[tracker1]

I guess it's hard for me to judge, I never really used Macs during the PowerPC era... I used the prior generation when I was at school sometimes, but not much. Mostly a PC user most of the time until well after the Intel transition.

But even if the performance wasn't great, they did have very good displays, and touchpads with good keyboards and better than most speakers. A lot of laptops didn't come close to that portion of the experience at least at the base pricing, which IMO matters. That physical level of interface is what has had me use Apple more than most other factors.

I'd say there's definitely a lot of competition from Apple... I'd even say the Neo is a surprisingly good option for a lot of people... too many compromises, imo, for anyone doing technical work though. But even a base model M1 Air is also pretty good value.

[horsawlarway]

yeah, not disagreeing about the competition from apple. The Neo is the first machine from them that I really can't rag on at all for the "I browse the web and occasionally edit documents" user.

It's a solid machine at a surprisingly reasonable price from Apple, and too many vendors for Windows just release absolute garbage at that pricing tier.

Will I ever use it? Nope. Not a machine for me. But it's hard not to suggest for a non-technical user on a tight budget.