WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.120 I'm really excited. I finally get to take a look at the MacBook Neo, which I 00:00:03.640 --> 00:00:09.800 have heard is not this time. What? Why? Oh, Riley already look I 00:00:08.800 --> 00:00:15.960 guess I get to take a look at the MacBook Air instead, which is still pretty exciting because it is also 00:00:13.120 --> 00:00:20.480 featuring Apple's new M5 silicon. And we're going to open it up and see if 00:00:17.560 --> 00:00:23.600 it's worth the price increase over the Neo. It's going to be tough to beat, but 00:00:22.560 --> 00:00:28.320 I'm still excited to take a look at this. Right off the bat, classic Apple, 00:00:25.760 --> 00:00:34.520 you get the device right away wrapped in some nice paper here. Let's take it out. 00:00:31.240 --> 00:00:36.960 Woo! These look slick. Look at how thin 00:00:34.520 --> 00:00:40.520 that bad boy is. This is the starlight color, my favorite character on The 00:00:38.640 --> 00:00:46.200 Boys, but maybe not my favorite color on the MacBook Air. That's fine. As for the 00:00:42.880 --> 00:00:49.840 rest of the box, we've got our USB-C to 00:00:46.200 --> 00:00:52.240 the MagSafe charger. Oh, it's like what? 00:00:49.840 --> 00:00:56.120 20 ft probably? It's huge. Oh, 2 m. Okay. I was I was hoping to 00:00:54.600 --> 00:01:00.360 convince everyone out there I'm 20 ft tall. As for the rest, oh, there you go. 00:00:58.160 --> 00:01:05.120 At least we're still getting a power plug here. This is one of their new like 00:01:02.440 --> 00:01:08.680 dynamic chargers that goes between 60 W and 40 W, so it'll go up to the 60 W to 00:01:07.520 --> 00:01:12.640 charge your device, but if it ever detects it's kind of overheating, it'll 00:01:10.560 --> 00:01:16.400 drop down a little bit to 40. That way, ideally, it'll protect the charger 00:01:14.360 --> 00:01:21.360 long-term by not overheating a bunch. And other than that, that is all you get 00:01:18.800 --> 00:01:24.600 in the box. Well, except for us cuz we got a special message from dbrand 00:01:22.720 --> 00:01:27.600 apparently. They're going to make me put a sticker 00:01:25.800 --> 00:01:33.520 on this damn thing. Oh, that's fun. They actually sent over 00:01:29.880 --> 00:01:35.560 their brand new 1984 MacBook skins. This 00:01:33.520 --> 00:01:40.880 one is the classic colorway, which kind of has that old beige plasticky vibe and 00:01:38.360 --> 00:01:43.680 is also a good match for the starlight MacBook. 00:01:42.280 --> 00:01:48.400 I think it'll match on all sides. Yeah, it'll look pretty good. They apparently have over eight different colorways, one 00:01:46.640 --> 00:01:53.120 for pretty much every type of modern MacBook color except sky blue. If you 00:01:50.600 --> 00:01:57.040 own sky blue MacBook, dbrand hates you and you personally. 00:01:55.520 --> 00:02:00.360 This is going to be easy. First step, wipe down your device. Look at that 00:01:58.880 --> 00:02:05.800 baby. These 1984 skins are kind of the answer 00:02:03.000 --> 00:02:10.440 to the question, what if Apple of 1984 made a MacBook of 2026? They're 00:02:08.280 --> 00:02:15.360 available for 27 different MacBook models, new and old, so odds are dbrand 00:02:13.400 --> 00:02:18.560 has one for your MacBook. We're going to go for [music] it. 00:02:16.800 --> 00:02:23.280 dbrand We're We're We're trying here, buddy. 00:02:21.360 --> 00:02:25.720 Perfection. This actually looks kind of sick. I actually kind of like the look 00:02:24.560 --> 00:02:29.960 of it. I mean, I have to. [music] They sponsored the video. >> [laughter] 00:02:28.120 --> 00:02:33.800 >> So, if you want your MacBook to remind you of the good old days, you can head 00:02:31.480 --> 00:02:38.400 on over to shortlinus.com. Might as well go around the exterior of 00:02:35.560 --> 00:02:42.240 the device. On our right side, boom, headphone jack. That's all you get on 00:02:40.240 --> 00:02:43.920 this side here. On the front, nothing cuz it's a laptop. 