart in less than 10 minutes, “which is absolutely incredible for an Apple laptop.” They praised the lack of adhesives and tape, as well as the inclusion of modular parts (including modular USB-C ports, speakers, and a headphone jack), while keeping the price low:

Another key point? The keyboard is replaceable on its own. For years, if something went wrong with your MacBook’s keyboard, Apple would force you to replace the entire “Top Case,” or the top half of the bottom of your laptop. This also includes the battery, making it an unnecessarily expensive solution. Now the keyboard and the Top Case are separate repair parts. You’ll have to fiddle with a number of screws to get to the keyboard, but it’s much simpler (and cheaper) than replacing a significant fraction of the MacBook itself.

Now the Neo still isn’t scalable. It’s infamous with only 8GB of RAM, and it will run that 8GB of RAM until the day you part with it. You’re also limited to the storage size you choose at the time of purchase, so if you think you’ll want more than 256GB, you’ll need to opt for the 512GB model (which, conveniently, comes with Touch ID in the keyboard). If you’re running out of space on yours, you’ll need to get an external drive to continue saving files locally.

Why is the MacBook Neo Apple’s most repairable Mac?

So why is the MacBook Neo, Apple’s cheapest MacBook, also the most repairable? Apple doesn’t say, but given that the MacBook Neo is aimed at students, especially younger ones, it would make sense to make these issues easier and less expensive to repair. If parents and schools start buying the MacBook Neo for elementary school students, these items will be prone to drops, spills, and other rough use. Making them beyond repair would quickly become expensive and could dissuade parents and schools from investing more in these devices rather than Chromebooks.

If true, it only represents a net benefit to consumers in general. Anyone who buys a MacBook Neo gets the benefit of a machine that isn’t too expensive to repair when the time comes. And while the A18 Pro may start to show its age sooner than a brand new M5 chip, this policy could extend your time with your MacBook Neo even further.