Earlier this week, Apple launched what is arguably one of the most important products in years — the $599 MacBook Neo. This low-cost MacBook is almost half the price of the cheapest MacBook Air, but it comes with several compromises to hit that price. One of which is the inclusion of the A18 Pro chipset, the same chip that powers the 2024 iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max.
The iPhone 16 Pro was one of the most powerful smartphones at the time of release, but can a mobile chip really compare to the M-series silicon powering other MacBooks? Benchmarking tests would go a long way to helping us figure that out, and it just so happens that the first MacBook Neo benchmarks have appeared on Geekbench.
According to the scores, the Mac17,5 (which is known to be the MacBook Neo), recorded a single-core benchmarking score of 3,461 and a multi-core score of 8,668. For comparison, the iPhone 16 Pro came out with a 3,400 single-core score and 8,341 multi-core score when we did our own post-release benchmarking tests.
Single core |
Multi core |
|
MacBook Neo (leaked) |
3,461 |
8,668 |
iPhone 16 Pro |
3,400 |
8,341 |
MacBook Air M1 |
2,347 |
8,341 |
MacBook Pro M5 |
4,288 |
17,926 |
The similarity in the single-core test makes perfect sense, since this is the same chip after all, but the increase in multi-core performance is interesting. It could be that Apple is pumping more power through the MacBook Neo than you'd find in an iPhone, and that's pushed the score up by a few hundred points.
These benchmarks also prove that the MacBook Neo is a slightly better option than the original M1 chip released way back in 2020. Our MacBook Air M1 benchmarks saw the machine score 2,341 in single-core testing and 8,341 in multi-core. So big gains for solo-core processing, likely thanks to the newer 3nm processes, but less impressive when those cores are working together.
Of course, the A18 Pro can't compete with the gains Apple has made with M-series chips over the years. The MacBook Pro M5 recorded a single-core score of 4,288 and an insane 17,926 in multi-core testing. So while the MacBook Neo is no slouch, there is a major performance dip compared to its contemporaries.
That's not to say the MacBook Neo is a bad purchase. Far from it. As we noted in our MacBook Neo hands-on review, this could set the standard for lower-priced laptops, and could be enough to convince buyers to ditch the alternatives in favor of Apple. Though we will need to do some performance testing of our own, among other in-depth tests, to really put the laptop through its paces.
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