Earlier this month, Apple introduced the long-anticipated entry-level MacBook, the MacBook Neo. This $599 laptop offers quite a lot for the money, but its weakest point is without question the puny amount of RAM. Some consider 8GB not enough even for daily use, not to mention stuff like virtual machines, but Parallels claims that the Neo can run Windows apps perfectly fine.
Parallels Desktop, one of the most popular apps for virtualization on macOS, now fully supports the new MacBook Neo and the M5-powered MacBook Air. In the announcement post, the company says customers can use Parallels Desktop for running legacy and essential Windows apps on their Macs, particularly the Neo, for "cross-platform flexibility."
As for performance, Parallels says that the Neo delivers better single-core CPU performance when compared to the Dell Pro 14 with the Intel Core Ultra 5 235U processor running Windows 11 natively. However, the Dell Pro 14 outperformed the Neo in multi-core tasks. To be precise, Neo runs Windows apps in Parallels Desktop 20% faster than the Dell Pro 14 natively, while multi-core performance is worse by about 40%. Graphical performance is worse as well, with the Dell Pro 14 outperforming the MacBook Neo by 50%.
This means the MacBook Neo is very fast at handling individual tasks, so common Windows apps will feel quick and responsive. Users can run Windows-based applications, and home or light-office users can access essential business tools, all without switching devices.
The Windows laptop performs better for heavy workloads that rely on multiple processor cores, but for many everyday applications, strong single-core performance often matters more.
As for RAM, the biggest weakness of the MacBook Neo, Parallels does not mention specific numbers. Instead, the company claims that 8 GB is "the minimum practical configuration," which leaves "limited headroom."
Those considering the MacBook Neo should be aware of its hardware limitations, but in case you need to expand the scope of its capabilities and push hardware to the limits, you can still run Windows 11 apps on it. Do not expect this inexpensive laptop to be good at running CAD software, but for casual use of apps that are not available on macOS, the Neo should still get the job done. Just maybe do not run anything else side-by-side.