The marketing is aggressive.
Right? Every "tech revewer" is glazing it like it's the second coming of Christ.
BECAUSE THEY GET PAID TO SAY SHIT
Show me one totally unbiased reviewer who will offer criticism when new stuff comes out.
I don't think there aren't any unfortunately.
Everyone goes for the clicks+views.
There is a good product, but yes, it seems like the media blitz--which includes the so-called reviewers--is making more of the device than is justifiable. It's a tablet alternative or a better version of a low-end Chrome Book. Selling it as a revolution in the computer seems too much. 8gb would provide a limited computing experience and might limit the user even within the Apple ecosystem. Apple sells its products as being a way of easily accessing a computer's power for highly creative work. I would love to see an actual professionals, technical and creative, put it through its paces.
If we were talking about MacOs, I would say you were trading speed (Linux) for memory management (Mac). The Neo seems more like a beefed up phone or tablet, but I would assume it retains the advantages and disadvantages of the computers. Indeed, I haven't see anyone reviewer talk about the speed, nor have I seen them render a video for YouTube. Would that not be a demonstration of the strength of the device to make a video on the device being reviewed?
OTOH, given the way the prices of memory, GPUs, and storage has gotten out of control, I won't dissuade someone who buys one who needs a device right now. As for me, I'm getting some older Macs for free to convert to various Linux distros just for fun.
Yeah, I actually know quiet a few people who have gone previous gen but new or even get some second hand high end gaming machines, personally all my machines were built before the whole AI slop crisis but I've done some upgrades to a HP Elite 7500 which has a i7 3770, put a 750 Watt PSU in that machine and a HD 7850 gfx card, it probably can run most of the games I would like to run.
As for the Neo, the SoC isn't a bottom of the barrel one but it has some corners cut here and there if you need a entry level Mac then it is fine, it should be able to do most daily driver machine stuff, the SoC supports Hardware-accelerated H.264, HEVC, ProRes and ProRes RAW and AV1 decode so it should be capable of youtubing.
en.wikipedia.org
Think that for the price it's not bad, might even give Apple a boost in userbase.
I've bought two Huidun H50 mini PC's they run Mint 22.3, I also bought two refurb Dell 3060 mini's, those run Manjaro XFCE and I've cobbled together some older i5 and i7 machines, the mainboards from older HP machines, they run Win 8.1 and I've been dusting off some old Pentium II, III and 4 machines just to tinker with them, they run Win2K or XP.
Refurbs also seem to get more expensive but far less than new stuff, if needed I actually could run a 3th or 4th generation i5 ot i7 for my daily driver.
As for the Neo, the SoC isn't a bottom of the barrel one but it has some corners cut here and there if you need a entry level Mac then it is fine, it should be able to do most daily driver machine stuff, the SoC supports Hardware-accelerated H.264, HEVC, ProRes and ProRes RAW and AV1 decode so it should be capable of youtubing.
MacBook Neo - Wikipedia
I've bought two Huidun H50 mini PC's they run Mint 22.3, I also bought two refurb Dell 3060 mini's, those run Manjaro XFCE and I've cobbled together some older i5 and i7 machines, the mainboards from older HP machines, they run Win 8.1 and I've been dusting off some old Pentium II, III and 4 machines just to tinker with them, they run Win2K or XP.
Refurbs also seem to get more expensive but far less than new stuff, if needed I actually could run a 3th or 4th generation i5 ot i7 for my daily driver.
10 year old Lenovo --> Mint
Six year old HP Envy 360 --> Nobara
New ThinkPad --> CachyOS and Debian
Six year old HP Envy 360 --> Nobara
New ThinkPad --> CachyOS and Debian
Mate? I've been coaching for Cyber Patriot for six years, and the kids always groan when they see Mate as the DE. On the other hand, XFCE is a great down-to-business DE. My Debian partition runs it as well as Sway.Main lappy is a Lenovo Thinkpad, 11th gen i5 runs Mint 22.3 Mate desktop.
