00:06so in front of me we've got every single macbook that you can get in 2026 with the introduction
00:11of the new macbook neo the biggest question i get which laptop or i guess like which macbook
00:15should you get this will serve as your buyer's guide for the year so we'll start off on the
00:20one that everyone wants to talk about the macbook neo 599 dollars which is absolutely crazy for this
00:27price range there's nothing really else in the market that kind of competes with this like if
00:31you look at what windows has to offer this is like truly nuts and if you combine that with the
00:36student
00:36discount which is 100 off 499 for a mac product which you could never get before we'll start off
00:44with i guess like the pricing so you know for this like cheap when you go to the macbook air
00:49so this
00:49is the new 13 inch in the m5 chip that just launched this starts at 1099 so close to double
00:56the price
00:56this is also the first macbook that you can get in a larger like screen size so you can get
01:01this in
01:01either the 13 or the 15 inch and then when you go to the macbook pro this starts at 1699
01:08that's for the
01:08base m5 macbook pro not even talking about when you spec that up to the m5 pro or m5 max
01:15which this is
01:16that can run you close to like five thousand dollars so it's almost like you're adding an extra zero from
01:21this to this is that worth the value let's start with a neo so the first thing with the neo
01:27that
01:27you'll see is probably like the bright colors that you can get more like funky catering to a younger
01:32crowd maybe like students so this one is i'd say like their flagship the most like interesting one
01:36of the bunch this is in citrus four different colorways you've got this silver blush as well as
01:41indigo this is also the first time on a mac laptop that you can get a color match keyboard it's
01:47the
01:47same magic keyboard as all three very reminiscent of the like white iMac keyboards i will say over
01:53time those do get dirty uh students especially you're like typing out essays like eating flaming
01:58hots eating chips whatever these white keys or these like off white keys will pick up gunk over time
02:04that's just something to think about the trackpad is the first area that you'll probably notice like
02:07the build quality has come down so this isn't the magic trackpad with like the haptics it's called a
02:13multi-touch trackpad and it has a little bit of extra like wiggle room in it definitely noticeably
02:18cheaper than what they have say on the macbook air or the macbook pro but once again compared to like
02:23windows laptops in that same price category which some of them just don't tend to work they're clanky
02:28this one is like still good but you do notice or even hear a bit of a difference as well
02:33so that's
02:34kind of like cost savings number one the second it's still aluminum which is really nice but this is the
02:39first non-unibody macbook so if you actually look there is a small little seam here where the two
02:44pieces of aluminum are put together not like a big deal it still feels super premium once again
02:49compared to most windows laptops at this price those are usually like plastic or some cheaper
02:54polycarbonate but it still feels solid even like you know on the palm rest when you're typing on it
02:58there isn't any weird like creaking or wiggle that you'd usually associate for this price point the
03:02display for this price range once again really good very similar to what you have on the macbook air
03:07same nit brightness up to 500 nits it's just slightly smaller so 13 inches versus 13.6 or
03:14once again if you get like the 15 inch model this only covers the srgb color spectrum instead of like
03:19the wider color gamut on the macbook air and of course macbook pro which are more suited you know
03:23if you are really looking for the most color accurate displays if you're doing any like color work like
03:29photo editing any referencing but for like the most content that you'll use on this watching youtube
03:33checking emails it is once again great it also doesn't get true tone and it doesn't have the
03:38notch and it also doesn't have the same center stage camera found on the other two the next area
03:43which i think are the biggest ones in like cost cutting which you'll notice in daily performance
03:47are the port selection so on the side once again they look similar to what we've got but these are
03:52just usb-c ports so usb 3 for the first one that's the one that you're going to charge with
03:57i'd say
03:58that's the biggest thing for the macbook neo the charging speeds they're not that fast when you look at the
04:03box it's actually the same charger that we had uh for an iphone it's just 20 watts which uh is
04:09this
04:09little guy and then on the other port that's just uh usb 2 so once again slower charging speeds slower
04:15data transfer if you're putting like a lot of stuff onto this um you will definitely notice that of
04:20course you've got the headphone jack and that is actually the speaker grill on the side whereas you
04:25see this side it's just got the other speaker slot as well as um nothing on the other side so