00:02:43.751 --> 00:02:48.720 >> [laughter] >> And on this side, you get two Thunderbolt 4 ports and of course your 00:02:46.760 --> 00:02:53.400 MagSafe charging clip there. And on the back, there's no rear IO or anything, 00:02:50.760 --> 00:02:57.680 but that's it. Two Thunderbolt 4 ports, baby. Like I mentioned at the very 00:02:55.000 --> 00:03:02.120 beginning, this has Apple's M5 chip in it. Now, it's a slightly cut down 00:02:59.920 --> 00:03:06.400 version from the MacBook Pros that you would see, which makes sense. In this 00:03:03.880 --> 00:03:11.360 case, it's a 10-core CPU with four of them being their new super cores and six 00:03:09.280 --> 00:03:14.520 being efficiency. It has eight cores on the GPU and 16 cores for the NPU. Then 00:03:13.800 --> 00:03:20.160 that's where you're going to see like the biggest difference between the base model Pro MacBook. The GPU has more 00:03:17.880 --> 00:03:23.360 cores on the Pro. And as for the RAM on this device, you can get it in a couple 00:03:21.480 --> 00:03:29.080 of different configurations, but a big one is the memory bandwidth has been 00:03:25.160 --> 00:03:30.920 increased from 120 GB a second to 153. 00:03:29.080 --> 00:03:37.200 What else has been increased is the base storage. There's no 256 GB base storage 00:03:34.160 --> 00:03:38.200 for this anymore. You have to go to 512. 00:03:37.200 --> 00:03:44.520 Which does make the device a little bit more expensive than last year's as the 00:03:42.200 --> 00:03:49.960 starting model, but it is the same price as what the 512 was last time. So, is it 00:03:47.920 --> 00:03:53.440 a price increase? Uh it's kind of hard to say if it is or isn't. Other than 00:03:51.680 --> 00:03:57.120 that, the rest of the exterior stuff is basically the same. It weighs almost the 00:03:55.080 --> 00:04:00.800 exact same. It's basically the same size. We just need to open it up and 00:03:59.160 --> 00:04:04.972 take a look at guess what? The exact same screen. 00:04:02.760 --> 00:04:08.320 It feels so light. >> [laughter] 00:04:06.480 --> 00:04:14.280 >> Like I said, exact same screen. It's the same size, 2560 by 1664, at least on the 00:04:11.200 --> 00:04:15.960 13-in. On the 15-in, it's a little bit 00:04:14.280 --> 00:04:20.519 bigger. Still a 60 Hz screen, you have to go to the Pro line if you want 120 00:04:17.959 --> 00:04:25.278 Hz. And still 500 nits brightness across the board. And still that big freaking 00:04:23.240 --> 00:04:28.720 notch right at the top center there. >> [laughter] >> But that houses the 1080p webcam in 00:04:27.560 --> 00:04:35.240 there, which we'll take a look at in a second here. One of the other internal specs that is different is they upgraded 00:04:32.240 --> 00:04:37.280 from Wi-Fi 6E to Wi-Fi 7 in this device. 00:04:35.240 --> 00:04:39.880 So, if your house has Wi-Fi 7, that's great. You're going to be making the 00:04:38.240 --> 00:04:44.000 most of it. On the spec sheet, there's a lot of things that are just very minorly 00:04:42.440 --> 00:04:47.680 different, but other than that, it's a MacBook Air. I do want to watch some content. I want to listen to the 00:04:46.240 --> 00:04:50.640 speakers. And we are actually going to game on this device, too. What should 00:04:49.440 --> 00:04:55.840 You know what? I pointed out the camera. Let's start with the camera on this. We'll take a photo first. What does it 00:04:53.720 --> 00:04:59.280 count? Oh, it's counting down. ALL RIGHT. >> [laughter] >> I THOUGHT IT TOOK THE PHOTO. I DIDN'T 00:04:57.360 --> 00:05:01.520 REALIZE IT WAS counting down right away. Oh god, that 00:05:00.648 --> 00:05:07.480 >> [laughter] >> Yeah, you can tell I