Apple MacBook Neo becomes the company’s most repairable laptop in 14 years

Apple recently launched its MacBook Neo laptop, which starts at $499 (Rs 59,900 in India) for students. According to a new analysis by iFixit, the device has emerged as the most repairable laptop released by Apple in more than a decade.

The finding comes after iFixit conducted a teardown of the device and evaluated how easy it is to repair and replace key parts. The laptop scored 6 out of 10 on iFixit’s repairability scale.

iFixit teardown highlights MacBook Neo's repair improvements

In its teardown published Friday - March 13, iFixit said Apple made several design changes that make the MacBook Neo easier to repair than previous models. The analysis found that the company used screws instead of glue or rivets to attach parts such as the battery and keyboard.

The design also makes it easier to replace some internal components. According to the report, parts such as the camera and fingerprint sensor can now be swapped out more easily than in earlier Apple laptops.“Parts pairing problems with OEM parts, though, Apple seems to have solved. Good riddance!,” the analysis said. The Neo’s battery, it says “sits on a tray and comes out with screws. Eighteen of them, to be exact. That’s a lot (and probably for good reason–more on that later), but screws still beat adhesive every time.

You remove them, lift the battery out, and move on.”

Apple MacBook Neo features

The MacBook Neo is powered by the A18 Pro chip, the same processor used in the iPhone 16 Pro. It features a 6-core CPU, a 5-core GPU, and 60 GB/s of memory bandwidth. The laptop runs macOS Tahoe with Apple Intelligence support.The device has a 13-inch Liquid Retina display with a resolution of 2408 × 1506 pixels and brightness up to 500 nits. Unlike the MacBook Air, it uses sRGB colour instead of P3 wide colour.The MacBook Neo shares an aluminium unibody design with Apple’s other laptops and weighs 1.23kg. It is available in Blush, Citrus, Indigo and Silver colour options.The laptop includes two USB-C ports, a 3.5mm headphone jack and support for one external display at up to 4K resolution. It features a mechanical Multi-Touch trackpad, a standard Magic Keyboard and a 1080p FaceTime HD camera. The device offers a dual-speaker system and two microphones.Apple rates the battery for up to 16 hours of video streaming and 11 hours of web browsing. The laptop ships with a 20W adapter.