The iPhone 18 Pro’s killer feature is hiding in plain sight with the MacBook Neo
The iPhone 18 Pro’s killer feature is hiding in plain sight with the MacBook Neo
Publish Date: 2026-03-11 07:05:00
Source Domain: www.tomsguide.com
The idea of running a desktop experience from a phone is nothing new, with Samsung launching DeX back in 2017 and removing the need for a special adapter two years later. More recently, we saw Google jump onto that bandwagon, offering an official desktop mode for Pixel phones. In both cases, all you have to do is plug a monitor into your phone’s USB-C port and let the phone do its thing.
With the recent release of the MacBook Neo, I realized it was about time Apple followed the Android example. Because if Apple can deliver a fully-fledged laptop running on the same hardware as the iPhone 16 Pro, there’s no reason why iPhones (and iPads) couldn’t also offer some kind of DeX-like experience. Especially in time for the launch of this Fall’s iPhone 18 Pro lineup.
MacBook Neo is an excellent machine
(Image credit: Tom’s Guide)
The MacBook Neo seems too good to be true at first glance. Not only is the $599 price tag extremely cheap by Apple standards, it’s also a phenomenally good machine. Suspiciously good, considering a bunch of the compromises Apple had to make to it.
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As we noted in our MacBook Neo review, the new laptop is perfectly capable of handling a typical daily workload. Running Chrome with multiple tabs open, editing photos, streaming music and handling all those things that you absolutely need your laptop to be able to handle.
The Neo’s not so great for heavy processes, like video editing, but it’s a solid laptop experience for a machine that uses the same performance hardware as 2024’s iPhone 16 Pro.
All of that performance comes out of the A18 Pro chipset that debuted in 2024’s iPhone 16 Pro along with 8GB of RAM. Single-core and multi-core benchmarking scores trump those of the Surface Laptop Go 3 and the MacBook Air M1, while also outperforming the iPhone 16 Pro by a few hundred points.
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Geekbench (single/multi-core) |
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MacBook Neo |