04:30port
04:31selection is limited and obviously the big thing on this just like it uses like an iphone charging
04:36brake it has an iphone chip on the inside this is powered by the a18 pro which powers the iphone
04:4116
04:42pro or 16 pro max and in terms of like its performance this is comparable to like an m1
04:48macbook which is obviously really great if you look at the benchmark scores it's good you can still get
04:54by totally fine doing like regular day-to-day productivity stuff you can even edit like social media clips
04:59like on this say in final cut pro if you want where this slows down is in like heavier creator
05:05tasks if you're doing like a lot of heavy photoshop work if you're doing lightroom obviously gaming if
05:09you're sticking more to like apple arcade games like the basic like platformers those are fine but if
05:14you're pushing this like anything further than that that's where this bogs down and especially the
05:19fact that you can only get this with eight gigs of ram you can't upgrade to 16 you can technically
05:24pay a bit extra for like touch id and 512 gigs of storage but stick to the base option get
05:30an
05:30external ssd that you'd have to get anyways for 499 with the student discount this is an awesome buy
05:37i just worry sometimes with longevity wise with only eight gigs hopefully that will still last you like
05:42three to four five years which is the typical refresh cycle when people swap out their macbooks and
05:49i'd say the second biggest drawback of the neo is the battery on top of the slower charging speed so
05:54this only lasts around 16 hours of video playback and 11 hours if you are browsing the web it's still
06:00like good we'll get you by like in a regular day at school but when you compare it to say
06:06like the
06:06macbook air which we obviously know we love is this worth like close to double the price i'm gonna get
06:13to
06:13that in a second this obviously lasts a bit longer up to 18 hours of video streaming and 15 hours
06:19of like
06:19surfing the net like this is where you never need to worry about charging this by like the end of
06:24the day or you're worried about that like it will easily last you no matter like what you're doing
06:28also you have things like this black keyboard which is nice you've got the good old magic trackpad which
06:34you love which is so so good like this is like industry leading it's the best trackpad that you
06:40can get it's that full unibody it's nice you've got the better port selection you've got a dedicated
06:45like mag safe so for charging charging speeds are faster and then you've just got the use of the other
06:49two you've got one thunderbolt port this has thunderbolt 4 and i did forget to mention that
06:54this keyboard is backlit whereas the macbook neos all of them are just uh yeah not backlit so if
06:59you're using it in the dark you'll notice that your keys that don't light up so are all those things
07:03like worth double the price like if i didn't tell you what this was you'd obviously assume like this
07:08is the latest like m5 macbook air i actually snagged this at a very similar price to this because this
07:14is
07:14actually what i think is the best value this is a refurbished m2 chip macbook air which i think when
07:22it was on sale uh was it like black friday was around like yeah like six six hundred bucks so
07:28very similar pricing to this you've got all the benefits of like the macbook air and this is honestly
07:34like the sleeper one to buy like if i didn't tell you maybe the colorway would have given it off
07:38because
07:38i think for like the m3 and above they no longer sell like this uh gray it's actually space gray
07:44so if
07:44you know like your macbook colors uh you obviously would have seen that this is where i think like
07:48the real value is like this obviously isn't like double the price like i feel from m2 m3 m4 m5
07:55like
07:55they share the same body yes like performance has gotten better but if you are paying for like that
08:01difference for like the macbook air just get like an older one it makes the price like more comparable
08:06and this is also spec with 16 gigs of ram once again you cannot do that for the macbook neo
08:11and that
08:12will just increase the longevity of this device this will easily last like even right now in 2026
08:17this device is like a couple years old it's new like new i just like got it this will last
08:22like
08:23three four years whereas this i don't think it will so that is uh you know that option going on
08:29to the
08:30big boy so this one i'm not going to fool you this is the new like m5 max macbook pro
08:36like when this
08:37is fully spec'd at like over five thousand dollars like canadian like 3500 like usd this is like an
08:44expensive machine the only reason why you're getting a macbook pro is if you are getting paid
08:50by work or if you're getting paid to do projects that will help pay this off like obviously like if
08:56you're working like regular office job these two will suffice like this is really meant for pro users
09:02like are you a creator are you a 3d animator are you an architect are you like a heavy like