Previous main laptop, 15 year old HP Elitebook 8560W i7 2630QM (1st gen i7) runs Manjaro XFCE
I have older laptops but they're 20+ years old so no modern OS runs on them.
Yup, I use Mate mostly and also XFCE a lot on less powerful machines, I've used all kinds of GUI's over the years, Mate was an accident, I downloaded Mint for a reinstall and just saw the Mate option and tried it, it works so I've not found the need to change it, I do think that with the next reinstall I probably go back to XFCE.
Main lappy is a Lenovo Thinkpad, 11th gen i5 runs Mint 22.3 Mate desktop.
Previous main laptop, 15 year old HP Elitebook 8560W i7 2630QM (1st gen i7) runs Manjaro XFCE
I have older laptops but they're 20+ years old so no modern OS runs on them.
Don't tell my dad - he'd give it a go.
He has a fondness for the Dell D820 (I guess 2006ish) because it's easy to swap the hard drives, has all the ports he wants - and has played with Windows 11 on it
.My main laptop isn't that old (Perhaps 13 years or so), but in it's time has run Win8, 8.1, ten and now mint. I can't remember if I upgraded the memory (8gb), though has had upgrades to Blu, SSD and had to replace the screen at one point
My main laptop is causing me to debate the unthinkable.. having that as my main thing and ditching my desktop but with serious modding... Has anyone used a laptop without the top?, as in yanked the screen off and done away with it? For whatever reason it seems to outperform my desktop with the same programs and games I use there feeling much smoother on the laptop. Why I'm thinking the lopping off is that I just got a new monitor that's bigger than the HP I currently use but has gone a little caca with a black line down the middle of the screen which is very annoying, I couldn't find what was causing that so got a new 27inch Benq
I believe that you can install another DE from the terminal. Indeed, that's how I got Sway alongside XFCE. It's worth at least looking up how difficult it would be: by this method, the installation would probably require a few steps. Booting will take slightly longer--5-10 seconds, long enough to notice, not long enough to think your machine is broken. You will also need to choose what DE to log into at the the login screen. I'm not sure you could get rid of Mate, however.Yup, I use Mate mostly and also XFCE a lot on less powerful machines, I've used all kinds of GUI's over the years, Mate was an accident, I downloaded Mint for a reinstall and just saw the Mate option and tried it, it works so I've not found the need to change it, I do think that with the next reinstall I probably go back to XFCE.
ETA:
Here it is: Install XFCE on Mint
Of course, Timeshift first.
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You should be able to edit the power settings such that when the lid is closed, the laptop continues to run but turns off the monitor. That should allow you to still have it available for a mirroring monitor to provide an interface.
Yeah but I want to go the headless route. I've seen it done with macbooks and a few windows machines so I'm looking more into my particular model to see what I'll have to do if I go down this road.
I've got a D830 and it runs Bodhi Linux, these are from 2006 as well, same as my Optiplex 745, also from that year, both are Core2Duo and both have 4GB RAM, the D830 has run Win XP and 7 I then tried Mint 13 which was lovely, even Linux gets heavier to run over the years, I called it quits when 17.3's support ended, 18.xxx was a tad too much for it, the Optiplex runs Mint 21.xxx which is not that bad but not anywhere quick either, the day of two threads is kinda really over at this point, I'm considering throwing Windows 8.1 on it, I've got a AMD64 X2 machine which is about as fast as the Optiplex and it runs 8.1 pretty well.Don't tell my dad - he'd give it a go.
He has a fondness for the Dell D820 (I guess 2006ish) because it's easy to swap the hard drives, has all the ports he wants - and has played with Windows 11 on it
My main laptop isn't that old (Perhaps 13 years or so), but in it's time has run Win8, 8.1, ten and now mint. I can't remember if I upgraded the memory (8gb), though has had upgrades to Blu, SSD and had to replace the screen at one point
What can I say, he likes to play - though he has recently been trying to get more memory for them both of the 820s he has. (I think he's managed now to get them up to at least 4gb now)
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