was not ready for that photo, but for a 1080p webcam 00:05:05.240 --> 00:05:11.120 though on a laptop, it is a lot better than a lot of other 1080p webcams I've 00:05:09.440 --> 00:05:15.840 looked at. I mean, even that like Lenovo laptop that I unboxed recently that was 00:05:12.840 --> 00:05:17.240 like What was it? $3,000 or something? I 00:05:15.840 --> 00:05:20.960 would say that that webcam was worse than this. But I also took a video with 00:05:19.160 --> 00:05:24.760 that one. So, let's take a video here. Let's see if it's worse. Hello. This is 00:05:22.880 --> 00:05:29.080 what the the webcam looks like. And this is also what the audio sounds like from 00:05:26.160 --> 00:05:31.840 this webcam. How do How do I sound? Do I sound great? 00:05:30.480 --> 00:05:36.440 I hope so. I don't know yet. That sounds really good. 00:05:34.640 --> 00:05:39.080 Yeah, the microphone on that sounds awesome, actually. It's one of those 00:05:37.880 --> 00:05:43.720 things that sometimes when I go to review the short circuits of like the other laptops, I'm like, "Oh, I wonder 00:05:42.440 --> 00:05:48.840 how this mic sounds." And then I hit play and I'm like, "Ooh, that sounds like garbage." This I feel like you 00:05:47.040 --> 00:05:53.600 could comfortably take a call on. You know, you had a business meeting with this, you're fine. But I do also want to 00:05:52.200 --> 00:05:57.160 test the speakers properly. And by properly, I mean our 00:05:55.520 --> 00:06:02.800 standard test of Crab Rave. So, let's boot up Crab Rave here. Oh man, I Sorry. 00:06:00.520 --> 00:06:07.080 I hate MacBook keyboards. Maybe it Maybe it's just again the fact that I'm not 00:06:04.560 --> 00:06:14.600 used to typing on this, but I am the best person in the world to be typing on 00:06:11.480 --> 00:06:16.080 a MacBook Air. I know a lot of people 00:06:14.600 --> 00:06:23.040 who will scream from the mountaintops that they're the best laptop keyboards ever. I don't prefer these types of 00:06:20.360 --> 00:06:27.760 scissor-style keyboards, but that's always a personal choice. 00:06:25.160 --> 00:06:31.160 What isn't a personal choice is audio. Now, we're going to actually listen to 00:06:28.720 --> 00:06:31.160 audio. 00:06:32.349 --> 00:06:37.880 >> [music] >> Ever since they bought Beats, I swear to 00:06:35.520 --> 00:06:43.920 god every single MacBook device has so much bass in it. Their AirPods, like 00:06:41.080 --> 00:06:47.320 their phones, it's They stole the Beats sound profile. 00:06:45.440 --> 00:06:52.280 There's so much bass in it. It's To be very clear, I am impressed at how good 00:06:49.080 --> 00:06:55.200 the speakers sound in a device this 00:06:52.280 --> 00:06:59.200 thin. It truly is amazing. It's just the sound profile isn't to my liking. And 00:06:57.600 --> 00:07:05.640 maybe you could go in and spend some time configuring it and getting it exactly how you'd want. That's fine. But 00:07:02.960 --> 00:07:09.440 out of the box, it's not my type. But we'll also do a 50% volume comparison. I 00:07:08.080 --> 00:07:14.680 think that's always a fair choice as well. So, we'll go 50% and we'll listen 00:07:11.520 --> 00:07:14.680 to the drop one more time. 00:07:15.560 --> 00:07:21.440 Oh, that's a pleasant 50%. 00:07:18.640 --> 00:07:21.440 I like that. 00:07:22.640 --> 00:07:28.640 Oh, but it's so much The bass is so much more noticeable at 50%. 