TheRetroArcade
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Joined: Feb 2026
Joined: Feb 2026
This obviously isn't a games machine, and was never meant to be one. Running on an iPhone processor it may well look underpowered, but there are a large number of games that will run on it, and for such a cheap machine it does very well.
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Hello and welcome to another great installment of ‘why would you want to game on that?' where I try to play PC games on something that's not really designed for it. This time, it's the MacBook Neo, Apple's low-cost ($599/£599) laptop that runs on the processor from an iPhone 16 Pro. As such, it has six cores, only two of which are ‘performance' cores, as well as a five-core GPU and just 8 GB of RAM.
All of that sounds like we're going to be in for a poor gaming experience here, and if you're expecting 4K and ray-tracing you're out of luck. However, it's possible to get a lot of games to run on this little machine, and surprisingly successfully too. Not only does it run a selection of titles from Steam, but there are games all over Apple's App Store, and it will run iPad and iPhone games too.
On the outside, the MacBook Neo looks like a standard compact laptop: the one I've got here is bright metallic green—called ‘Citrus'—but there's a nice 'Indigo', a pinky ‘Blush', and plain old silver available too. It has a 60 Hz, LED-backlit, IPS screen and a battery that will last all day.
But the thing that's going to attract most people to the Neo is its price. Apple gear has a reputation for being expensive, and this is just... not. It's true that there aren't a lot of upgrades available: you can double the SSD capacity to 512 GB, which also nets you the fingerprint reader that's missing from the base model, but that's your lot. There's no way you're expanding the RAM capacity on this laptop, and as 8 GB is starting to look tight for dedicated VRAM, having that much as a unified pool is going to be a problem once you want to run more than just a web browser.
CPU
Apple A18 Pro
NPU
Apple Neural Engine
Graphics
integrated, five cores
Memory
8 GB
Storage
256 GB SSD (512 GB also available)
Screen size
13-inch
Screen type
LED-backlit IPS
Resolution
2408 x 1506
Refresh rate
60 Hz
Ports
1x USB 3.2 Type-C, 1x USB 2.0 Type-C, 3.5mm audio
Wireless connectivity
Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 6
Dimensions
127 x 297 x 206 mm
Weight
1.23 kg
Price
$599 | £599
✅ You're an Apple fan looking for a cheap laptop: It's never going to compete with dedicated gaming hardware, but if you want something that can play Stardew Valley alongside spreadsheets and presentations, this is a solid budget choice.
❌ You want something that can actually play games: The Neo is too compromised to be a genuine gaming choice, and is better suited to reading excellent PC gaming websites in-between bouts of office work.
Elsewhere, the system's roots in a smartphone make themselves apparent when you look at the ports on the side of the laptop. The iPhone 16 Pro had a single 10 Gbps USB-C port, and that's present here too, joined by a USB 2.0 companion. Both ports can be used for charging, and the USB 3.2 is also a video output, so it's easy to see the Neo spending its life with a charger in the slow port and a USB hub in the faster one. There's no way to tell the ports apart before you've learned which is which, and even after that you'll probably still mix them up, but the OS is clever enough to flash up a warning if you plug a USB 3.2 or Thunderbolt accessory into the wrong port.
The SSD is another obvious bottleneck for the Neo. A 256 GB drive just isn't enough these days, and if you've already got it stuffed with productivity apps and streaming downloads, there's not much room left for games unless you invest in one of the best external SSDs. You're only looking at read speeds of 1,547 MB/s from the drive too, which is P...Read more: Full article on www.pcgamer.com
What do you think about this?
PC Gamer's got your back
Our experienced team dedicates many hours to every review, to really get to the heart of what matters most to you. Find out more about how we evaluate games and hardware.
Hello and welcome to another great installment of ‘why would you want to game on that?' where I try to play PC games on something that's not really designed for it. This time, it's the MacBook Neo, Apple's low-cost ($599/£599) laptop that runs on the processor from an iPhone 16 Pro. As such, it has six cores, only two of which are ‘performance' cores, as well as a five-core GPU and just 8 GB of RAM.
All of that sounds like we're going to be in for a poor gaming experience here, and if you're expecting 4K and ray-tracing you're out of luck. However, it's possible to get a lot of games to run on this little machine, and surprisingly successfully too. Not only does it run a selection of titles from Steam, but there are games all over Apple's App Store, and it will run iPad and iPhone games too.
On the outside, the MacBook Neo looks like a standard compact laptop: the one I've got here is bright metallic green—called ‘Citrus'—but there's a nice 'Indigo', a pinky ‘Blush', and plain old silver available too. It has a 60 Hz, LED-backlit, IPS screen and a battery that will last all day.
But the thing that's going to attract most people to the Neo is its price. Apple gear has a reputation for being expensive, and this is just... not. It's true that there aren't a lot of upgrades available: you can double the SSD capacity to 512 GB, which also nets you the fingerprint reader that's missing from the base model, but that's your lot. There's no way you're expanding the RAM capacity on this laptop, and as 8 GB is starting to look tight for dedicated VRAM, having that much as a unified pool is going to be a problem once you want to run more than just a web browser.
CPU
Apple A18 Pro
NPU
Apple Neural Engine
Graphics
integrated, five cores
Memory
8 GB
Storage
256 GB SSD (512 GB also available)
Screen size
13-inch
Screen type
LED-backlit IPS
Resolution
2408 x 1506
Refresh rate
60 Hz
Ports
1x USB 3.2 Type-C, 1x USB 2.0 Type-C, 3.5mm audio
Wireless connectivity
Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 6
Dimensions
127 x 297 x 206 mm
Weight
1.23 kg
Price
$599 | £599
✅ You're an Apple fan looking for a cheap laptop: It's never going to compete with dedicated gaming hardware, but if you want something that can play Stardew Valley alongside spreadsheets and presentations, this is a solid budget choice.
❌ You want something that can actually play games: The Neo is too compromised to be a genuine gaming choice, and is better suited to reading excellent PC gaming websites in-between bouts of office work.
Elsewhere, the system's roots in a smartphone make themselves apparent when you look at the ports on the side of the laptop. The iPhone 16 Pro had a single 10 Gbps USB-C port, and that's present here too, joined by a USB 2.0 companion. Both ports can be used for charging, and the USB 3.2 is also a video output, so it's easy to see the Neo spending its life with a charger in the slow port and a USB hub in the faster one. There's no way to tell the ports apart before you've learned which is which, and even after that you'll probably still mix them up, but the OS is clever enough to flash up a warning if you plug a USB 3.2 or Thunderbolt accessory into the wrong port.
The SSD is another obvious bottleneck for the Neo. A 256 GB drive just isn't enough these days, and if you've already got it stuffed with productivity apps and streaming downloads, there's not much room left for games unless you invest in one of the best external SSDs. You're only looking at read speeds of 1,547 MB/s from the drive too, which is P...Read more: Full article on www.pcgamer.com
What do you think about this?