Separated From My MacBook Pro, I Turned to a MacBook Neo. Here’s How It Did

My 14-inch M1 Pro MacBook Pro is a workhorse. I bought it in 2022 and have never looked back. I spilled water on it a while back, however, and things came to a head when I started having trouble with one of its USB-C ports. So I backed it up and took it to the Genius Bar for repairs.

As luck would have it, my MacBook Pro troubles happened right after I purchased a MacBook Neo, giving me the perfect opportunity to put the entry-level Apple laptop through its paces. Here's what I liked -- and didn't like -- about it during the week my MacBook Pro was away.

How different did the two MacBooks feel?

The MacBook Neo only has ports on the left side of its aluminum body. Aryan Surendranath/CNET

Setting up the MacBook Neo didn't take me long. I already had a Time Machine backup of my MacBook Pro, so the switchover was simple. And because the Neo uses the same MacOS software you see on other Apple computers, I felt right at home. However, there was a noticeable shift in the hardware experience.

I moved from a laptop with a 14.1-inch mini-LED screen to one with a 13-inch LCD screen, making the Neo's smaller size along with brightness and contrast differences instantly noticeable. There was also a downgrade in RAM and the ports I could use. I now had 8GB instead of 16GB of memory, and I no longer had a MagSafe charging port or the extra USB-C, HDMI and SD card slots on the right side of my MacBook.

Thankfully, because I sprung for the 512GB MacBook Neo, I didn't struggle with storage and still had Touch ID -- the 256GB variant of the MacBook Neo misses out on it. But I really wish that Apple had included a backlight on this otherwise flagship-grade keyboard. Nevertheless, after making a few adjustments to my workflow, I continued my week with the Neo.