00:07:27.160 --> 00:07:34.640 It's still very good speakers though. They're very They're They're very good speakers. But as you guys know, audio is 00:07:32.120 --> 00:07:38.505 half of the experience of video. The other half is 00:07:36.800 --> 00:07:44.920 the the video. So, >> [laughter] >> let's look at our RE test footage here. 00:07:42.400 --> 00:07:48.800 It doesn't feel as bright as some other devices I've looked at. I mean, 500 nits 00:07:47.200 --> 00:07:53.560 isn't the brightest thing that we've looked at that they've claimed any devices, whether it's been Lenovo or any 00:07:51.760 --> 00:07:57.360 other company, whatever. But it doesn't I'm not getting that brightness when I'm 00:07:55.360 --> 00:08:01.760 watching this YouTube video right now. I will say the color 00:07:59.560 --> 00:08:04.040 range looks pretty good on this though. That's what I think this device is 00:08:03.040 --> 00:08:10.440 targeting, right? It's going to be targeting people who are going to do like Photoshop and some Premiere 00:08:07.960 --> 00:08:16.080 editing. Oh man, I just had I almost reached up and went to tap the X. Apple, 00:08:14.200 --> 00:08:21.520 please, for the love of god, put a touchscreen on your MacBooks. Maybe I'm 00:08:18.720 --> 00:08:27.240 in the minority here. Make it an option to buy a touchscreen MacBook. I love 00:08:23.880 --> 00:08:28.840 touchscreen laptops. And so, immediately 00:08:27.240 --> 00:08:33.159 for me, I look at these and I'm like, that's almost a deal breaker for me. But 00:08:31.280 --> 00:08:36.360 I know that's a very personal choice as well. Before I fire up a game here and 00:08:35.039 --> 00:08:41.560 do some gaming like I mentioned I was going to do, I'm going to go over some of our other Labs' results when it came 00:08:39.080 --> 00:08:45.880 down to benchmarking the M5 that's in here. We compared it to the last year's 00:08:43.640 --> 00:08:51.000 M4, and we compared it to the also MacBook Pro M5. That way, we kind of had 00:08:48.480 --> 00:08:53.960 a good idea of where this lines up. And when you compare it to the Pro in 00:08:52.600 --> 00:08:57.760 single-threaded or single-core performance, it's almost identical, 00:08:56.240 --> 00:09:01.480 which is what you would expect from basically the same chip. It's the 00:08:59.720 --> 00:09:04.800 multi-threaded experience is where the Pro really outshines. Another thing that 00:09:03.480 --> 00:09:11.760 might be contributing to the performance delta between the MacBook Pro M5 versus 00:09:07.960 --> 00:09:14.480 this M5 is the MacBook Pro M5 has a 00:09:11.760 --> 00:09:17.200 dedicated fan to it, whereas this does not. So, I'm in Cyberpunk right now. 00:09:15.880 --> 00:09:22.400 There's actually a dedicated setting in Cyberpunk for MacBooks that is just called for this Mac. So, we're going to 00:09:20.960 --> 00:09:27.360 do that cuz I think that'll probably give it the best chance at looking good. 00:09:25.480 --> 00:09:32.560 But obviously, you could play around with it as you want. So, let's continue 00:09:29.160 --> 00:09:34.120 our game here. Ho ho baby. 00:09:32.560 --> 00:09:40.160 I don't have my FPS counter on, and I can tell that there's a lot of motion blur on. And I can tell we're not quite 00:09:37.600 --> 00:09:45.520 hitting 60 FPS. We're probably dropping just a little bit below that. And our 1% 00:09:43.160 --> 00:09:49.360 lows are probably even lower. But saying that, it's going to be a hot take. I 00:09:47.120 --> 00:09:52.920 think if you were a console gamer, this is like perfectly acceptable. I 00:09:51.280 --> 00:09:56.160 think if you're expecting like PC level performance out of this, I think you 00:09:54.680 --> 00:09:59.560 could probably be a little bit upset at it. But console gamers are used to 00:09:57.760 --> 00:10:03.960 motion blur. Console gamers are kind of used to the 60 FPS target limit. And I 00:10:02.200 --> 00:10:07.400 think if that's what you had to settle for, this feels like a pretty decent 00:10:05.920 --> 00:10:13.520 gaming experience. Even just walking around really quick, I'm I know I'm obviously not doing anything like crazy. 00:10:11.040 --> 00:10:16.720 Man, this trackpad as is a lot better than the other haptic trackpad I tried. 