The MacBook Neo has been getting a lot of attention lately, and honestly it makes sense why. You can pick one up for $600 brand new, or as low as $500 with an education discount. Meanwhile, a refurbished M4 MacBook Air will run you around $760. So with a $160 to $260 price gap between these two computers, is it worth saving up for the Air, or should you just go with the Neo?
That’s exactly what this post is going to cover. I tested both laptops using DaVinci Resolve, Premiere Pro, and Final Cut Pro, so let’s get into it.
Specs Overview
First, let’s talk about what we’re working with. The MacBook Neo I tested is the base model, rocking Apple’s A18 Pro chip, a 256 GB SSD, and 8 GB of RAM. That’s also the maximum RAM it supports, since you can’t upgrade it. Eight gigs is not a lot.
The M4 MacBook Air I’m comparing it to is a slight step up from the base config. It has a small GPU upgrade from 8 cores to 10 cores, 512 GB of storage, and most importantly, 16 GB of RAM. Twice what the Neo offers.
Screen Quality
Screen quality matters a lot for photo and video work, and this is one area where the two laptops actually differ quite a bit. Both the Neo and the Air hit 500 nits of brightness, which looks great. But when I tested them with a Spyder color calibrator, the results were clear: the Neo covers 98% of sRGB and 73% of P3, while the Air covers 100% of both sRGB and P3.
For most video editors working in the sRGB color space, both laptops will look fine. But if you want to do any advanced color work or edit in HDR where you need to see a wider range of colors, the MacBook Air is the better choice.
Ports
Both laptops have two USB-C ports, but they’re not equal. On the MacBook Air, both ports are Thunderbolt. On the Neo, one port is USB 3 and the other is USB 2.0. In practical terms, this means you can copy footage from a memory card using either port on the Air, but on the Neo you’ll want to stick to the rear port for faster transfer speeds.
DaVinci Resolve Performance
I loaded the same project on both laptops in DaVinci Resolve, a mix of 4K, 6K, and RAW footage. The Neo handled playback well overall, but scrubbing through 6K and 8K Open Gate footage showed some lag, about half a second to a full second of delay as the slower processor and SSD tried to keep up.
The M4 MacBook Air, on the other hand, played back and scrubbed through everything smoothly, including Open Gate and RAW clips, with zero slowdown. I’ve been using this laptop for over a year and it still impresses me every time.
Render speeds told an even bigger story. Exporting a 10-minute video with all that footage took the Neo 11 minutes and 31 seconds. The M4 MacBook Air did the same export in 5 minutes and 18 seconds. Roughly half the time.
If you want to learn more about what makes DaVinci Resolve run well on Mac, check out my M4 MacBook Air long-term review for video editing.
Premiere Pro Performance
Premiere Pro is a different story. In my experience, it prefers a faster processor and more RAM, and the Neo’s 8 GB showed its limits here. Scrubbing around the timeline was noticeably rougher than in Resolve.
Rendering that same 10-minute video in Premiere Pro took the Neo 1 hour, 10 minutes, and 8 seconds. That’s not a typo. Dramatically slower than Resolve on the same machine.
The M4 MacBook Air handled the same render in 11 minutes and 18 seconds. Slower than Resolve, yes, but still very reasonable. The extra 8 GB of RAM and faster processor made a big difference, though I’ll be honest, Premiere isn’t quite as smooth as Resolve on either machine.
Final Cut Pro Performance
Final Cut Pro is legendary for running well on pretty much every Mac, and the Neo is no exception. It struggled a little with Open Gate and RAW footage while scrubbing, just like in Resolve, but it was still usable.
The M4 MacBook Air handled Final Cut like a breeze. The only real hangup I noticed was with RED RAW footage, which is a hardware encoder limitation for that specific codec, not really a knock on the laptop overall.
In terms of render times: the Neo finished in 12 minutes and 18 seconds. The MacBook Air came in at 4 minutes and 10 seconds, which was actually faster than both Resolve and Premiere on the same machine. Impressive.
So Which One Should You Buy?
Here’s my honest take: if you are truly on a tight budget and $500 is your limit, the Neo is still a capable machine. It can handle real video editing work and it’s not a bad laptop by any stretch.
But if you can save up an extra couple hundred dollars, the M4 MacBook Air is the better choice for video editing. You get significantly more power, twice the RAM, a better screen, better ports, and much faster render times. The difference in real-world editing performance is substantial, especially in Premiere Pro where the Neo really struggled.
If you’re still figuring out which Mac makes the most sense for your budget and workflow, check out my M5 MacBook buyer’s guide for video editing, which walks through several price points and what you actually get at each one.
And if you want to make better videos regardless of what laptop you’re editing on, grab my free Edit Videos Like a Pro guide. It’s completely free and it covers my biggest rules for creating better edits.