Comment by dragonwriter
12 hours ago
> Most people run Windows just fine on cheap laptops with 4GB of RAM.
And if they can do that, they can get them (at full MSRP) for about half the price of a MacBook Neo.
Heck, you can get 8GB Windows laptops with twice the SSD size of the MacBook Neo's for a little over half of the Neo’s price (again, at full MSRP.)
> Heck, you can get 8GB Windows laptops with twice the SSD size of the MacBook Neo's for a little over half of the Neo’s price (again, at full MSRP.)
Let's see one of these $300 Windows laptops with 512GB of SSD (in a reasonable format, e.g. not an SD card), a body that isn't disposable, a screen that isn't a dim potato, a CPU that's within 20% of the Neo's performance, and a GPU that isn't embarrassed to be called a GPU.
I doubt they exist.
> I doubt they exist.
I think you're misunderstanding, of course they do not exist. People don't get $300 windows laptops for their performance, build quality, or anything similar. Nor do they care about screen brightness, and 256GB is fine for the use case which is running word or some other simple application for as little $$ as possible.
The implication in the comparison is that they’re similar. The similarity between a Neo and a $300 PC is that they can both boot up and run at least one program. That’s about where it ends.
They existed on AliExpress. Chuwis and the likes (though the latest ones are lying about the CPU model). You usually get nvme storage, not the very best of course but it does the job. And IPS display. It's overall ok stuff, but the memory crisis has pushed them above 300 now.. They usually run N150s.
I also got two N100 NUC like boxes with 16GB DDR4, 512GB NVMe for €115 each. Bought them as the memory crisis was starting. One is now my home assistant, the other one runs matrix.
I still use an ancient chuwi for going to the makerspace. It's still got hours of battery.
It's all ok stuff if you know what you're doing.
I went looking, and did find stuff on Amazon, though none were made of an aluminum chasis, and none had the geekbench score anywhere near, and none had the screen brightness.
As I write this, the top Amazon search for "windows laptop" is a
> Lenovo IdeaPad 15.6 inch Business Laptop with Microsoft 365 • 2026 Edition • Intel Core • Wi-Fi 6 • 1.1TB Storage (1TB OneDrive + 128GB SSD) • Windows 11
The person who approved describing its 128GB storage as 1.1TB should be hanged.
The CPU also has[0] 31% of the single core and 14% of the CPU Mark rating. The screen has 220 nits (vs 500) brightness, comes with 4GB of RAM, and weighs 30% more. At least it's half price, though.
The shopping situation for Windows laptops is utterly dire.
[0]https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/6268vs4227/Apple-A18-Pr...