Apple’s MacBook Neo is the company’s first serious effort to break into the sub-$1,000 laptop business, challenging midrange Windows laptops and Chromebooks with its $599 starting price and its focus on build quality rather than high-end performance.
One less-advertised change that may make the Neo more appealing to businesses, schools, and the accident-prone is that its internal design is a bit more modular and easier to repair than other modern MacBooks. That’s our takeaway after spending some time thumbing through the official MacBook Neo repair documentation that Apple published on its support site this week.
Replacements for pretty much any component in the Neo are simpler and involve fewer steps and tools than in the M5 MacBook Air. That includes the battery, which in the MacBook Air is attached to the chassis with multiple screws and adhesive strips but which in the Neo comes out relatively easily after you get some shielding and flex cables out of the way.
But the most significant change in the Neo is that the keyboard is its own separate component. For essentially all modern MacBooks, going back at least as far as the late-2000s unibody aluminum MacBook designs, the keyboard has been integrated into the top part of the laptop case and is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to replace independently.
Apple refers to this big, unified component as the “top case,” and anyone who has ever had to pay to repair one out of warranty can attest to how expensive they are. For the old M1 MacBook Air, a top case from Apple’s first-party self-service parts store will run you about $220 after you send the old defective part back to Apple. For the 14-inch MacBook Pro, Apple will only sell you a top case replacement along with a battery, which costs a whopping $440 after you send the old component back to the company.
Part of what made the butterfly keyboard reliability issue so frustrating for owners of late-2010s MacBook models was the cost of top case replacements. Users could take their MacBook into an Apple Store for a keyboard fix and have to replace a part that costs one-third as much as a new laptop. A class-action lawsuit settlement over the keyboards saw payouts of up to $395 go out to owners who had to have their keyboards and top cases replaced multiple times.
Apple hasn’t yet listed MacBook Neo components in its parts store, but based on the repair prices it has announced, Neo components should cost quite a bit less than those for higher-end MacBooks. An out-of-warranty battery replacement for the Neo will cost $149, down from $199 for current Airs and $229 for current MacBook Pros; fixing accidental screen or external enclosure damage will cost AppleCare+ subscribers $49 for a Neo, down from $99 for other MacBooks.
Apple has also gone to some lengths to make recent iPhones more repairable, at least for commonly replaced components like the screen and battery. In laptops like the MacBook Air, where Apple is trying to maximize battery capacity and minimize thickness, we may continue to see weirdly shaped batteries stuck to the chassis with adhesive. But hopefully, we’ll see some of these same small concessions to repairability the next time Apple fully overhauls the designs of its MacBook Airs and Pros.
