Apple’s budget MacBook Neo is already outrunning the M1 MacBook Air in early tests

Apple’s new MacBook Neo was designed as an entry-level Mac, but early benchmark results suggest that it might be more capable than many expected. The Apple A18 Pro chip-powered laptop has surprisingly managed to beat older-gen MacBook Air and even match certain models in synthetic performance.

MacBook Neo surprises in first benchmarks

The first Geekbench results for the MacBook Neo have appeared online, giving us an early look at how Apple’s new budget-friendly Mac performs. According to the benchmark listing, the laptop scored 3,461 points in single-core and 8,668 points in multi-core tests. It also got a Metal score of 31,286 points in the graphics benchmarks.

It achieves this with the A18 Pro chip that also powered the older iPhone 16 Pros. Though the MacBook Neo version of the chip uses a 6-core CPU configuration but features one fewer GPU core than the iPhone version. Interestingly, these early figures put the Neo’s single-core and multi-core performance ahead of the original M1 MacBook Air, which kicked off Apple’s transition to its proprietary silicon back in 2020. While beating a 6-year-old laptop isn’t groundbreaking news, this is a smartphone chip that is outpacing a laptop-grade processor.

For context, the M1 MacBook Air scored 2,346 in single-core and 8,342 in multi-score, with a 33,148 Metal score. So while the M1 is still ahead in graphics test, there is a big jump in single-core performance in particular. Even compared to the M3 iPad Air, the MacBook Neo manages to outperform in single-core tests. However, the multi-core and Metal scores of the M3 are still ahead.

Keep in mind that these are early benchmark results, and real-world performance can vary depending on workloads, thermals, and software optimization. Still, the numbers suggest the MacBook Neo could deliver surprisingly capable performance for everyday tasks.