09:07web
09:07developer do you get paid the amount of money that this thing can justify that is who the macbook pro
09:13is for and i feel like this is one of the first times i can say that the macbook pro
09:17is only meant
09:17for like quote unquote pro users most people watching this video you'll gravitate towards like these two
09:24if you're buying this you probably are not watching like youtube videos or wondering like hmm do i need
09:29like a macbook pro like if you know you know you need it so if you're still curious like down
09:33the
09:33rabbit hole we'll go through the different specs of like macbook pro so the big changes here are
09:38obviously like the performance for say like the base level so this is still like a 10 core cpu same
09:44as
09:44the macbook air 10 core gpu versus an 8 core gpu on the macbook air still 16 gigs of ram
09:49which you can
09:50obviously like spec higher but once again if you are looking for a macbook pro really look at the m5
09:55pro chip
09:56or the m5 max chip like that's where your biggest performance gains will be and of course the biggest
10:02price bumps will be so if you look at this like i mentioned what you can spec this up to
10:06this comes
10:07with 128 gigs of ram that's almost like the amount of like storage like on the macbook neo which is
10:14hilarious like in the ram count looks like half it's got an 18 core cpu 40 core gpu and it
10:20has an 8
10:21terabyte ssd and this is also the only computer amongst them that you can spec with a nano texture
10:27display that is like the anti-reflective or like the matte display so if that's something really
10:31important to you you can only get that on the macbook pro lineup this costs 7 000 ish plus us
10:39dollars
10:40over 10 000 like canadian you can buy like 10 of these like macbook neos for the same price
10:46as like one computer you are only buying this if time is money say like rendering speeds you're
10:53exporting like files if that requires the fastest available time that is when you are buying machine
11:00like this and you probably aren't even buying it like your company or your workplace is buying it for
11:04you because um they want you to be productive like these are obviously great machines great at what
11:10they do this is like overkill for what i do like here like on youtube i could probably get by
11:15on like
11:15an m5 pro macbook pro like i don't need this fully maxed out one like i'm happy to use it
11:20but the way
11:20to justify a machine like this is if it like pays for itself like you're investing into your work which
11:26i guess like in that way they are worth it in the end obviously for the macbook pro it's a
11:31slightly
11:31larger size so you can get this in either a 14 or a 16 inch you can see the speakers
11:35which are best in
11:36class which are on the side this is the only one that you can get in this nice like dark
11:40color of space
11:41black the ports are also really good so you've got obviously like the magsafe charger the only device
11:46that you can get with thunderbolt 5 so the fastest charging speeds and fastest data transfer you've
11:51also got hdmi 2.1 another thunderbolt 5 and the first time that you can get like an sd card
11:56slot so
11:56great for creators literally in my like day-to-day stuff i just slot you know what we're shooting from
12:01this into here and i can get that in final cut within like 30 seconds to a minute it is
12:06a great like
12:06workflow wise but once again expensive machine only reserved for pro users obviously battery life
12:13great this has the best battery life of the bunch like 24 hours of video playback like 16
12:18inch hours of uh streaming it's got the fastest charging which i mentioned like the 96 watt charger
12:23which you should grab will juice this up quickly it is once again reserved for pro users and i forgot
12:29to mention this is the only device with a pro motion display so in addition to the nano texture
12:35this has 120 hertz refresh rate so it's quick it's snappy but you are paying that hefty apple tax for
12:42that most people are going to be stuck between these two right here the neo which i still think
12:48is great value like don't get me wrong i think these things will sell really well people will see the
12:53price $4.99 with that student discount obviously that's no-brainer but for me the winner is a refurbished
13:00a used if you can get one on a bit of a deal like m2 or m3 macbook air which
13:06can be similarly priced
13:07get it with 16 gigs of ram so the longevity of it is a bit better you've got that great
13:12trackpad
13:12backlit keyboard a bit better of a battery life better port selection but you cannot go wrong with
13:17like these two and once again this guy you're not watching this video if you want to get that so
13:23hope
13:23you enjoyed my buyer's guide for the macbooks this year you kind of know which one to get hopefully this
13:28helped you out and if you use any of these let me know down below like in the comments like
13:31help
13:31people out which device like works for them um and i'll catch you in my next episode peace
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