That means a LOT of students who the MacBook Neo appeals to will cross it off their list for the mere fact that they can’t play things like Counter Strike 2/CS:Go on it.
If I was a student today and only had $700 budget for all my equipment I’d probably end up with a previous generation Lenovo LOQ with the RTX 4050 or a current generation Acer Nitro with the RTX 5050. These laptops are thicker and heavier but they get decent battery life on integrated graphics for school work, then when I get back to my dorm I could play popular gaming titles without buying a separate game console.
I’m sure the Neo will sell well and increase Apple’s market share, but this idea that it’s a market-changing disruptive device is an exaggeration. The #1 laptop manufacturer in the world is Lenovo, who sells nearly 3x as many systems as Apple, who is in 4th place.
I think it will actually be quite trivial for manufacturers like Lenovo to respond and make their own similar model.
I would order a Lenovo laptop off X220 form factor (especially keyboard) and build quality on the spot - hell I’d order two since they don’t have a store in every major metro to get them replaced - but Lenovo have made trash since the early 2010s.
I'm not sure how you missed that the user you were responding to was poking a little bit of fun at you claiming that "over 900 BILLION" people play games on Windows.
That aside, it is also a bit funny that the Hacker News crowd's grand indictment of Mac gaming always uses the same examples of first person shooters that gained ascendancy when they were young. Meanwhile a teenager in 2026 is more likely to be upset that they can't play Fortnite on it - and that's besides the fact that many of the games that today's teenagers are excited to play (from Roblox to the Hollow Knight series to Baldur's Gate 3 to the recently released Slay the Spire 2 and more) are available on macOS. But one wouldn't know that from listening to people whose impression of both gaming and Macs is stuck firmly in ~2015.
The PC gaming market alone is 9x larger than the Mac's install base.
https://www.spyhunter.com/shm/macos-stats/
That means a LOT of students who the MacBook Neo appeals to will cross it off their list for the mere fact that they can’t play things like Counter Strike 2/CS:Go on it.
If I was a student today and only had $700 budget for all my equipment I’d probably end up with a previous generation Lenovo LOQ with the RTX 4050 or a current generation Acer Nitro with the RTX 5050. These laptops are thicker and heavier but they get decent battery life on integrated graphics for school work, then when I get back to my dorm I could play popular gaming titles without buying a separate game console.
I’m sure the Neo will sell well and increase Apple’s market share, but this idea that it’s a market-changing disruptive device is an exaggeration. The #1 laptop manufacturer in the world is Lenovo, who sells nearly 3x as many systems as Apple, who is in 4th place.
I think it will actually be quite trivial for manufacturers like Lenovo to respond and make their own similar model.