Owning a laptop from Apple is more affordable than ever with the new MacBook Neo, which launches later this month and costs nearly half the price of a MacBook Air.
John Ternus, Apple’s senior vice president of hardware engineering, sat down with ABC News’ Elizabeth Schulze for an exclusive interview after the new product reveal.
“We saw an opportunity here to really just reach a lot more people than we ever have before,” Ternus said. “[The MacBook Neo is] solid, it’s reliable, it’s durable, it’s all the things you want a Mac to be.”
The all-new MacBook Neo will be available March 11. Priced at $499 for college students and teachers, Apple is now closer to competitors like the Google Chromebook or HP laptops, which are more established in schools. The starting non-education price is $599.
Ternus said a key reason why the Neo is less expensive is because it uses an Apple computer chip that previously was only used in iPhones.
While some consumers have wondered what took Apple so long to bring a less expensive product to the market, Ternus said the company “didn’t want to do it until we could do it really, really well and build a Mac that we were proud of.”
“That’s why the bar is high,” he added.
The Neo’s array of bright colors — it’s available in blush, indigo, silver and a new citrus hue — also brings back some nostalgia for the company’s candy-colored computers of the ’90s.
“We built this system new from the ground up, with color in mind,” Ternus said. “It was an opportunity for our design team to do something really expressive with this product.”