Summary: Apple raised prices across almost the whole Mac line on June 25, 2026. The general consensus is that this is due to a RAM shortage, and Dell, Lenovo, HP, and Microsoft all did similar things. A lot of the good sub $1,000 deals are gone for now: the MacBook Air M5 that drifted near $949 earlier this year is $1,299 today, and the MacBook Neo went from $599 to $699. It is a rough time to buy a computer,
The MacBook Neo is Apple’s $599 fanless entry Mac, built around the binned 5-core-GPU variant of the A18 Pro. I covered its CPU, thermal behavior, silicon economics, and 8 GB RAM tradeoff in the main MacBook Neo benchmarks article. This post is the GPU companion to that piece, and it exists for a specific reason. Why this post exists This post puts the MacBook Neo’s A18 Pro 5-core GPU against Snapdragon X1 and X2, AMD Radeon iGPUs, Intel Arc, and
Feel free to comment (at the bottom) if you have any questions! Summary: If you came here looking for the best laptop value for Claude Code in 2026, you can’t beat the MacBook Air M5 at $1,199 to $1,255 on Amazon for the 16GB / 512GB model as of July 2026 (the exact price varies with the color selection) it has an extremely fast CPU and all day battery life. Note Apple increased US Mac prices on June 25, 2026,
Published April 25, 2026. Updated May 8, 2026. Summary: don’t overspend, if you are an intermediate to lightly advanced CODEX/ChatGPT user I would start with the MacBook Air M5 for CODEX and ChatGPT, especially at ~$949 on sale See current price. It is silent, the 18-hour battery is real-world good, and Atlas, voice mode, and the desktop app all feel native on it. The $599 Neo surprised me most as an ultra budget option 🙂 If you want the fast
TL;DR: this page is meant to list every Apple Silicon chip from the M1 through the M5 Max, including all the lower-spec binned variants Apple buries in the fine print, with verified specs, practical buying advice, and a dedicated section on which chips can actually run local AI models. Inspired by the popular r/mac comparison table, expanded with official Apple sources, all binned variants, and honest flagging of estimated values. Bookmark it. I will keep it updated. The M5 Max
On Windows, missing the MacBook’s nice two finger scrolling… After returning a MacBook Air 11.6″ to Apple, I was surprised that I only really missed the very nice two finger scrolling. Some of the other Apple multitouch gestures were nice, but it was the really the smooth two finger scrolling on that nice trackpad that was so VERY handy and I missed the convenience! My Dell laptops have multitouch capable touchpads that support two finger scrolling. Unfortunately by default they
[these are some random notes from when I was using a MacBook Air… if I ever use a Mac again I will try to clean up this page!] How to make a window FULLSCREEN? How to prevent a MacBook (Air or Pro or whatever) from sleeping when you close the lid How to take a screenshot (print screen) http://osxdaily.com/2010/05/13/print-screen-mac/ Command+Shift+4 Command+Up (or Left) Arrow Key = Home Command+Down (or Right) Arrow Key = End http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=415600 Switch between Chrome windows http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Chrome/thread?tid=496e18cf3b786729&hl=en