A New Executive Laptop?
When Apple launched the new $600 MacBook Neo, the first question on many people’s minds was whether it could Parallels Desktop virtualization. The answer from Parallels is that yes it can, and do so well enough for many use cases. The single core performance of the A18 Pro, once found only in iPhones, is enough to handle Office 359 applications, QuickBooks Desktop and browsing. That covers most of what many people use their laptops for. It won’t be enough for your engineers nor graphic artists, the multi-core performance needed for MATLAB or video editing and they will feel the limited RAM far more as well.
The testing was done by Parallels so we will have to wait for more people to try it on their own before we can confirm that the Neo will outperform a laptop powered by a Core Ultra 5 235U. If it does dual boot easily and is compatible with software commonly used in office environments Apple may sell a lot more of the MacBook Neo that they expected. With all laptop prices soaring thanks the insatiable demand of the LLM market, a usable $600 laptop will be extremely attractive.
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