00:10:15.560 --> 00:10:21.080 What was it? I think it was the Lenovo Robo. This trackpad is 00:10:19.400 --> 00:10:24.720 garbage. This is a much better feeling trackpad. Actually, 00:10:23.040 --> 00:10:28.200 since it has that for this max setting, I'm going to quickly run a benchmark 00:10:26.080 --> 00:10:30.320 really quick and we'll see what we get. And I think one thing that's important 00:10:29.080 --> 00:10:35.760 to point out is this is probably going to be like the hardest you would push this type of device when gaming, right? 00:10:33.960 --> 00:10:41.760 I think a more realistic gaming approach is going to be Balatro, idle games, you 00:10:38.560 --> 00:10:43.440 know, maybe some other light titles. I 00:10:41.760 --> 00:10:48.000 don't really expect the average gamer who's going to be buying this is going 00:10:45.320 --> 00:10:51.880 to be wanting to play Cyberpunk. Saying that, I just unlocked Vsync and it's 00:10:49.600 --> 00:10:54.800 basically still locked at 30 FPS. So I think Vsync is like, "Hey man, you're 00:10:53.680 --> 00:11:02.320 not going to get much higher than this anyway, you might as well stay here." 35? 37? 38? All righty, there we go. Our 00:11:00.760 --> 00:11:05.880 final results. Now, obviously our resolution here is a little bit lower 00:11:03.800 --> 00:11:10.080 than resolution of the display because when you set it for that max setting, it 00:11:07.920 --> 00:11:14.680 does add some dynamic resolution scaling. But our average FPS was 33. 00:11:15.160 --> 00:11:20.880 One of the final benchmarks that our Labs team ran was doing Premiere Pro and 00:11:18.360 --> 00:11:25.120 Photoshop again on the same devices and this fell right where you'd expect. 00:11:22.839 --> 00:11:29.480 Better than last year's M4, but slightly worse than the MacBook Pro M5. So again, 00:11:27.880 --> 00:11:32.640 it's it's right in its target range here. As for our total battery life on 00:11:31.040 --> 00:11:36.680 this device, we saw an improvement over the M4, which again, you would expect, 00:11:35.400 --> 00:11:42.760 but I think what's impressive is the fact that it was using the same battery size, that 53.8 watt-hour battery. It 00:11:41.080 --> 00:11:46.000 goes to show some of maybe the efficiency improvements that they've 00:11:44.200 --> 00:11:49.440 made or [music] maybe battery chemistry, just batteries 00:11:47.760 --> 00:11:54.240 have gotten better over time. Obviously, it falls behind the MacBook Pro M5, but 00:11:51.200 --> 00:11:55.640 that's also got a bigger battery. So I 00:11:54.240 --> 00:11:59.280 think again for being a year-over-year revision from the M3, M4, M5, the fact 00:11:57.920 --> 00:12:03.040 that we're seeing slight improvements over time is great. Cuz then I think if 00:12:01.160 --> 00:12:07.360 you're someone who did buy an M3 or an M4, you don't feel like you're being too 00:12:05.600 --> 00:12:10.800 far left behind if that makes sense. Like, "Oh man, last next year's is so 00:12:09.520 --> 00:12:13.320 much better than the one I bought. I feel like 00:12:13.480 --> 00:12:19.200 I think one of Apple's almost biggest things that they've done to shoot 00:12:16.640 --> 00:12:23.040 themselves in the foot was they made M1 and M2 like too good. So I think that 00:12:21.440 --> 00:12:26.200 anybody who has still has one of those laptops, they're like, "I still don't 00:12:24.600 --> 00:12:30.240 need to upgrade yet." The last thing before I shut it down, you've obviously got your fingerprint scanner if you 00:12:28.640 --> 00:12:35.320 want, but this is the part where I would normally open it up. 00:12:32.560 --> 00:12:39.800 It does have screws. Should we try? Yes. Let's try. 00:12:45.280 --> 00:12:52.120 Ah, there we go. That makes so much more sense. Okay, so the clips that I was 00:12:50.080 --> 00:12:58.640 struggling with were actually not really clips. You