Summary

Summary first, as always. Compared with a proper high-performance laptop, Miss Neo obviously can't handle heavy workloads.

But she really is the third laptop I need. The first is the all-purpose dev laptop I use for work; the second is the dedicated travel laptop whose environment I can casually delete and reinstall.

She's a tablet disguised as a laptop, with a built-in stand and keyboard — perfect for a user like me, who hates scribbling on touchscreens and absolutely needs a keyboard and trackpad. No fan, no noise, crazy battery life, and she can run in bed without a second thought.

Getting It

Right now, with the national subsidy stacked on top, you can get her for 3,599 yuan. Whether it's JD, Taobao, or Pinduoduo, you can score this price on most platforms. As for stacking education discounts, trade-ins, and the like — I don't really understand them, so I didn't bother.

This pink is nowhere near as refined as I imagined. If you ask me, real refinement has to be Windows laptops — you know what I mean? A beautiful piece of junk! LG gram Style 16

And she's quite heavy, too. Holding her in one hand is a real burden for me.

What can it do?

Browsing Bilibili

This is exactly why I rushed to get the MacBook Neo — I really need a tool that lets me lie on my side in bed and watch videos all the way until I fall asleep. As an iPad simulator with a built-in stand, this laptop truly meets my needs perfectly, and she fills pretty much the niche I expected.

At this price, there's no fan and no vents — the body is a single sealed unit, so you can safely put it on the bed. It even looks like a --rugged computer--. Apart from the MacBook Neo, there really is no second choice.

Writing blog posts

This very post was written on the new laptop. For the time being, I'm using a VS Code environment.

Writing a novel?

I plan to use it to write a novel, so I installed a Node.js environment. For such seemingly light development needs, she's fully up to it. The problem definitely isn't Miss Neo — VS Code just devours memory. Damn it.

Gaming

Looking at the old games in the App Store — have I really gone almost 8 years without touching any of Apple's ecosystems? Probably because about eight years ago, Apple invented the world's stupidest forehead camera and the stupidest Dynamic Island. Thanks to its low-cost advantage, that design knocked out every pop-up front camera on the market. It was the culprit that destroyed my favorite design, and I've always held a big bias against the fruit company.

Even though Miss Neo from the slums uses a phone-grade CPU, she's still a noble 'Mac with Apple silicon', able to enjoy the Apple ecosystem and run iPad apps. I grabbed some random old game and it's still a blast to play.

I don't expect much from her gaming experience either — normal people play games on consoles, after all.

Video editing

I found a sample clip and tried editing it with CapCut. If my use case is just trimming and adding subtitles, Miss Neo can handle it. It's just that the RAM is too small, so importing and exporting are a bit slow.

Flaws

The biggest flaw is, of course, that she's really heavy. I'd defined her as an ultra-light use case, but the weight genuinely isn't light.

The charging speed is super weak — a magical 20W charge.

As for the trackpad, first, as every review has said, this is a deliberately gimped trackpad — no force sensing, and you have to press it mechanically. Personally, I don't use the press action much; I prefer multi-finger taps. But tap detection on this trackpad seems a bit unresponsive.

Another, more personal issue: she's a real ash magnet. Blowing on her or wiping her with a dry cloth won't get it clean — you need a wet wipe.

Apart from that, there are no other flaws. If you also need an iPad without a touchscreen, with a built-in keyboard and stand, then it will be a great fit.