Asus CEO: MacBook Neo is a ‘shock’

During a company meeting on March 10, Asus co-CEO SY Hsu said Apple’s low-cost MacBook forced the PC industry to respond quickly.

“In the past, the prices of Apple products have always been high, so the fact that they launched a product with a very affordable price is clearly a shock to the entire industry,” Mr. Hsu said, according to PCMag.

The Asus CEO believes that all personal computer manufacturers, including traditional software and chip partners such as Microsoft, Intel, and AMD, view the threat from the MacBook Neo very seriously. He also revealed that many conversations and discussions on this topic within companies have taken place recently, because rumors about the MacBook Neo have been spreading for at least a year.

Warning about the danger from Neo, Mr. Hsu also made arguments that this model also has limitations for competitors to exploit. 8 GB RAM memory capacity and the inability to upgrade are one of the biggest weaknesses.

Asus representatives also described the MacBook Neo as a “content consumption” device, similar to the iPad. “This is different from the use case of a regular laptop, which can handle tasks that require more computing power,” he said.

However, Mr. Hsu’s argument also created controversy when the latest Neo reviews on international technology sites showed the opposite. PCMag gave the Neo an “excellent” score in the review, noting that the device is fast for basic computing tasks and can also play some light games. Benchmark sites also confirm that the Neo is even more powerful than the MacBook Air using the M1 chip. Running the macOS operating system also makes this model as flexible as a Windows laptop instead of being “closed” like iPadOS. Apple’s latest laptop also received a lot of attention from users when the ordering and delivery time from 2-3 days when on sale has now extended to several weeks.

“We still need more time to see how big an impact the MacBook Neo will have on the PC industry,” Mr. Hsu said, saying that this product may not be widely accepted by Windows PC users due to software differences. Asus representatives affirmed that the entire Windows PC ecosystem will launch products to compete fairly with Apple.

Neo is Apple’s cheapest MacBook model ever, priced from 599 USD in the US and from 16.5 million VND in Vietnam, cheaper than the new iPhone 17e launched at the same time. For buyers who are students or people working in the education industry, the machine price will decrease from 14 million VND. At this level, Neo is capable of competing even with low-cost laptop models running Windows – where Apple often had no “interest” in competing in the past.

In addition to competition from Apple, the PC industry in general is facing a major bottleneck: memory shortage caused by the AI ​​wave. During the annual business report meeting, Asus emphasized that memory prices have increased more than 100% compared to the previous quarter, something other laptop companies also warned such as HP, MSI, and Lenovo.

According to Mr. Hsu, when Asus’s memory supply runs out, forcing the company to buy more, they will reconsider the prices of the products. The memory shortage is expected to last for two years as new memory factories will not be operational until 2027.