can see here 00:12:55.440 --> 00:13:02.600 that these four screws up at the top, 1 00:12:58.640 --> 00:13:04.880 2 3 4, were kind of slotted into here. 00:13:02.600 --> 00:13:09.640 So in order to remove it properly, I had to slide it down to get it removed. But 00:13:08.440 --> 00:13:13.520 other than that, it was actually a pretty easy removal. I just didn't 00:13:12.200 --> 00:13:17.839 necessarily know the right direction to pull it. So do your research, kids. I don't really 00:13:16.480 --> 00:13:23.200 know what I was expecting. This is a LOT MORE BORING >> [laughter] >> THAN I THOUGHT it was going to be. Can I 00:13:20.839 --> 00:13:25.880 like remove anything? No. Well, thanks for watching. I hope you guys enjoyed 00:13:24.520 --> 00:13:29.200 it. You know how sometimes I've opened laptops and I've gone, "Wow, this looks 00:13:27.560 --> 00:13:35.080 freaking awesome." But it's always because it's looked so like complex. 00:13:32.560 --> 00:13:37.520 Dude! I look at this and I'm like, "Wow, this is sleek." [music] 00:13:36.400 --> 00:13:42.120 But it's because you can't see anything. They've done a really good job at just making it look good. You know what I 00:13:40.680 --> 00:13:45.839 mean? Like look at look clean. It's got an Apple aesthetic even on the inside. I 00:13:44.360 --> 00:13:50.320 don't really have anything else to say other than that cuz it doesn't look like I can get much further without actually 00:13:48.920 --> 00:13:54.320 like really starting to peel a bunch of stuff. This is like the Epstein file 00:13:52.160 --> 00:13:57.720 laptop. It's got all the redacted. Just sorry, I I don't know if you should 00:13:55.240 --> 00:14:01.280 include that joke or not, but But you know what though? I think the 00:13:59.360 --> 00:14:04.400 iFixit kit had something kind of nailed, right? A step in the right direction for 00:14:02.800 --> 00:14:09.280 repairability. Maybe it's been a while since I've opened a MacBook, but that 00:14:06.240 --> 00:14:11.120 was four screws and a sliding one 00:14:09.280 --> 00:14:14.520 direction. [music] It was pretty easy to open up. Obviously, going a little bit 00:14:13.120 --> 00:14:19.520 deeper is going to require a little bit more knowledge, a little bit more getting your hands dirty, I should say, 00:14:17.440 --> 00:14:23.040 but it's so much better than what they used to have in terms of opening a 00:14:21.280 --> 00:14:27.520 MacBook. Now, I kind of glossed over the price at the beginning when I said it 00:14:24.640 --> 00:14:30.920 was similar to the last year's also 512 GB of storage. So the starting price for 00:14:29.240 --> 00:14:35.760 this configuration that we have here is $1,100. 00:14:32.800 --> 00:14:38.920 It does go all the way up to $2,700 if you want to add more storage and a 00:14:37.280 --> 00:14:46.600 little bit more CPU performance and stuff. But $1,100 is a lot of money, you know? 00:14:44.360 --> 00:14:50.079 But is it worth that extra money over what you can get with the Neo? I think 00:14:48.160 --> 00:14:53.760 it really does depend. I think if you're just a student who needs access to the 00:14:52.040 --> 00:14:58.800 internet, you should get a Neo. I don't think you should get this device. I think if you're someone who needs a 00:14:56.680 --> 00:15:01.839 little bit more performance than what the Neo offers, 00:15:00.480 --> 00:15:06.640 I think the price increase could be worth it for you. But if you guys enjoyed this video, maybe go check out 00:15:04.800 --> 00:15:10.280 the MacBook Neo or maybe any other Windows laptop. I'm sure the editor will 00:15:08.959 --> 00:15:13.880 put one on screen right now that you can go look at. It's right there. 00:15:12.680 --> 00:15:18.040 Or is it over there? I don't actually know where it ends up. So go take a 00:15:15.760 --> 00:15:18.040 look.